Rate Control Based on Bitrate

Adjusting the Rate Control setting begins with choosing a Mode. Would you like 1 pass or 2 passes? The answer may depend on how much time you have. The 1 pass option works just fine, but if you insist on getting the best possible picture quality, then tell the doctor to make 2 passes through your input file. That ensures that Dr. DivX doesn't miss any opportunity to optimize the picture quality but it also means the whole process will take about twice as long.

After you flip a coin to decide how many passes to make, you need to choose a maximum Bitrate. The higher the bitrate, the better the picture but it also makes for larger file sizes. You have to make the tradeoff. In practical use, video codec bitrates over 1300 kbps look clear even on big screen TVs. You'll certainly find them better looking than your average television broadcast anyway. If you are encoding files for small screens like PDAs or phones with only 320 pixels across, you may want to run the video down to 130 kbps. The result looks pretty decent on 3 inch displays and an hour of video is only slightly more than 100 Meg in size.