[MPlayer-users] newbie question: bitrate

[Tuukka Toivonen]

On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Yan Seiner wrote:

>What exactly is a bitrate, and how do I go about calculating a bitrate

Pick a bitrate. 1 megabits/s would be a good first guess. Encode
a video using the bitrate, or maybe just beginning of it, and then watch
it. If it is too bad quality for your taste, increase bitrate. Like
multiply with 2 or something. If it is very good quality, you can lower the
bitrate, like halving it.
	Then try encoding the video again with the new bitrate and repeat
the above until the quality is good enough but the bitrate isn't
excessively big.

After some time you'll probably start getting a hunch what is a good
initial guess for bitrate for a given resolution and fps rate.