Adobe Media Encoder CBR Export Problems

[nmitchiner]

I have the latest version of Adobe media encoder installed and have had the same problem for over a year now.  I do a lot of computer screen recordings that do not have a video camera feed and or just presentation based.  No matter what CBR settings I I try in Adobe media encoder, the final export always seems to be variable and significantly lower than the chosen data rate. If I use CBR for a video camera recording, the output is still variable according to media info but the data rate is a lot closer to what I choose in Adobe media encoder.  I feel like I Adobe media encoder is still doing some variable bit rate analysis to screen based only recordings for some reason. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[R Neil Haugen]

I just tried a couple exports direct from PrPro, and used MediaInfo to look at the files ... one was CBR @15, the other VBR target 10 max 15 ... and MediaInfo didn't actually say whether they were VBR or CBR, the info it did give was that the first was at 16.3 Mbps and the VBR at 10.2 "overall".

Trying to figure out how to get a reading of what this is as far as VBR/CBR ...

Neil

[nmitchiner]

Just sent a Twitter inquiry to @AdobeCare about this unanswered thread. Hoping to get the ball rolling again. Thanks so much to everyone thus far.

[kulpreet singh]

Hi nmitchiner,

Let me just research on this and I will reply back to this thread.

Thanks,

Kulpreet Singh

[kulpreet singh]

Hi guys,

Sorry for the delayed response. I have reported this issue to the concerned team and I request you all to submit a bug report here.

-Kulpreet Singh

[nmitchiner]

Hi Kulpreet -

Any updates on this issue since it is still apparent and needs to be fixed ASAP?

Thanks

NM

[mstefl]

Hey NM - Did you ever make progress on this?

[jpelc]

Please include me in a comment if an issue is found. I'm running into the same problem. Why can't selecting CBR create a CBR file... I also have Handbrake available but I can't find an option to produce a CBR file. Both "Constant Quality" and "Average Bitrate" options produce VBR files, just with different degrees of variation in the bit rate

[michaelh65929319]

I can confirm, now in 2019, that I have that very same problem. I have selected a CBR 40 Mbit/s H.264 encoding and ended out with a 30 Mbit/s export.

I have also noticed that the export settings now default to hardware encoding, even though I previously saved my presets with software encoding.

Could these two have been swapped around, so that hardware is software and software is hardware? Because, as far as I am aware, the hardware (QS) encoder can bump down bitrates.

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EDIT:

I did some further testing. Setting my export as H.264 CBR 80 MBit/s with both software and hardware encoding, the software encoding gave 56.3 Mbit/s variable bitrate and the hardware encoding gave 14.8 Mbit/s variable bitrate. So the hardware and software encodings are the correct ones.

The source is a CFR VBR game recording from Bandicam. The framerate is however almost constant, being that the lowest framerate is 0.594 and the highest 60.06. There is a lot of parts that are relatively stationary in the recording.

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Cheers,
Michael

[default56qszft8mwff]

Still no fix for this 3 years later?  My CBR exports are all over the place.

[TheAdamBomb · Accepted solution]

Changing the Encode Settings under performance from "Hardware Encoding" to "Software Encoding" seems to have helped on my side. Cross-referenced that solution from this discussion: https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-media-encoder-discussions/bitrate-settings-ignored/td-p/1045638...