Encoding WMV :: Variable vs Constant bitrate?
 

What is the best way to do it?

I'm a little unclear, but i'd feel like constant was better for streaming??

My question is which I should use to get ultimately better quality for streaming?

I lost the link that I got this from. Hope it helps clear things up.

"Individually Encoded Single Bit Rate -

This method of encoding and deployment, uses a different speed version of a video for each different bandwidth bit rates.
If you want your video to be optimised for different bit rates, you would normally order 2 to 5 different speed versions of your video clip. On your web page, you would have several links or buttons for your viewers to select from to watch your video based on the speed they're connected to the Net at. For example, you might have one link to your video for 56K modem users, a second for LAN users.
This gives you more control over the quality of videos you produce such as the window size however this is more work fro you. Due to this manual control, on the whole it does deliver slightly higher quality streams than the multi bit rate streams.




Surestream (Real) or Adaptive (Windows Media) multi bit rate -

Using this method of encoding each different speed version of your video is encoded as part of one single, larger multi bit rate video file. The larger video file may contain 3, 5, 7 or as many different speed versions as you'd like.
On your web page, you can then place a single link to the video file. It is then the job of the video server software to determine the connection speed of the user initially and throughout the entire video, and to serve up the appropriate speed version of your video to the viewer. Depending upon the length of the video and the amount of network congestion, the viewer may see a dozen or more changes of the audio and video stream during playback. This means the quality of the video will constantly be changing to accommodate network conditions. The actual size of the window and the quality of the audio is kept constant and as a result sometimes, unnecessarily large.
This method of encoding does mean less work for you but the server software is often over-sensitive to network conditions, and as a result will stream a lower quality version to the user than need be streamed."

if you have limited diskspace stick with one, 500 at least

I hve a few profiles, Its just the higher quality WMV that i'm concerened about. I'm not sure of its quality (trying to stream around 350kb/s) My video comes out blotchy

I'm wondering if variable / constant bit rate is factoring into this.

Have you gotten an answer for this yet?

If not, constant is for video that doesnt have a lot of movement such as looking at the ocean or a sunset.

The movement is what is key. Why? The more movement the more data that is changing. So, if you have a car race as an example and things flying past the camera then variable is best. It tries to account for the quick movement.

Also there is 1-pass or 2-pass. They both do the same thing. 2 just optimizes the video even further.

Hope this helps and isnt to late.