any good program to predict video resolution for x264 encoding?

[link626]

Is there a program or method that can help me choose the right video resolution for a specific target bitrate?

I want to encode video at the highest resolution per specified bitrate, with minimal blockyness & compression artifacts, and fit the movie either on 1cd or 2cd size.

This means that my resolution can vary between 640 to 1024 pixels wide, depending on type of movie.

For example, I can encode The Wrestler at 1024px wide, and fit it on 2cd, and it has very very good video quality.
On the other hand, The Quantum of Solace I can only encode at 720-800px wide, and still maintain very good clarity and minimal artifacts on 2cd size.


This whole time, in order to get the best video resolution to bitrate ratio, I've been guessing the video resolution for my target bitrate.
Then I run one pass through mencoder to see what the average bitrate is, and then I adjust my target video resolution up or down depending on the average bitrate mencoder tells me. Then I run the 2nd pass with the new video resolution settings.

This seems tedious, and I'm doing a lot of work manually.

Is there a better way?

[UncasMS]

Dont get me wrong but who wants a 700-1400 MB movie which must come from blu-ray HD format (or otherwise you would be UPSAMPLING in order to achieve more than 720px, which would make the entire process even weirder)?

if you have blu-ray as input material use ripbot264 or bd rebuilder and go for DVD5 or 9 as your target size if you want higher resolution, otherwise stick to 720px.