Just several days after version 0.8.18 was released, I implemented two new features as will be introduced below. If you are interested in them, you can upgrade to 0.8.18.5333 with update package from 0.8.18.5330.
1. Multi-Pass CRF – Using CRF mode in the first pass of multi-pass mode
A check box labeled Multi-Pass CRF was added on the right of Rate Mode option droplist. By enabling it when 2-pass or 3-pass mode is chosen, video encoder (currently only x264) will do the first pass in CRF mode and a bitrate will be determined in result of the quality value specified. In 2nd pass or 3rd pass (if there is one), the encoder will still encode in the normal way but with the target bitrate set as is obtained in the first pass.
This feature is especially useful to users who like multi-pass encoding but still want the bitrate to be determined by the encoder (as if in CRF mode) according to the video content (resolution, frame rate, motion complexicty, image details etc.) to be encoded.