[Libav-user] MPEG-2 video encoding with ffmpeg API: bigger filesize than ffmpeg.exe

[michi_1111 at yahoo.de]

Hi all, 

I am trying to encode a video from raw YUV to MPEG-2 using the ffmpeg API. 
My problem is that the API-generated file is approx. 1.7 times bigger than the 
equivalent files generated by ffmpeg itself.
I use the quantization parameter (via qmin and qmax) instead of the bitrate. 
The API-version is basically:
  //...
  pCodecCtx->pix_fmt = PIX_FMT_YUV420P;
  pCodecCtx->qmin = 3;
  pCodecCtx->qmax = 3;
  pCodecCtx->time_base.num = 1;
  pCodecCtx->time_base.den = 30;
  avcodec_open(pCodecCtx, avcodec_find_encoder(CODEC_ID_MPEG2VIDEO));
  //...
  while(/*...*/) {
    avcodec_encode_video(pCodecCtx, pOutbuf, outbufSize, pPicture);
    //..
  }
  //...

For ffmpeg.exe itself, I use the command: 
  ffmpeg -s 352x288 -r 30 -i foreman_352x288.yuv -f mpeg2video -vcodec 
mpeg2video -r 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p -qmin 3 -qmax 3 foreman.m2v 

Why does the API-generate file achieve a bitrate of 5212 kb/s and the file 
generated by ffmpeg for the same qp a bitrate of 3047 kb/s?? 

(Even more puzzling is that the smaller ffmpeg version has a slightly higher 
PSNR, 40.49 dB vs. 40.02 dB). 

Are there any other relevant parameters that I missed? Does the ffmpeg actually 
respect the quantization parameter?
Thanks for any advice, 
MyKey_
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