1. yes, there was a pretty large difference between the second and third pass, and the third and fourth, etc up until the 6th pass which was the last I felt like doing. Actually I think its a good idea to include multiple passes for extra quality, I mean, its arguable that a multipass encoder will do a better job than a 2pass, even if 2pass is good for general use.
2. RV does
not use any kind of preprocessing or filtering. The only thing about the codec that cant be adjusted is the postprocessing, which uses a variable quant based filter, as in, it smooths on low quants and leaves high quants alone.
3. I'd really like to gary but ive no hosting and theyre too big and numerous for geocities to be useful here
![Mad :x](./images/smilies/icon_mad.gif)