cbr is the only set up that will be the same as you set it.

constant bit rate.

vbr is the one that will advrage the needed bit rate according to the song. so 320 , 220, 196 will set the vbr to go no higher then 320 and no lower then 196 and use 220 as the target to shoot for.

that way if the song has more stuff going on that can be heard as different things. or louder volumes it uses up to 320 to make sure there is enough bits to hear the stuff. but if there is silent and or low volume in parts of the song it will drop to as low as 196 bits to take up less room but won't go lower then that even if there is not enough song information to need 196. because that is the lowest you told it to go.

the slider is more or less the cbr and the others is the vbr.

same thing as in quality but cbr fills up to that bit rate wheather or not the song has enough info for the bits.

the quality is the same only the size of the file is different.

unless you use mp3. then never go lower then 196 because anything lower will if the song is a raggae rap song with all them different beats and vocals in it. is messed up if lower.
mp3 cuts too many bits out to make the smaller file.
ogg cuts them out too but not as harsh as mp3 so you can get away with a lower rate in the ogg format.

flac does not cut anything out.

the quality comes from cutting the bits out to make it a smaller file.

Thanks for the reply but I still don't get it (not too smart I guess). As an example, if I select MP3 320 (very high quality) and Encoding quality of Fast Lower quality), what is the quality? Is it being converted to 320? If it is, which I assume it is, isn't that high quality by definition?

i remember that post you mean you did not get any answer?

gee sorry about that but the difference is there for the reason the slider is more or less simple to use. the other option is there incase you want to pick a custom setting for the bit rates.

and are more use to picking the numbers that way..

its got both to accommodate both types of users.

I asked this question about a year ago and never received a response. So, I'm trying again.

I have a question about the auto-convert dialog box options. Within the advanced tab there is a drop-down where you can specify quality/speed trade-off for encoding. How is this different than bitrate selection? Once you pick a certain bitrate that you're converting to (say MP3 CBR 256), what "quality" is being adjusted in the encoding quality/speed drop-down. Isn't quality a proxy for the bitrate?