Methods and apparatus for video coding are disclosed, particularly for use in relation to video compression. Many commercially available video encoders support constant bit-rate encoding but not constant quality encoding. Aspects of the present invention are concerned with methods and apparatus for video coding, the methods involving the determination of bit-rates at which a constant bit-rate encoder may be operated such that segments of video can be chosen from files encoded at the bit-rates so-determined in order to produce an output bitstream in which the quality is nearly constant. Bit-stream segments may be chosen from a low bit-rate bitstream for easy-to-compress scenes, and from a high bit-rate bitstream for hard-to-compress scenes.