Do MPEG4 AVC software revisions show up in picture quality?

[renegadeviking]

You know how DivX and X264 started from rev 200 to rev3222 over 20 years, right?

Does the bugfixes and features of AVC in software updates show up in picture quality at 20-31 Mbps? Remember any AVC encode got rid of mosquito noise from VC1 on blurays.

I am like snap, a bluray costs $40-$50 at Barnes and Noble in 2025 and its probably in AVC so I am never going to update this movie to 4k if I already own that movie. I look at the Thrift store and they have 'The Hangover" part 1 and part 2 for $6 which are 10 years old, but the rest of the movies are in old MPEG2 DVDs at 480p for $2 and 1 person is browsing and then suddenly leaves because I was in their space. That's the times now.

[LexInHD]

Yes and No. Encoders do improve and offer better quality, but you'd really need to do something like compare a Shout Factory release to a Studio release of the same film, with the same disc capacity and codec use, to get a good idea of what has improved. Even then, you'd have to check both releases, to see what the bitrates are and how close the two encodes come, in the specs.