[FFmpeg-user] How to avoid blurred text when using drawtext filter?

[Lou]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:57:01 -0700 (PDT)
pgoldweic <pgoldweic at northwestern.edu> wrote:

> How should I figure out the appropriate bit rate that works with a
> particular movie size?

That's up to you to decide. Choose the highest crf value that still
gives you an acceptable quality. A higher value means lower quality.
Once you figure out a good number you can generally use this for your
other videos.

You don't necessarily need to encode the whole thing if it is a long
duration. You can choose a few random sections to get a general idea of
what the output may look like. This example skips the first 5 minutes
and 23 seconds and creates an output duration of 120 seconds (either of
these options can use hh:mm:ss.ms or just seconds):

ffmpeg -ss 00:05:23.00 -i input -t 120 ...

> I will also need to be able to resize the movie to 1280x720 (and
> 480x360), so it would be good to know what's the criteria I should
> use.

See the scale filter:
http://ffmpeg.org/libavfilter.html#SEC39

> In addition, will the particular font chosen affect the choice of bit
> rate?

If the typeface looks bad decrease the crf value.

> Thanks in advance for any further tips.

Other suggestions:
* Add "-threads 0" to your command to decrease encoding time.

* By default the encoder is using "-preset medium". Generally, you
  should choose the slowest preset you can tolerate.  See "x264 --help"
  for the available presets (ignore "placebo" as it's a waste of time).