[MEncoder-users] recording quality

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

Hi

I've just started since a couple of months playing with PC-TV, and my best 
result so far was with mencoder, hence, I am posting here.

I've already described my configuration in earlier posts to this lists, 
here it is once again:

Hauppauge WinTV Express (bt878)
2 x PII-400MHz + 128M RAM
2.6.9 kernel

I am trying to record from Composite1 with mencoder from the command line, 
running as few programs as possible, without X. The best result so far, I 
guess, was with

mencoder tv:// -tv \
driver=v4l2:input=1:norm=pal:width=480:height=360:outfmt=yuy2:\
device=/dev/video0:adevice=/dev/dsp:audiorate=32000:forceaudio:\
forcechan=1:buffersize=80 \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts threads=3:vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1200:keyint=30 -oac \
mp3lame -lameopts br=128:cbr:mode=3:vol=8 -ffourcc divx -endpos 120 -o \
/video/x.avi

Although, I am still a bit confused - it does say during the recording 
"dropping frame", but at the end mencoder says "0 frames dropped". But 
I'll assume, that with this configuration really no frames are dropped. 
But the quality is rather poor. Which means, fast motions are distorted, 
lines cross the video, partialy granularity is high. Sorry, I have no idea 
how these problems are described in the "professional" video language. By 
"granularity" I mean, that, e.g., grass, which has almost the same colour 
is shown as pretty big rectangles of the same colour.

So, my question is, are these quality problems only PC-performance 
related? Are my parameters not optimal? I copied them from freevo. I 
guess, one can get better quality by using some other algorithms, but that 
would produce even more system load, right? Can one achieve a reasonable 
quality with "standard" PAL resolution on a Duron 900MHz with 512M RAM (my 
fastest system here so far)? If yes - with which parameters? Or what is 
the minimal system configuration for this? Or a hardware encoder? And is 
mencoder the best choice for this job?

Thanks
Guennadi
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Guennadi Liakhovetski