[MEncoder-users] real-time encoding of DVB-S @ 900 MHz

[Moritz Beller]

Hello there,

I can pipe MPEG-2 streams from my Budget DVB-S card directly via 

cat /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 > stream.ts

to a file stream.ts, which can then simultaneously be watched with
mplayer, the cat process occupying only few system resources. I could
equally well play the stream directly with mplayer at 70% CPU usage,
using the dvb://-syntax. That's all really well, but when it comes to
recording video, it's got an extreme disadvantage:

The raw format produces much too large files. So I clearly need to do
some encoding, even scaling the video's size down would be ok, if only I
could get the file smaller. I tried all different kinds of video codes
(such as MPEG-4 at a bit rate of 40!), but couldn't figure out one sole
which resulted in a CPU usage minor than 99%. I perform the decoding
task on a Pentium III 900 MHz, so I should at least be able to
real-time encode with medium-quality settings, shouldn't I?  (With
Mythtv I can even both watch and record, so there *must* be a way to
achieve encoding with mencoder as well)

What settings can you recommend?

Thanks a lot indeed,

Moritz
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