[MEncoder-users] Trimming video

[Pete Davis]

> 
> On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:02:10 -0700
> "Scott W. Larson" <scowl at pacifier.com> wrote:
> 
> > I haven't seen anyone here
> > who didn't want to learn about how something works.
> 
> Really?  I've seen quite a few people on this list, from time to time,
> who want everyone here to just tell them what command-line to use, and
> don't want to bother to read docs, or understand any of the concepts.
> Of course the large majority are trying to learn, but there's still
> quite a few who can't be bothered.
> 

Not everyone wants to take the time to be experts in every piece of software
they use. Sometimes they just want to use the software.

I use word processors all the time, but I don't have the need nor the time,
for that matter, to become a word processing expert. If I can set the
margins, fonts, and handle other basics, that fits most of my needs. I don't
want to be bothered with all the other aspects of it because it's a waste of
my time to learn stuff I'm never going to have to use.

The same applies to any piece of software. Unless there's some reason I NEED
to be an expert in it, why should I spend time becoming an expert in it?
Software is supposed to make our lives easier, not harder.

Understand, I'm speaking from the point of view of an average user and not
of myself in particular.

80-90% of the software I use (and there's a lot of it), I don't need to
become an expert in and in most cases, spending the time to become an expert
with it would simply be wasted time. The time lost in becoming an expert
generally wouldn't be recovered in increased productivity.

>From what I've seen, many people have a very limited list of requirements of
mencoder. They want to use it in a fairly narrow range of situations.

For myself, I can list 3 general things that I use mencoder for. I would
expect for a number of users, there needs are even fewer:

1: Encoding DVDs (granted, this covers a wide range because of the variation
in how DVDs might be encoded to begin with).

2: Re-encoding existing AVIs to be compatible with my media player. I have a
single script that works in about 90% of situations by simply re-encoding
the audio as MP3, re-encoding the video into DivX, or doing both.

3: Encoding captured video from my PVR 150 into DivX/MP3 AVIs.

Now the first one, unfortunately, requires quite a bit more knowledge than
the latter 2 because I need to take into consideration the original encoding
of the DVDs. 

#2 on occasion requires customized work, but I've found in most cases, I can
make assumptions about the original video. Most of the time the issue is
that the audio is in a format that's incompatible with my media player, the
video uses an unsupported codec, or both. My script doesn't produce always
high quality conversions, but in general, the difference isn't noticeable on
my TV. 

A lot of users aren't concerned with producing the best possible encodings.
I know there are users who are probably very picky about the quality and
that's fine. But for me, the if the difference isn't noticeable on my
mediocre TV then there's no value to it.

I have no need to become an expert in mencoder. I simply want to learn
enough to be able to encode things well enough to fit my needs, which aren't
terribly stringent.  That doesn't mean I expect people to produce my entire
command line for me, but again, this goes back to the topic of examples that
I originally mentioned. Seeing examples and seeing variations in them, helps
me to understand how it works. 

Also keep in mind that a lot of users will have a desire to do some fairly
limited encodings but may not have the natural aptitude to become an expert
in the topic, even if they have the desire. The topic isn't exactly a simple
one.

I guess what I'm saying is that people shouldn't judge too harshly the
people who have very limited needs of the software and don't bother learning
every aspect of video encoding. I have to admit, when I first started using
mencoder, I expected it to be a lot simper than it turned out to be and I
suspect a lot of users come here with the assumption that what they're
asking is simpler than it really is. You simply can't expect people to come
in realizing the complexity of what they want to do right off the bat.

While technically that is "ignorance," calling them ignorant, as Rich did,
is a little harsh, I think. I'm sure a number of them are competent in areas
that Rich is ignorant of and I'm sure he wouldn't want to be called ignorant
if he asked them a question in one of those areas.

Pete