[MEncoder-users] Tutorial?

[RC]

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:48:34 +0200
Aaron Digulla <digulla at hepe.com> wrote:

> I think the main goal is always the same: Encode some video with the
> best quality at the least usage of bits/s.

Quality can always get better, and bitrate can always be lower...  

> What is missing to turn mencoder into an automated system to encode
> video without having the user worry about thousands of options?

A world in which ALL input videos are the same... 

> Surely during encoding, mencoder will notice if it simply cannot
> create a good looking result?

Mencoder doesn't have eyes and psnr isn't a very good metric.  You can
encode interlaced video without the proper options, and mencoder won't
know any better...  Your options can turn the video into a blocky mess,
and PSNR will still be very high...

> - Send mencoder over the input to cut it into "scenes" (ie. blocks
> which probably need the same encoding parameters for best results)
> - Run some test encodings on each scene to determine the best encoding
> parameters towards the goal (quality or size). Just encode 5 to 10
> images in each scene.

To do this, you're basically going to need to encode the entire video,
100 times over, and have the user pick the best-looking one...

> Since most users of mencoder have no idea of the impact of most
> options,

I doubt that, but never the less, you really only need to know about a
dozen for most tasks...