[MEncoder-users] How to encode a DVD

[Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto]

For NTSC, the only possible heights are 480 and 240. Since my movie's
original height is 304, I choose 480, as 240 would result in quality
loss. Width can be 352, 720 or 704; I choose 704, which results in less
upscaling than 720. AFAIK, upscaling results in a worse quality for a
given bitrate.

After some reading, I now think that the encoded height of my movie
should be DAR*480*ho/wo, where ho and wo are the original height and
width. 

With ho=304 and wo=576, the encoded height would be:
DAR=4/3: (4/3)*480*304/576= 338
DAR=16/9: (16/9)*480*304/576=450

I choose DAR=4/3 which results in the smallest upscaling.

For the fps, the table in
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html
makes me think that a NTSC DVD can play a 24000/1001 fps movie. 
The DVD-Video article in Wikipedia seems to agree.

Are you sure that 24000/1001 does not work?


> -vf scale=720:-10,expand=720:576
720:576 would be for PAL, would it not?

The command line I passed to mencoder this time is

mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -vf
scale=704:338,expand=704:480,harddup -lavcopts
vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=6500:keyint=15:vstrict=0:acodec=ac3:abitrate=256:aspect=4/3:vpass=1
-ofps 24000/1001 -o opaio.mpg opaio.avi

I am aware that 338 is not a multiple of 16, but at 6500 kbps I don't
think it matters.

The aspect seems correct. 
-- 
Software is like sex: it is better when it is free. --Linus Torvalds