[MEncoder-users] How to encode a DVD

[RC]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007 23:23:16 -0500
Jeff Clagg <snacky at ikaruga.co.uk> wrote:

> Sure, it's costly, but I believe the standard is 15, and common
> practice is 12. 30 may work on most players, but it's out of spec. I
> wouldn't suggest authoring a DVD using keyint=60 just because it
> happens to work fine on the player you own.

We're not talking about DVDs, we're talking about SVCDs.

I've tested on about a dozen different brands of DVD players, and the
only downside is backwards seeking sometimes only works at a minimum of
4X (2X "rewind" often does not).

So long as you're sticking to the specs otherwise (especially if you
have a bitrate lower than max), I can't imagine any problems a larger
keyint could cause.  I don't see people complaining about SVCD/DVDs that
aren't padded to maintain the minimum bitrate, or that lavc isn't being
forced to produce 2 B-frame per GOP.  Specs are good, but they're all
too often arbitrary, contain long obsoleted legacy restrictions, or
are very conservative to ensure sure the extreme cases are covered.

> Why violate the DVD spec when you can just move past it?

Because very, very few people have Divx players, and I don't intend to
buy everyone one.  

I also don't go for cheap junk that can't be repaired...  I'd rather buy
an old used player which uses PC components, even if it's non-working,
and needs the drive and PSU replaced (easy enough)...

I make it a point not to buy a DVD player that hasn't had the firmware
fully hacked, so that you can skip through forced track 0 trailers, FBI
warnings, disable macrovision, etc., etc. 

And MPEG-4 players are notorious for their own arbitrary and
undocumented limitations on format, resolution, bitrate, etc., that vary
from one model to another.

(You asked)