[MEncoder-users] Encodes for slow laptop

[RC]

On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:50:39 -0700
"Stella-Terra Clemens" <stellaterraclemens at gmail.com> wrote:

> First off: what is the best codec to use on a slow system given DVD
> input for consistantly smooth playback and as good a picture quality
> as I can get?  

MPlayer's MPEG-1/2/4 decoding is quite fast.


> I tried h264, but that turned out to be way too slow (or was I using
> it wrong?)  

Try a small frameref, no b-frames, no cabac, no deblocking,
partitions=none, and perhaps a low level_idc.  With some tweaking, you
might be able get it to play smoothly. 

> I've been messing a lot with the resolution and the bitrate, but that
> doesn't seem to have much effect?  

Those are indeed the two most significant factors, besides codec
selection.

> Does the container matter much? 

Only seeks on your drive are expensive (ie. slow).  Otherwise, no.

> My instinct is to always crop as little as possible and then resize to
> mod16, but I've recently been reading that it's a bad idea to resize
> at all.

Resizing is generally a lossy operation (and when it isn't, it looks
terrible), and I find that the aliasing (with most of the available
scalers) reduces compressibility.  I prefer to slightly over-crop. 
Still, I will say that some scalers aren't bad, and the blur you get
from a few of them might incidentally improve compressibility.