[MEncoder-users] MPEG-2: vrc_minrate and vqmin / lmin

[A. Schmid]

Nicolas Hesler wrote:
> lmin set to 0.01 improved the banding immensely.    Adding dc=10 reduced 
> pulsating (at the keyframe intervals) in some of the blocks in the 
> banded areas.
> 
> I suppose that banding is just part of the game with MPEG-2 encoding?

Well, yeah... the banding is primarily because of the 8x8-blocking.
This is done even in H.264/AVC, although the blocks are only 4x4 there 
and the deblocking is part of the codec, so you probably won't notice.
With MPEG2 and pre-AVC MPEG4 you need to use a postprocessing filter if 
you want deblocking (for example, "-vf-add pp=de" also activates 
horizontal and vertical deblocking).

Upcoming wavelet-based codecs shouldn't suffer from such problems, 
because they don't need blocking. But they aren't really there yet...

Regards
Alex