[MEncoder-users] "requested bitrate is too low." in 2-pass x264 encoding

[Stroller]

On 10 Apr 2010, at 16:21, Grozdan wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Stroller
> <stroller at stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> On 9 Apr 2010, at 14:48, Grozdan wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Stroller <stroller at stellar.eclipse.co.uk 
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 8 Apr 2010, at 17:34, Grozdan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> ... beware that mencoder is broken
>>>>> outputting to anything but AVI, MPEG PS and RAW. I guess with  
>>>>> lavf and
>>>>> mp4 encoding WITHOUT b-frames, it'll do just fine but the moment  
>>>>> you
>>>>> add b-frames to your encode (and you're adding them since by  
>>>>> default
>>>>> they are enabled) it'll create a broken mp4
>>>>
>>>> Hi and sorry to bother you, but what's the supported method to  
>>>> convert
>>>> (say
>>>> a DVD) to x264 .mp4 then, please?
>>>>
>>>> This should be done entirely in ffmpeg?
>>>
>>> If you want to use mencoder, then you only have 2 options
>>>
>>> 1) output to an AVI and then use something like MP4Box from gpac to
>>> demux the AVI and mux it into an MP4, which is done like this
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> If you want to make it easy on you and don't really care if you  
>>> first
>>> output to an AVI or to a RAW, then you can try my script (called
>>> h264enc, google it) which automates this process (it outputs to AVI
>>> first, though, later on you can choose mp4/mvk/ogm/ts...)
>>
>> Many thanks for your reply.
>>
>> I believe I've tried h264enc, but I didn't get along with the  
>> options. I
>> prefer undvd which uses the same method. This is not a criticism of  
>> your
>> program - just what suits me.
>
> Sure, no problem. Use whatever suites you better just like I do, but
> keep in mind that undvd is dead and no longer developed/maintained so
> at some point, it'll stop working and I suspect it already will since
> latest x264 requires in mencoder to use force_cfr which undvd doesn't
> have in its options (though that's easily fixed)

I wasn't aware of that. Actually I corresponded with the author in the  
past, and there are some improvements I wished for undvd that he was  
not interested in. So I already planned to fork undvd or write my own  
script influenced by it.

>> The reason I asked was that I believe MP4Box is depreciated by my  
>> distro. I
>> was therefore thinking of writing my own script. I will have to  
>> investigate
>> why MP4Box has been depreciated, and see if there are any  
>> alternatives.
>
> On which distro are you on? I think it's a silly decision to deprecate
> it since it's the only mp4 stand-alone muxer that is still under
> development. mp4creator is no longer officially developed/maintained.


Pardon me, I think I was mistaken.

I think that MP4Box is supported by my distro (Gentoo), but that undvd  
used mpeg4ip or mp4creator, and it is the remuxer that undvd used that  
was depreciated.

At the time I looked into fixing this and although the changes in  
command lines between the two mp4 remuxers were minor, I didn't speak  
enough perl (the language in which undvd is scripted) to accommodate  
them. I learned a little perl over Christmas - I've now had a patch  
accepted by another project and written a small perl program of my  
own, so I may have another crack at this in my Copious Free Time (tm).  
undvd worked extremely well for me, so it would be a shame not to take  
advantage of it.

Stroller.