[MEncoder-users] Encoding interlaced content: what am I doing wrong?

[Moritz Barsnick]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 02:16:02 -0500, Jarred Nicholls wrote:

> Re-encoding video will always lose quality, but if you're encoding from a
> high quality source, then the result will look better than if you encoded
> from a low quality source - obviously.
[...]
> generally.  So your codec choice should be based on what you want/need to do
> given everything you know about your codec candidates.  If you need an
> mpeg-2 file in the end, then just capture an mpeg-2 file from the get go :-)

While that's true, I must pitch in and agree with Martijn's use model:
He wants to capture an intermediate file for editing. Optimally, that
format would be lossless or a format which allows (mostly) lossless
editing in terms of cutting. I have yet to find a lossless format which
doesn't consume much space ;-) and/or which is understood well by editing
apps.
 
So, that said, I agree (from what I have read and what I have tried)
that that intermediate format doesn't need to be H.264. Actually, low
CPU cost and high (intermediate) quality are desired. I had actually
asked for "close to lossless" MPEG settings here once, for my
intermediate captures.

You don't want to treak the hell out of a codec, you just want to give
it sufficient bandwidth I guess. You could probably even tickle more
bandwidth out of MPEG2 that the DVD profiles allow for, if the apps can
handle it.

By the way, can something like ProjectX (?) not edit MPEG2 without
reencoding anything except the cut points?  Then the "intermediate"
file could ideally be the final format.

Moritz