[MEncoder-users] Why is remux with encoding to avi with ac3 sound needed?

[Bernd Butscheidt]

Hello,

I reencode my TV-SAT-Card recordings to make them easily watchable on my stand-alone (by this I slow them down at film speed.)

At the moment, my mencoder-order looks like this:

mencoder -noskip -noodml -forceidx -ffourcc XVID -ovc lavc -speed 24000/25000 -ofps 24 -vf hqdn3d,harddup -channels 2 -srate 48000 -oac lavc -af lavcresample=48000,scaletempo -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:v4mv:mv0_threshold=0:last_pred=3:predia=2:dia=2:vmax_b_frames=0:precmp=2:cmp=2:subcmp=2:preme=2:autoaspect=1:vqscale=2:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=8000:acodec=ac3:abitrate=448  movie.m2v  -audiofile movie.ac3 -o movie.avi

I am really surprised of the high quality of the picture although it is a reencode of an already compressed source (mpeg2). But to make the reencode playable, I still have to remux the whole output of mencoder (e.g. with avidemux using copy-mode for audio and video). 

The most obvious problem is, that the original output of mencoder plays with vlc and xine without sound, the remuxed video shows no problems nowhere. Smplayer has sound, but the time position isn't shown correctly (it looks more like smplayer counts frames than seconds an minutes....)

I already added the noodml and forceidx options to fix this but without success.

Kind regards
Bernd B.