[MEncoder-users] Intermediate codec from mpegts on the way to h264

[David Liontooth]

On 11/13/2010 07:38 AM, Andrew Berg wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 7:43 PM, David Liontooth wrote:
>> Is there a good intermediate codec/format I can use that is not horribly
>> CPU-intensive, and won't lose me too much quality -- something that's a
>> good stopover on the way to h264?
> I would really recommend clearing up a few GB in instead of lossily
> recompressing twice instead of only once. If you were dealing with
> really high bitrates like 40Mbps, you could probably save some space by
> reencoding with x264 at a CRF of about 16 or so with options designed to
> give you speed, but unfortunately, TV broadcasts in the US (I'm assuming
> you're talking about a US broadcast since you mentioned it was ATSC and
> "CBS-HD" is in your command line) are pretty low (my local CBS station
> does about 15Mbps, other stations are less), so you're not likely going
> to be able to get a significant savings without either using slower
> options or an unacceptably high CRF. Of course, if your final encode is
> going to be low quality anyway, you could get away with a high CRF.
> Besides, if you can't spare some temporary space, where are you going to
> put your final encodes?
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll record from five cards at the same 
time, so I'm not sure the drive can handle it -- I'll run some more 
tests. I understand your experience is that reencoding is generally a 
bad idea, even if using the same codec.