[MPlayer-users] reducing size of files while conserving the audio/video quality

[Joonas Koivunen]

On Sunday 24 August 2003 14:06, Maximo Ramos wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Hi there!!
Hi.
> I am running out of hard disk, and having a bunch of music videos, as well
> as many episodes of TV series (southpark, jackass), most of them in MPEG
> format, I've decided to reencode them to gain hard disk space.
I'm not saying this is a good idea. Just make sure you don't spread these 
fucked up files in any p2p network... There's already so much low quality 
stuff around. Though, I'm not suggesting that you might fuck it up totally, 
just that all the releases already are so badly encoded, re-encoding them 
will result in even more horrible material -- no matter with what encoder you 
use. Why don't you go and buy more HD space? :) or just delete what you've 
watched.. I know from experience that at least I have almost ever watched 
same stuff again.
> I choosed vbitrate 800 because according with the man page that's the
> minimum, but I am not sure what vbitrate to use in order to preserve the
> audio and video quality.
Well.. Dunno where did you read that 800kb/s (kilo * bit / s) is the minimum. 
The holy manual only says that it is the DEFAULT (it will be used when you 
don't specify any other).
> I am going to reencode all my files soon, so If somebody was in the same
> situation and have found the best options for lameopts and lavcopts, please
> share your thoughts :)
Share your time with DOCS/*. There are some encoding tips etc. stuff you need 
to know before you start playing.

After reading few mails on the list recently I'd recommend mdb=2 (though I 
haven't had any time to encode stuff yet.. Maybe later today.). Other things 
like masks you'll find in the encoding tips. Keep an eye out for tips for 
encoding drawn stuff (like your southpark over here), tips for other footage 
are discussed also.

Use of postprocessing filters (deblockers (e.g. pp=de)) and some other fancy 
stuff might result in better compression.

> Thanks!
Hmm.. I'm not actually clear of how the documents are atm spread out in the 
tar but if you cannot find encoding-tips in your languages folder, it means 
that it hasn't yet been translated.. So it'll be in english documents I 
guess. man find.

-rzei