[MPlayer-users] advice on mencoder options

[Tuukka Toivonen]

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003, anton wrote:

>I have been trying to get an "optimal" setting for most of my dvd

I recommend the following options for video encoding:

mencoder -mc 0 -noskip -skiplimit 0 -ovc lavc -lavcopts
vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:trell:mbd=2:vmax_b_frames=1:v4mv:vb_strategy=0:cmp=2:subcmp=2:precmp=2:predia=1:dia=1:vme=4

Also I recommend cbp if you're using new enough version.

>Most howtos seem to scale, but the mplayer documentation says not to. I

If you have enough storage available, I recommend not to scale. However,
this requires much space at high bitrate. If you want to be economical
and use low bitrate, you should also scale the video smaller. I recommend
something like 0.26 bits per pixels (but it depends much on the video,
the more motion and details, the more bits you need).

E.g. 640*480 resolution video at 25 frames per second at bitrate 2000
kbit/s would be 2000000/(640*480*25) = 0.26042 bits per pixel.

>am ok with only using mplayer (so autoaspect is ok) but if scaling is
>going to give me better quality then I would rather do that than have

It gives better quality at low bitrate, at high bitrate it destroys details
in the video.

I don't have opinion about preserving aspect ratio at the moment =)