[MPlayer-users] 2-pass encoding to DVD: how to maximize quality?

[Norman Ramsey]

I'm a bit lost in a maze of command-line options.
I have some HD data streams (720p and 1080i) which
I wish to transcode for burning onto a DVD.  I'd
like to get the maxmimum possible quality while
using every byte on the DVD.  (OK, I'd be happy
enough to use every megabyte.)

Can anyone suggest what options I might pass to
mencoder to achieve this goal?  Here's what I'm
doing now for 720p content in its native 16:9
aspect ratio:

  mencoder -vid 49 -aid 53 -o foo.mpg 
    -vf-clr -vf-add scale=720:480 -vf-pre crop=1280:720 
    -quiet -vc ffmpeg12,mpeg12, -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd
    -mpegopts vaspect=16/9 -oac lavc -ofps 30000/1001
    -ovc lavc 
    -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:acodec=mp2:vbitrate=4000:keyint=18:aspect=16/9
    foo.ts

You'll note the single pass and the hard-coded
'vbitrate', which is definitely achieving
suboptimal results.  Any suggestions would be
appreciated.


Norman