[MPlayer-users] Is it possible to specify colour depth of MPEG-IIfiles using

[Jeff Clagg]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 10:32:25AM -0400, John Brown wrote:
> >On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:53:18 -0500, Jeff Clagg wrote:
> >
> >On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 10:14:24PM -0400, John Brown wrote:
> >> I use MEncoder to convert movies to DVD-compatible MPEG-II. I notice 
> >that
> >> when I play DIVX50 AVI files, the MPlayer output shows information about
> >> the color depth, which is as low as 12 bpp sometimes. However, my files
> >> generated by MEncoder do not show info about the colour depth.
> >>
> >> Does this mean that MPEG-II files are always 24 bpp? Can I set the 
> >colour
> >> depth? If yes, how?
> >
> >Those values are completely meaningless. The bpp field in the avi header
> >only makes sense for some lossless codecs. For other codecs, some
> >applications have chosen to write 24bpp in the header while some write
> >12bpp. Either way it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
> >
> I see. I take it that that's a no, then? I saw something about formats in
> mplayer -vf format=fmt=help
> and I tried one or two, but I got errors.

-vf format has nothing to do with it. Just to be more clear, the "bpp"
field in these particular avi's doesn't say anything about their
quality. Nor does it say anything about any other attribute of those
videos. I assumed you were asking about this because you're interested
in video quality, but maybe you have some other goal in mind? If so,
what is it?