[MPlayer-users] mencoder: effective use of qp, crf params for x264?

[RC]

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:02:46 -0600
matthew.garman at gmail.com wrote:

> So is it fair to say that specifying bitrate=x is generally
> preferred when you have the time to fine tune x---for every
> individual job?  Otherwise, do some initial experimentation with
> crf, find your optimal value and run with it?

You can just as easily select a bpp, and automatically set the
appropriate bitrate, based on the length and resolution of a video.

Saying that a quality setting is "preferred" over bitrate suggests that
everyone is trying to get a certain level of quality, with no concern
about the resulting filesize.  That's usually not the case.

> Is there a way for mplayer to combine the best of both worlds?
> E.g., something along the lines of using crf on the first pass,
> having mencoder tell you what the optimal bitrate would be, then
> using that bitrate on pass=2?

When mencoder finishes, it reports the average video and audio bitrates.
 But that gives you the _worst_ of both worlds...  You need two encoding
passes, and yet you can't speed-up the first pass with turbo.