[MPlayer-users] CoreAVC with mplayer

[Phil Rhodes]

> Barring that for the time being, is it feasible to re-encode the video 
> files
> to optimize them for playing on a slower PC?

I had exactly this problem recently - I reencoded with the following very 
simple command line:

ffmpeg -i FILEIN -s 720x406 -ab 256k -b 4000k FILEOUT.mp4

This was enough to knock it down to a reasonable-looking result that will 
play happily on my 2004 laptop. There are 720p files it will play, but I 
haven't found out exactly what characteristics make some playable and others 
not.

My choice of resolution was based on something that would be approximately 
standard definition and playable on anything not steam powered, but there's 
no real reason you couldn't punch any number you fancied in there (subject 
to codec technical requirements). Reducing bitrate will, presumably, make it 
easier to play.

People on this list will doubtless have a problem with that command line, 
but I suspect that's fundamentally true of all command lines one could post 
here.

P