[MPlayer-users] Using mencoder to create Windows- and MacOS-friendly movies

[D Richard Felker III]

On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 09:11:49AM +0100, January Weiner 3 wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> > > What works is simple transcoding of the avi file to mpeg, with
> > > transcode -i file.avi -o file -y mpeg; however, the produced file has a
> > > frame rate of 25 fps, which is about 2.5 times as much as the original avi
> > > file, and no option to transcode seems to change it.  This is as close as I
> > > could get to a video you can actually watch from any cybercafe terminal :-(
> >
> > OK, how about using -ovc vfw and encoding it with some old junky VFW
> > codec?
> 
> Hmmmmm, this gives me an error message - "No VfW codec specified! It's
> required!".  Well, man mencoder -> search for vfw -> nothing relevant
> found; grep -i vfw /usr/share/doc/packages/mplayer/*, same (only playback
> relevant information).  OK: no idea how to specify the vfw codec or where
> to find it's name.

-vfwopts codec=filename

> > Or you could try sticking with libavcodec and using
> > vcodec=msmpeg4v2 or vcodec=wmv1 and see if either of those is playable
> > on windows.
> 
> I haven't tried it on Windows yet (Windows is scarse at my institute), but
> with QuickTime Player it doeth not work.

Hmm, perhaps try vcodec=mpeg4 with -ffourcc MP4S. Quicktime should
support mpeg4, but it probably doesn't understand the stupid default
fourcc of DIVX.

BTW, if this works on Mac but not Windows, you could probably send
ffdshow to your Windows-using friends who want to view the files. It's
very easy to install and small enough to send in an email.

Rich