[MPlayer-users] reducing size of files while conserving the audio/video quality

[Maximo Ramos]

Hi there!!

I am running out of hard disk, and having a bunch of music videos, as well as
many episodes of TV series (southpark, jackass), most of them in MPEG format,
I've decided to reencode them to gain hard disk space.

However, I am very new at this, and after reading encoding.html and 
encoding-tips.txt I still can't decide what options to use, like vbitrate for
example.

I tried the following:

South_Park_S07E06_Lil_Crime_Stoppers.proper-ftv.ShareReactor.mpg is 219MB in
MPEG format.

ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=0x10000001
ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=1150000
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=352
ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=240
ID_VIDEO_FPS=29.970
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=1.3333
ID_AUDIO_CODEC=mp3
ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=80
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=224000
ID_AUDIO_RATE=44100
ID_AUDIO_NCH=2
ID_LENGTH=1596

MY TEST:

mencoder South_Park.mpg -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=3 -o frameno.avi
mencoder South_Park.mpg -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1:vbitrate=800:autoaspect:vqmin=3:mbd=1
mencoder South_Park.mpg -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=2:vbitrate=800:autoaspect:vqmin=3:mbd=1
 
The resulting file is 89MB and:

ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=DIVX
ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=397344
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=352
ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=240
ID_VIDEO_FPS=29.970
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000
ID_AUDIO_CODEC=mp3
ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=85
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=160000
ID_AUDIO_RATE=44100
ID_AUDIO_NCH=2
ID_LENGTH=1314

I choosed vbitrate 800 because according with the man page that's the minimum, 
but I am not sure what vbitrate to use in order to preserve the audio and video
quality.

I am going to reencode all my files soon, so If somebody was in the same situation
and have found the best options for lameopts and lavcopts, please share your 
thoughts :)

Thanks!

-- 
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Maximo Ramos           Lost in The Land of The Morning Calm

    "I am free of prejudices. I hate everyone equally."
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