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

[LGW]

if you are using gnome (or even if not), you might want to try the 
gmencoder frontend. It's really a great tool, you can crop with preview, 
setup all (I think) parameters that mencoder has, and it's easy to use. 
Great think to gamble with parameters. And it does 3-pass out of the box.

I used far more low bitrates with lacv, like 360. Of course you get 
kindof ugly results, but the files get really small :)

It depends on the result size and quality you expect, I think. You might 
want to scale the image size down (for 360kbit I used 320*240). Of 
course, this is really low quality, than.

I also suggest to use -lavcopts vhq:.... to set him to maximum encoding 
quality. It won't take much longer to encode, but with better results.

The encoding parameters for a good result depend much on file size and 
movie (southpark will be totally different than jackass), so you'll have 
to try it out.

good luck,
  Lars

Maximo Ramos wrote:

>[Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
>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!
>
>  
>