[MPlayer-users] arg, frustration with 3 pass divx encoding...

[christopher j bottaro]

ok, i just did a 3 pass encoding of 'lord or the rings' to test my new 
dvd2divx.pl script.  i'm quite disappointed.  the final divx file is not near 
700 mb.

here is the output of my script which should show you exactly what happened 
(its very easy to read):

[cjb at semaphore divx]$ ../dvd2divx.pl -eq -scale 640 -autocrop 200 -vol 10
crop detection requested
mplayer -dvd 1 -vop cropdetect
crop parameters detected before EOF
crop parameters = 718:358:2:58
mencoder -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3:vol=10 -ovc frameno -o frameno.avi -dvd 
1
first pass: 100% done, 0 mins remaining
recommended vbitrate from first pass: 416
mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=416:vpass=1 
-vop eq,scale,crop=718:358:2:58 -dvd 1 -zoom -xy 640 -o /dev/null
second pass: 100% done, 0 mins remaining
mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=416:vpass=2 
-vop eq,scale,crop=718:358:2:58 -dvd 1  -zoom -xy 640 -o 
lord_of_the_rings.avi
third pass: 100% done, 0 mins remaining

the resulting file 'lord_of_the_rings.avi' is only 567 mb.  am i right in 
thinking that the quality could have been much better if it actually used the 
130 mb that it could have?

i thought the whole point of the 3 pass method was to get a very good 
approximation of the vbitrate so that the resulting file would be very close 
to your desired size.  i could have >guessed< a better bitrate with a one 
time pass and gotten better quality....;)  so obviously i'm doing something 
wrong.

thanks for the help,
christopher