[MPlayer-users] -ss in DVD broken ?

[D Richard Felker III]

On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 03:14:00PM +0100, Ketil Z. Malde wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> writes:
> 
> > Instead, you should use -chapter. For example, encode the first CD
> > with -chapter 1-9 and the second with -chapter 10-18 (assuming 18
> > chapters total). You might tweak the numbers depending on the lengths
> > and amount of action in the chapters.
> 
> Would it be an idea to encode each chapter in a separate file, and
> then just cram them onto CD's as they fit?  Or is that not recommended
> for some reason or other?

This could be nice in some cases. It's a pain if you plan on
distributing the movie or if you use players that don't make smooth
transitions between files. And it could make more work for you if you
have text subtitle files, since you'd have to split them by chapter
and make sure they're all synced right. So usually people don't do
this, but there's no reason you can't, and if you like it, go right
ahead!

> (Would make it easier to continue if the encoding job gets
> interrupted, for instance)

Yes, but it also makes 2pass/vbr less effective, since some chapters
might need higher bitrates than others to maintain good quality. If
you split the chapters up, you have to adjust the per-chapter bitrate
manually to maintain good quality throughout the movie rather than
letting the 2pass engine do it for you.

Rich