[MPlayer-users] mencoder Audio Quality

[Christopher Mason]

I'm a relative newbie to mencoder.  I've read quite a bit of the website 
and have been able to produce (using three pass encoding) AVIs that look 
quite good.  I'm struggling with audio quality though.  I've tried two 
different source DVDs and two different sets of LAME compression options. 
Both sound tinny, and have a definite high pitched noise component.  At 
first I thought this was because my MP3 bit rate was not high enough.  But 
the latest rip I did had an average bit rate greater than 150kbps.  I've 
noticed that both DVDs are recorded at 48khz.  This bit rate is preserved 
in the MP3 audio track.  I'm wondering if maybe the software sample rate 
conversion is poor (I'm using MacOS X) and is contributing the tinny sound 
and noise artifacts.  Should I be applying sample rate conversion in the 
making of the AVI?  Will this be better than the SRC done at playback time 
(I've tried both vlc and quicktime)?  If so, what options should I use?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Please refer to a FAQ as 
appropriate.  None of the FAQs I've seen dealt specifically with audio 
quality.

-c

[ Christopher Mason    <cmason at cmason.com>   http://www.cmason.com/ ]