[MPlayer-users] AVI encoded file playback on other systems

[Corey Hickey]

Karl Ewald wrote:
> I don't use multipass mode, since I need not exactly match a target
> filesize, I just let things happen as they do, and retry with different
> quality settings in the rare cases where I'm unhappy. YMMV. So please read
> about which -lavcopts to use for multipass yourself if necessary.
> 

Actually, you really should be using 2-pass mode to encode anything you
want to keep. On the first pass, the ratecontrol algorithms can only
guess which future parts of the video will need a higher bitrate (such
as when the picture changes rapidly) and which will need only need a
small amount. The second pass then uses statistics from the first pass
to better allocate data, resulting in a file with more consistant
quality.

-Corey