[MPlayer-users] Re: Newbie problems starting mencoder

[D Richard Felker III]

On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 10:21:51PM -0500, Jonathan Rogers wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Fabio Papa wrote:
> >On Wednesday 24 September 2003 11:49, Amit Jain wrote:
> >
> >>Hi there,
> >>
> >>I'm trying to convert my DVD's to DivX, I followed the instructions from
> >>this website"
> >>http://www.bsdvault.net/article.php?sid=552&mode=thread&order=0
> >>
> >>Command executed:
> >>cat *.vob | mencoder -o mymovie.avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=192:vbr=2
> >>-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:keyint=250 -vop lb
> >
> >You have an options file in your home dir and that is bad. Fix it. Hint: 
> >line 1 seems to be wrong.
> >
> 
> There may be a problem with the config file, but there also was no input 
> file specified. If you want to encode from standard input, you have to 
> use "-" as the input file. I would avoid the BSDvault article entirely, 
> since it has several mistakes and gives bad advice. The option "-vop lb" 
> is bogus. I assume the author meant "-vop pp=lb". Using a deinterlacer 
> on DVD material is usually a bad idea anyway. Specifically, one should 
> only deinterlace TV sources.
> 
> For film sources, don't use any filter if mplayer automatically reverses 
> the telecine. Otherwise, use something like "-vop detc=dr=1" or "-vop 
> ivtc". If the source is film, make sure to set the proper framerate, 
> such as "-ofps 23.976".

This is greatly oversimplified. Please do not tell people to use these
filters unless they really apply. For example, they will butcher
content made with tv cameras!

> It's also a bad idea to use VBR MP3 in an AVI, since there are often 
> sync problems. A better place to start would be MPlayer's own documentation.

Please stop this too. VBR mp3 is known to work great with all major
players and VBR in general is part of the avi standard. If someone is
getting desync, it's a result of using a broken version of lame or a
very broken player, not a problem with VBR in general. Downgrading
lame to 3.90 might help.

Rich