[MPlayer-users] 2-pass encoding to DVD: how to maximize quality?

[Rich Felker]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 10:02:40PM -0400, Norman Ramsey wrote:
> I'm a bit lost in a maze of command-line options.
> I have some HD data streams (720p and 1080i) which
> I wish to transcode for burning onto a DVD.  I'd
> like to get the maxmimum possible quality while
> using every byte on the DVD.  (OK, I'd be happy
> enough to use every megabyte.)
> 
> Can anyone suggest what options I might pass to
> mencoder to achieve this goal?  Here's what I'm
> doing now for 720p content in its native 16:9
> aspect ratio:

I really doubt 720p is 30fps. If it's 24 fps you should use -ofps
24000/1001 and -mpegopts telecine. -ofps 30000/1001 on 24 fps content
will look VERY bad, and waste (a few) bits.

>     -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:acodec=mp2:vbitrate=4000:keyint=18:aspect=16/9

mp2 audio is not necessarily NTSC DVD players. Use ac3.

> You'll note the single pass and the hard-coded
> 'vbitrate', which is definitely achieving
> suboptimal results.  Any suggestions would be
> appreciated.

Worked fine for me.. maybe your video is bad and needs filtering to
correct it..?

Rich