[MPlayer-users] Is it possible to specify colour depth of MPEG-II files using MEncoder?

[Jeff Clagg]

On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 10:14:24PM -0400, John Brown wrote:
> I use MEncoder to convert movies to DVD-compatible MPEG-II. I notice that 
> when I play DIVX50 AVI files, the MPlayer output shows information about 
> the color depth, which is as low as 12 bpp sometimes. However, my files 
> generated by MEncoder do not show info about the colour depth.
> 
> Does this mean that MPEG-II files are always 24 bpp? Can I set the colour 
> depth? If yes, how?

Those values are completely meaningless. The bpp field in the avi header
only makes sense for some lossless codecs. For other codecs, some
applications have chosen to write 24bpp in the header while some write
12bpp. Either way it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.