[mythtv-users] nuvexport/transcode settings survey for acceptable quality

[Kyle Kelly]

Matt Vollmar wrote:

> I would like to take a quick survey to find out what settings you guys 
> find acceptable for exporting movies.  I have several (16 or so) 
> movies that I want to export to a smaller format to save space.  Here 
> are my questions:
>
> 1)  What format do you use to retain the most quality?
> 2)  What bitrates for video and audio?
> 3)  Do you use 2-pass or 1-pass?
> 4)  Any gotchas?
> 5)  What is the size you get per hour of video?
>
> I've learned quite a bit about ffmpeg recently for DVD-quality 
> exports, but i don't really want these movies to be that big.  I would 
> like to fit 4 movies per DVD if possible (not necessarily in MPEG 
> format -- I'm using Movix).
>
> Thanks for any comments you can offer.
>
> Matt
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Heres what I use for my daily transcoding of a show into XviD (version 
1.0.2):

Enable Myth cutlist? [Yes]
Enable noise reduction (slower, but better results)? [Yes] No
Enable deinterlacing? [Yes] No
Crop broadcast overscan (2% border)? [Yes]
Audio bitrate? [128] 96
Variable bitrate video? [Yes]
Multi-pass (slower, but better quality)? [No]
VBR quality/quantisation (1-31)? [6] 4
Width? [624] 320
Height? [240]

With commercials edited out it takes about 1 1/2 hours on my P4 1.6Ghz 
and the file sizes are around 80-100meg.

As you might have guessed, quality isn't that important to me, although 
I think the files are surprisingly watchable.