[mythtv-users] Mythdvd creates large files that stutter.

[Joe Ripley]

On Dec 13, 2007 3:20 PM, Ryan Freng <ryanfreng at gmail.com> wrote:

> What, if any, is the proffered way to get great quality transcode at a
> size of 40 minutes ~ 350mb?

The downloaded videos that you describe are usually encoded using a
2-pass method and a fine-tuned bitrate calculation to make sure the
resulting file is as close as possible to the ~350MB mark (for the 40
- 45 min shows, and 175MB for the 20 - 22 min shows) and yet the best
possible quality.  The end idea (of course) is to use some multiple of
700MB so you can archive them to CD easily.

MythDVD's transcoding parameters are set in the database.  Info at:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Dvdtranscode_table

If you really want the best control over end file size, bitrate and
quality, I'd suggest using tools like ffmpeg or mencoder.  These tools
will give you the best fine-tuning control over your result video.  I
personally prefer the X264 codec... it gives me the best results.
However, it takes forever to run a 2-pass encode using the highest
quality options.

A good place to start is the mplayer documentation:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/index.html

If you want to determine the EXACT bitrate you should use for a given
end file size, there's info here:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4.html#menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-2pass

-- 
Joe Ripley
vitaminjoe at gmail.com