[mythtv-users] Re:MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 Transcoding comparisons

[Ben Curtis]

> I wonder... Is the quality of a 3.7G MPEG2 file transcoded to 2.2GB 
> MPEG4 better or worse than just encoding the original MPEG2 at 2.2G in 
> the first place? I have trouble believing it's better quality and worth 
> the effort, unless for some reason you really want the results as MPEG4. 
>

Does mythtranscode use variable bitrates and/or multipass for encoding the 
MPEG4's?  If so, then a high quality file transcoded to low quality will 
look better than a low quality capture.

This is because the transcode can lower the bitrate during slow scenes and 
speed it up during fast ones, then keep an average rate of 2200.  I'm not 
sure if mythtranscode is this advanced though, as I have not yet gotten it 
to not segfault.

Ben