[mythtv-users] transcoding perfect dvd rips to xvid

[Willy Boyd]

On 2/21/07, Scott Alfter <mythtv at salfter.dyndns.org> wrote:
> Yeah, I left that out because my MythTV box (which does most of my conversions)
> is an Athlon 64.  I added threads=2 to a copy of the script for doing HD
> encodes on a Core 2 Duo.
>
> I've not had a chance to verify that dual-core HD encode all the way through,
> though, because I've run into trouble muxing the resulting video.  I suspect
> MP4Box goes haywire on files >4GB, and even the newest mkvmerge has issues
> muxing raw H.264 (which is why my H.264 & AC3 script muxes the video by itself
> with MP4Box and then muxes that with the audio with mkvmerge).  I've not gotten
> around to reencoding the video at a lower bitrate (used 6 Mbps the first time)
> because it takes somewhere around 15-20 hours to run...it's like I'm ripping
> DVDs to SVCD with a 450-MHz K6-III again. :-)
>

Ahh... I wondered what all that was for.  MP4Box, mkvmerge and
Matroska were entirely new to me until yesterday.  I spent my lunch
hour (and then some!) reading about mencoder and H.264 and everything
else.

I really hope my second test encode last night came out better,
because I got a sample with my own eyes what H.264 was all about (well
the first half of the movie until the "smearing", anyway).  Even at a
paltry 800kbps bitrate, it looked stunning compared to the same
bitrate Xvid.  Nearly identical to the DVD on my 42" LCD.