Video encoding

Video Encoding

Videos can be encoded through the command line, as single commands, or using scripts, or using GUI interface to command line options. This article covers some of the possibile methods.

GUI Conversions

Several graphical user interfaces exist to assist with the conversion of video to new formats.

• winff
• ogmrip
• dvdrip
• handbrake
• avidemux

Scripted Conversions

xvidenc is a script available in the AUR. It uses mencoder and might be a good fit, if want to convert some videos but lack most of the knowledge: While there are (probably?) even easier scripts out there, this one still gives you a lot of choices (most of which you can ignore by pressing enter to use a decent default settings).

h264enc is an advanced shell script for encoding DVDs or video files to the H.264 format using the encoding utility MEncoder from MPlayer.

Specific Commands

Encoding AVI Videos in Windows and Mac Readable Formats

Use these commands:

opt="vbitrate=2160000:mbd=2:keyint=132:vqblur=1.0:cmp=2:subcmp=2:dia=2:mv0:last_pred=3"

mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vpass=1:$opt -oac mp3lame -o /dev/null input.avi
mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vpass=2:$opt -oac mp3lame -o output.avi input.avi

"input.avi" is the AVI you made using Linux utilities, and "output.avi" is the AVI you want to make which will be readable by Windows and Mac users.

Common Misconceptions

(Easy one-liners? I'll think I'll do this Section first, as I did & do have a LOT of misconceptions and I'm sure a lot of people who mostly used windows to convert videos in the past have, too;))

I want to learn some basics

look (I'm not sure where: links some starting points to look depending on what one needs?)

Containers

avi, mkv etc... (max one line description + one link for the most used ones?)

Codecs

xvid, stuff (..same...?)

Choosing the right stuff

no idea