<div dir="ltr">I have some experience encoding video, although not on linux. I have a few tidbits to add:<br><br>* Try out multiple compression settings for a small, designated length of video. Keep it to maybe 1-2 mins long with some action. Make a table and note the settings, resultant file size, and the time it took to transcode it.<br>
<br>* Keep in mind video and audio are separate encodings. <br><br>* If you are encoding to burn to a DVD to play on a DVD player, you
need to conform to DVD standards. Double check, but I believe this
means MPEG2 video and MP3/AAC/AC-3 audio.<br><br>* If you are encoding to watch on a PC, you can achieve much higher compression rates using one of the best codecs available: x264. x264 is a FOSS encoder for H.264/MPEG4-AVC. I know the number of acronyms in this email may get newbies confused, but don't worry too much. x264 is very very good, although it may take a while to encode. You can play it with a good player like mplayer or VLC.<br>
<br>* Know and understand the following things:<br>constant bit rate (CBR)<br>variable bit rate (VBR)<br>average bit rate (ABR)<br>two-pass encoding<br>codec vs container<br><br>* Know what approximate bitrate you need. If you want 60 mins of video to come out to be 4.6 GB (0.1 GB buffer).....<br>
4.6 GB = 37683.2 megabits<br>60 min = 3600 sec<br>megabits/sec = 10.4675556 Mbps (megabits per second) for video AND audio.<br>Check my math. I had surgery last week and am still on painkillers.<br><br>* Dave is right: Getting the right compression settings is practically an art form, and difficult to perfect. *Run tests* Run tests so you don't end up with crappy video after 12 hours of encoding, and so you don't end up with a filesize 100 MB too big.<br>
<br>I hope this helped! Feel free to ask more specific questions. I can't tell you about the settings on ffmpeg though. You might also look at <i>mencoder</i> as an alternative to ffmpeg. Good luck!!!<br><br>Helpful links:<br>
<br><a href="http://www.doom9.org/">http://www.doom9.org/</a><br><a href="http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html">http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html</a><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org">http://en.wikipedia.org</a><br>
<a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html">http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html</a><br><br>Craig Younkins<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Dave Dodge <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dododge@dododge.net">dododge@dododge.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 07:47:25AM -0400, Rajiv Gunja wrote:<br>
> I would like to know if there is a batch processing software which<br>
> can export these .DV files to mpeg or anything that is high quality<br>
> and a manageable size (DVD R5).<br>
<br>
</div>For batch-mode file conversions, see:<br>
<br>
mjpegtools<br>
<a href="http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/</a><br>
<br>
ffmpeg<br>
<a href="http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/" target="_blank">http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/</a><br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> Also after converting, it seems to be of much lower quality than the<br>
> raw .DV file.<br>
<br>
</div>Most likely due to the compression settings. I suspect getting really<br>
good results while significantly dropping the bitrate is something of<br>
an art form. It may take lots of test runs to figure out which<br>
settings and processing steps work best for your video content.<br>
<br>
-Dave Dodge<br>
<br>
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