Automated Cutting and Transcoding Guide Using Mencoder

[Clanky]

My PAL dvb recordings are 16:9 mpegs, 720 x 576, some are 544 x 576.

When it is converting, it shows swscaler: 720x576 -> 512x384, displayed 682x384. The resulting xvid properties are 512x384.

When I play the xvid in vlc player the default aspect ratio is wrong & I have to select 16:9 in vlc.

Is there anything I can do to correct this?

[Deusxmachina]

There was talk of using a .mkv container a few pages back. Can the avi settings be changed to .mp4 to get .264 in an .mp4? Figured it's better to ask first before messing with it.

[vmq]

Here's 0.5.5b. Please test it and post any issue of question you have.

Here's what's new:

0.5.5b
* Tweaked autocrop settings for PAL material.
* PSP Profile now uses x264 AVC for video.
* When ripping anamorphic DVD's and choosing full resolution, you will get 848x480 for NTSC and 1024x576 for PAL.
* Added custom_crop option. (Thanks vmq) If you want all shows of a certain size (IE 720x480) to get cropped, set the custom variables to your liking. If you also set full_resolution=yes, make sure your final height and width are divisible by 16. The encoder likes that
* added custom_letterbox option to override script generated letterbox settings.
* croptop has been depreciated in favor of the custom_crop_top variable.
* MKV container support added. (Preliminary)

Thanks stattik,

I found that first cropping 720x480 to 700x364 (my crop values are 10,10,60,56) and then scaling to 608x336 are not worth the few saved bytes and the extra scaling actually hurts the picture quality. My following patched version of your script offers better cropping without scaling abilities plus a small bugfix:

0.5.5b + vmq1 patch
* When cropping in full_resolution mode make sure to increase the cropped width and height to multiples of 16, round left and top offset accordingly.
* Set the aspect ratio of cropped full_resolution letterbox recordings to 16/9 and to the encoded aspect ratio for scaled letterbox recordings. The latter is not strictly 16/9, but close.
* Add full_res_patterns to force full_resolution for matching filenames.
* Add use_twopass to allow making two pass encoding the default
* Fix problems with filenames with special characters, as & or ^. (Law & Order episodes can now be encoded )

The attached archive includes the changed batch file and the diff file showing all changes with respect to the 0.5.5b version.

Volker

P.S.: The script and patch file also contain my local configuration changes, if you need it I can create a version with only the actual changes but without my configuration changes.

[-stattik-]

There was talk of using a .mkv container a few pages back. Can the avi settings be changed to .mp4 to get .264 in an .mp4? Figured it's better to ask first before messing with it.

OK, I'm back from vacation so I'll be catching up with this thread.

Using 0.5.5b with the following should work.

Code:

SET container_format=mp4
SET video_encoder=x264

[-stattik-]

My PAL dvb recordings are 16:9 mpegs, 720 x 576, some are 544 x 576.

When it is converting, it shows swscaler: 720x576 -> 512x384, displayed 682x384. The resulting xvid properties are 512x384.

When I play the xvid in vlc player the default aspect ratio is wrong & I have to select 16:9 in vlc.

Is there anything I can do to correct this?

Are these mpegs letterboxed? Typically 720 x 576 is a 4:3 resolution which is why the script uses 512x384 for a resolution. If these mpegs are truely 16:9 and are not letterboxed then you can SET profile=hdtv which will give you the correct aspect ratio. Would you be able to supply some samples of these videos?

[-stattik-]

I'm really not having luck with the mkv container. The video data is in the encode but the video just pin isn't rendered when testing in GraphEdit. I tried VLC and video is rendered but is very-very-very jumpy/jerky. I'm able to build a correct DS graph with any other mkv file I throw at my system and I verified on multiple(3) machines.

The jitter is from bframes. You can set bframes=0 to test but it still won't create a successfull DS graph. I believed the lavf muxer was fixed but perhaps there are still issues to be ironed out. Mplayer played your file just fine.

edit: The "( )" in the filename is confirmed to cause issues; any possible fix?

perhaps VMQ's solution to & and ^ can be extended to ( and ). I'll look into it.

[Deusxmachina]

Using 0.5.5b with the following should work.

Code:

SET container_format=mp4
SET video_encoder=x264

I started from scratch with the 0.5.5b and new build of Mencoder. 2008.02.06.7z. Fortunately, a previous page mentioned Mencoder only getting mp4/mkv support from the October builds on, or it may not have worked no matter what since I was using a C2D build from around July and might explain why I was having problems, other than just user-error.

mp4 and mkv do indeed work, with xvid. Currently, I can't put x264 in them, or in anything, for that matter. It errors almost immediately and closes. Still working on that part, but just wanted to let people know who are trying to get mkv or mp4 to work.

[-stattik-]

I started from scratch with the 0.5.5b and new build of Mencoder. 2008.02.06.7z. Fortunately, a previous page mentioned Mencoder only getting mp4/mkv support from the October builds on, or it may not have worked no matter what since I was using a C2D build from around July and might explain why I was having problems, other than just user-error.

mp4 and mkv do indeed work, with xvid. Currently, I can't put x264 in them, or in anything, for that matter. It errors almost immediately and closes. Still working on that part, but just wanted to let people know who are trying to get mkv or mp4 to work.

What kind of audio are you using? I'm using mp3 and I've successfully created mp4 and mkv files with x264 video although they don't create a proper graph in graphedit. Can you post a debug or the command line that mencoder is launched with?

[pastro]

Is the latest version of your script still command line callable so it can be used with skiptool?
Currently I include 5.1g which is getting a little dated.

[-stattik-]

Is the latest version of your script still command line callable so it can be used with skiptool?
Currently I include 5.1g which is getting a little dated.

I haven't changed anything as far as that's concerned.