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On Saturday 24 February 2007, Kellystewart00@×××××××××.au wrote |
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about '[gentoo-user] ot - video encoding': |
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> Hi List im looking for a program to encode from avi to divx does anyone |
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> know of a program to do this? |
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Short answer: mencoder |
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Longer answer: |
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(1) Avi is not a format -- or at least it's not a video format. It's |
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a "wrapper" format that can hold various video formats with various audio |
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formats interleaved. AVI = Audio/Video Interleave |
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|
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(2) Mplayer and Xine are the big a/v decoders, with ffmpeg being used by |
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both projects (IIRC); vlc is a very useful third place, and gstreamer does |
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have some "native" codecs although it can (and IIRC, still generally does) |
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call out to the xine, mplayer, or ffmpeg libraries for some formats. |
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|
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(3) Encoders are much more fragmented, although ffmpeg provides many |
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encoders, and mplayer can use the ffmpeg encoders as well as any native |
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ones it might have, plus it understands the libraries (or interfaces via |
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system() calls) with some others. Xine, vlc, and gstreamer are, AFAIK not |
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oriented towards encoding. |
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|
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(4) Divx is just an video format and if you intend to combine it with |
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audio, you'll have to choose a format for that. I prefer vorbis; with |
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speex for those cases where is audio is literally just a voice-over. |
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However, vorbis and speex decoders generally aren't shipped with |
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proprietary OSes such as OS X or Windows and are playable on relatively |
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few portable devices. MP3 is fine for mono or stereo audio, but AFAIK it |
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doesn't support more channels. AC3 is IME larger for the same quality, |
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but does support 5.1 and other formats with more channels. |
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|
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(5) Again, divx is just a video format, so you'll need a container format |
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if you want to combine it with other media, like subtitles or audio. I |
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prefer Matroska or ogg. Neither is shipped with proprietary OSes and both |
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have poor support on portables, although ogg has marginally better support |
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than Matroska. I don't believe divx is can be shipped in the standard mp4 |
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container, but I could be wrong. It's normally shipped in, oddly enough |
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in your case, AVI format. |
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|
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So, you have a couple more high-level decisions to make before you |
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transcode. Once you decide on them, you'll still need to determine |
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encoder-specific parameters, bitrates, and whotnot, although sane defaults |
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are generally provided by most tools when possible. However, the shear |
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number of options may be a little bit overwhelming. Tip: doesn't change |
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any settings you don't have to the first time, you can play with all |
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the "knobs" once you get base functionality. |
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Mencoder is probably is most featureful transcoding tool, but you may be |
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able to find a GUI that the features you need and is user-friendly. I |
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don't do enough transcoding to have any recommendations other than |
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mencoder, because I got familiar enough with it to do what I needed and |
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stopped looking for anything else. |
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|
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-- |
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Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. |
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bss03@××××××××××.net ((_/)o o(\_)) |
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ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' |
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http://iguanasuicide.org/ \_/ |
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New GPG Key! Old key expires 2007-03-25. Upgrade NOW! |
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