Well,
IMHO I wouldn't be much concerned about the avg bitrate as long as I am able to play fine KDVDs in my 28" TVset.
Hopefully they will look good also on my 32" TVset as soon as I buy it...
In the Linux vs Windowz field I'd say I would be glad to use Linux if it were a bit more user friendly.
It still got a lot of dark folders where my ideas get greyed...
Also I'd agree with Hydeus on the "you have to ugrade from x.xxx.1 to x.xxx.2 if you want to play KDVDs on your Linux box".
That's the worst thing you'll get in a very good OS built from code shared on the net and not by a big company as big blue or M$.
By now I'm stuck with M$ XP Pro and I'd like to get used to mencoder/mplayer/ffmpeg or whatever so that when time comes for Linux I will be in good shape to make my KDVDs :wink:
So, russian pal, where would you start if you were me? I already d/l Windows' mencoder toolame and your script.
Now what?
Cross your fingers guys. Maybe sh0dan and the guys will port avisynth to Linux 8)

I keep reading here that there are problems with ffmpeg and windows. Has anyone ever tried this ffmpeg windows build, based on 0.48 ?
Never had any problems with this version and is a lot faster than tmpgenc.

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/download/ffmpeggui02c.zip

It's not a matter of any problems but a matter of making K(S)VCD's and not regular (S)VCD's. I'm downloading gui from youre link, and will se how much it is helpfull. Thx.

Edit: just downloaded. Wow 8O Very helpfull audio converter :cid:
:secret: Go to the KVCD main page nad read what it's KVCD format :screwy: :lol:

yes.. the gui is just for converting wav to ac3 as much as I know. But the ffmpeg command line is working ok. And since you can use a lot of parameters for encoding I guess it will be possible to do kvcd with it. Sorry, I don't really know the specification for KVCD.

Be aware, that when I have tried current version of ffmpeg 0.4.8
it produced mpeg stream is not valid for vcdimager.
The problem was with video packet sizes after ffmpeg muxed video and audio. i've tried packet size option of ffmpeg with no luck and later found in mailing list that ffmpeg muxer is a bugger and can't produce valid (s)vcd stream.
It appears that ffmpeg development is dead, but fortunately ffmpeg has a second life as libavcodec in mencoder.

I use ffmpeg to produce MPG files to burn them via DVD-lab so I get 4 or 5 movies onto one DVD. I first had some problems with the produced MPG files, mainly DVD-lab reporting much too high bitrates although I gave them a fixed bitrate. Meanwhile I have a set of command-lines to produce good MPG files, very small in size but still a good quality.
I just hope it isn't true that ffmpeg is dead. I also love that ffserver from the ffmpeg package.
I never tried mencoder. I tried transcode a while back and it was terrible slow. My linux box is an old P3-667 Mhz and it encodes nearly as fast as my windows P4-2.4 GHz with Tmpgenc. Someone know if mencoder is as fast as ffmpeg ?

mpeg files produced by ffmpeg is ok, but have you tried to image them directly (without re-multiplexing) into vcd or svcd?
Also, there were reports that ffmpeg don't honor max video bitrate. dvd specs for mpeg are more relaxed compared to svcd (video packet sizes and max bitrates, that's why you was successful).
Overhead of mencoder is low and libavcodec is a port of ffmpeg into mencoder/mplayer, so it is about fast as ffmpeg.
Also, mencoder have more options to control quantisation and bitrate.
You can try my script http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7771&start=39
or read the whole thread and any feedback is appreciated.

Hmm I tried your script.. Had some problems and got a new mplayer CVS. Strangely now I get a error message (error parsing commandline). Tried the produced command-line without the script and get a error message saying:

lavdopts is not an MEncoder option

hmm.. seems strange to me.

-lavdopts is one of many decoding/filtering options of mplayer and mencoder as a part of mplayer bundle. I use 1.0pre3-1 version, it is also available as precompiled rpm packages.

Yes it is about the same speed. I get about 47 fps on my athlon 650 but note that I am using the windows version of mencoder so it should be the same speed or faster in linux.

Yes it is about the same speed. I get about 47 fps on my athlon 650 but note that I am using the windows version of mencoder so it should be the same speed or faster in linux. The only thing I need to figure out is how to input .asv files into mencoder.

hmm,
You meant avs files instead of asv files, right?
I don't think menkoder can read our avs files :cry: since ffmpeg also couldn't...
I guess sh0dan could talk with the guys that are building menkoder :idea:
That would really rock :!:

Well I installed 1.0pre3-3 and gave russianexpats script a try. I changed the script so it gives me a MPEG2 instead of MPEG1 and changed audio rate to 48000 Hz for burning to DVD. I also took away the vcdimager and cdrdao part.

Did the same encoding with pure ffmpeg with -hq and -me full (slowest).

mencoder took 200 minutes to finish the encoding. ffmpeg only 90 minutes.
OK. The mecoder produced file was much smaller but the ffmpeg produced file was (only) 1GB big. And for burning to DVD this is ok for me.

I've put macroblock mbd=2 parameter and a lot of other parameters in ulavcopts{1,2,3} to target the best quality in minimal size. With mbd=0 and another idct function the script will run twice faster.
another thing: did you use custom K-matrices in ffmpeg? if not, then speed comparasion is not correct.
I don't argue, but the question still remains - does ffmpeg produces mpeg stream valid for vcd or svcd?

Ya I meant .avs files. I tried using the ffvfw makeavis to make an avi file of my script but mencoder doesn't know the ffvfw codec. If mencoder have some filters, I would try that out but the manual doesn't go into enough detailing for mencoder.

well certainly you can't compare these times for encoding. I didn't use K-matrices. Your script is just great. Too bad I only have a slow computer. Encoding takes just too much time.
About SVCD. I don't know why ffmpeg shouldn't be able to produce these. I have no problem with the max bitrate but I never do SVCD. In the latest CVS of ffmpeg the -target svcd is working again so if there is soon a -target kvcd than that would be great. Anyway I'm quite happy with the result and the speed of ffmpeg and I just hope that it will be developed further.

Peace :) my linux box is celeron 950MHz FSB100, so it is about the same as yours P3-667 FSB133.
Encoding mpeg2 I get 8-10fps and mpeg1 I get 20fps.
but I have quadro nvidia card, so I wonder how to use its features to speed up encoding. a kind of loopback maybe? or output in yuv and then fifo pipe?