mencoder reduce size of output-file.avi
 

I was following an old post trying to convert mkv to avi, using mencoder:
mencoder input.mkv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o output.avi

It worked, but the resulting avi file was more than twice the size of the mkv file. It seems to be of good/great quality, but I need to get it down to about the size of the mkv. How do I do that?

See this site page.

The input mkv file is using some video compression while the output file is perhaps raw video file. That's why double size.
You should pass some video compression options as specified in above link.

E.g.

Thanks everyone, for your help. I've got a lot of learning to do about all of this, but your answers have set me on a good course, and I managed to get the immediate job done, (and took notes so I can do it again). So I'm going to mark the thread "solved".

http://archive.debian.org/debian/poo...eb7u1_i386.deb

http://archive.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mplayer/

@mount.nfs
In my opionion, mencoder had been broken, or doesn't work well for 10-12 years. ffmpeg is a much better choice.