Yes, seems very normal. In fact quicker than my results. Maybe you have a faster machine? I've found ffmpeg quicker than mencoder though the options used will also make a difference.

For your information, transforming (2-pass) a 5GB MJPEG file (384x576 from TV) into a 2GB DVD-compatible MPEG2 file (352x576) takes about 15 hours on my PC (see "salon" below).
That's with picture improvement though (typically: pp=lb/ha/va/dr,hqdn3d).

Yves.

After tearing my hair out with dvdauthor for a bit, I found kmediafactory to work a treat. It's got a pretty simple GUI interface. You can make menus with audio and nice background pictures without much hassle.

Thanks for the link. Seems interesting indeed

so my guess iis I have a better system than most.. therefore upgrading hardware wont make that much of a difference. so more questions. how to use ffmpeg (give commands)

To make it do what?

sorry didnt post that right. i wanted to know how to make mencoder and ffmpeg encode movies

To encode for burning to DVDs, VCDs this link shows how to encode various formats using mencoder. The gentoo wiki also has a nice bunch of example for various tools (including ffmpeg), and even provides a link for an example input file to mess about with.

Personally I use a program called DeVeDe, automates the whole process... couldn't be easier!!

http://www.rastersoft.com/programas/devede.html

I recommend using ffmpeg only to encode the audio into AC3. Use either mencoder or transcode to encode the video.

[Mencoder]
NTSC:
mencoder -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:vaspect=16/9:vframerate=30 -nosound -ofps 30000/1001\
-ovc lavc -lavcopts \
vcodec=mpeg2video:\
vrc_buf_size=1835:\
keyint=15:\
vrc_maxrate=9800:\
vbitrate=8000:\
aspect=16/9:trell:mbd=2:precmp=2:subcmp=2:cmp=2:dia=-10:predia=-10:cbp:mv0:\
vqmin=1:lmin=1:dc=10 \
-vf scale=720:480:1,pp=ci/ac
input.avi -o output.mpg

PAL:
mencoder -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:vaspect=16/9:vframerate=25 -nosound -ofps 25\
-ovc lavc -lavcopts \
vcodec=mpeg2video:\
vrc_buf_size=1835:\
keyint=15:\
vrc_maxrate=9800:\
vbitrate=8000:\
aspect=16/9:trell:mbd=2:precmp=2:subcmp=2:cmp=2:dia=-10:predia=-10:cbp:mv0:\
vqmin=1:lmin=1:dc=10 \
-vf scale=720:576:1,pp=ci/ac \
input.avi -o output.mpg

[FFmpeg]
ffmpeg -ac 2 -ar 48000 -ab 224 -vn -acodec ac3 -i input.avi output.ac3

[mplex]
mplex -f 8 -o outputfinal.mpg output.ac3 output.mpg
or
mplex -f 9 -o outputfinal.mpg output.ac3 output.mpg

[dvdauthor]
dvdauthor -o finaldvd outputfinal.mpg
dvdauthor -o finaldvd -T

Test Author DVD with out manus:
mplayer -dvd-device=[path]/finaldvd/VIDEO_TS dvd://

Test Author DVD with menus:
[Xine]
1) Run Xine
2) Set DVD device to [path]/finaldvd/VIDEO_TS
3) Click DVD button
4) Click play

[VLC]
1) Run VLC
2) Set DVD device to [path]/finaldvd/VIDEO_TS
3) Open DVD
4) Click play



To keep the quality high I suggest using Mplayer/Mencoder expand video filter to add black borders around the video clip. Make sure the resolution that you pick is divisble by 16 or else you have to start all over or DVD players will not be able to play except mplayer.

If you have video clips that uses mp3 as the audio, audio and video sync may get worst. The audio and video being out of sync is caused by variable audio bit rate. The audio bit rate needs to be set to constant for future video clips.

ffmpeg is not any faster than mencoder and transcode. Each of them takes the same amount of time. People said that ffmpeg is faster is because ffmpeg does not use high quality settings by default. Of course other programes do this too, so I suggest specifying the high quality settings.

hey thanx guys i didnt know this thread would go this long. I guess a lot more people had questions and answers to this than i thought. well all of my questions have been answered thanx again

while I obviously do not know how to actually encode anything yet in *nix(though this thread is going to change that methinks), I do know that it is silly to throw (excessive) bitrate at this particular type of video conversion.

before transcoding an entire set of videos, cut a 30 second or minute long clip out of one of them, preferably a clip that has both bright and dark scenes(a "representative" clip). Then convert this clip to dvd/mpeg2 a few times at different settings, starting with low quality. Compare the results to the source, there will come a point(long before you get to the highest bitrates) where higher bitrates just don't make any difference to visual quality, and only increase the size of the output file - that's the bitrate/quality you want to encode at, if not a little less(to fit even more on a single disc).

paragraph not applicable to linux: With that "method", and with the use of "MP2 audio" afforded by WinAVI, I think the most I've fit on a 4.4gb dvd is 11 45 minute tv episodes, or 5 or 6 episodes with 2 movies /end non-applicable info. mp2 audio is an option too btw, though, while doubtful, it's possible some players can't handle it (I haven't seen a single one though).


thanks for that link, just the kind of thing I've been wondering about.

Frankly I just don't understand how people can just hack out a config with so many variables - how do you guys know which options you need, and what choices are correct for them, etc etc? Is there tool I don't realize is involved that presents you with each option and its choices, or do you just refer to the manual every time(refering to it -every time- would be required for me and hopeless memory)? I guess once you hack one out for a certain type of project you can keep it for future use... but I'm still impressed with you people.


So are there any tools that can handle converting vbr mp3 without losing the audio sync? wouldn't this problem be negated by encoding the audio and video separately and then muxing them? Basically everything I have in avi that I have any insterest in putting on a dvd has vbr mp3 audio.

you were know how to do this from the command line is great but, this program is simple and good. I now like this better than Avidemux