On 3/22/2010 5:54 PM, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote: > James Board<jpboard2<at> yahoo.com> writes: > > >> I'm transcoding MPEG-2 files into mpeg4 with mencoder. >> > Any reason why you don't use ffmpeg? > > >> My 2-pass encoding command is: >> >> mencoder INFILE -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac copy -o /dev/null >> mencoder INFILE -ovc lavc -lavcopts >> codec=mpeg4:vbitrate=4000:mbd=2:trell:vpass=2 -oac copy -o OUTFILE >> > I am no encoding expert, but I believe the same options should be used for first > and second pass. And did you read the documentation? It should be good for > MPEG-4 encoding. > > >> The source material is also 4 mbits/sec. >> > Codec? > > I think he meant input codec is MPEG-2. If you think you have posterization and this is analog TV, try denoise. I like denoise3d but there is some tinkering that can be done. It can improve compression quality dramatically. Like Eugen said, you need to use the same options on first and subsequent passes. What resolution is this? With 4Mbits and 720/480/576 you should get some really good quality. /re