Dear Lord! I've got VL on two different computers. One has two hard drives with 5 different VL versions, the other computer has one. Of course the text file was among the 5. lol
OK here's my recipe. Keep in mind that it is set up for transcoding Xvid or Divx to NTSC DVD. You're gonna have to pour over the mencoder docs to adjust if you need PAL. Also note. Most downloaded Xvid's or Divx's have the black letterbox (if any) trimmed off to make it a smaller file size. I have it set up so that when the frame is resized to NTSC, it will fill the screen from side to side, keeping the aspect ratio, then adding equal black on top and bottom to achieve the needed height.
If the borders already exist, no harm done. It will be a bit extra wasted filtering. The resulting DVD will use AC3 sound. If the input.avi already has AC3 sound. Use the "With AC3" one. This will copy the original AC3 sound directly. The other will convert the sound to AC3 from whatever format it is in.
I've included "HQ" versions as well. These will take much longer to encode. To be honest... I don't use them. The Xvid or Divx has already had loss in quality. So I don't see the point. No sense in putting lipstick on a pig, because it will still be a pig. I find the lower quality setting to be plenty acceptable. And even more so when using a standalone DVD player on a regular television. A televison is so much more forgiving than a computer monitor.
Also you need to set the
vrc_maxrate, vbitrate, vrc_minrate,
to your needs. I set them all to the same value. Call me a fool if you want. Most people would rather have a variable bit rate for a smaller file size. Mencoder will often ignore your wishes and you will end up with a small file size and low quality. I like to have the highest bitrate I can get. I want one movie, one DVD. I like the entire DVD used if possible. So I set all three setting equal, at a bitrate that will completely fill the DVD. Mencoder will honor these settings.
You can find a dependable online bitrate calculator here:
http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htmDon't change the audio bitrate (abitrate) on my recipe. It is set to a DVD standard.
Change "infile.avi" and "outfileDVD.mpeg" to suite your needs.
Oh.... enough already, here they are.
***HQ Very slow!!!******
***If audio is already ac3****
mencoder infile.avi -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -srate 48000 -ofps 30000/1001 \
-vf scale=720:,expand=720:480,harddup \
-ovc lavc -oac copy \
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=6800:vbitrate=6800:vrc_minrate=6800:\
keyint=18:trell:mbd=2:precmp=2:subcmp=2:cmp=2:dia=-10:predia=-10:cbp:mv0:\
vqmin=1:lmin=1:dc=10:vstrict=0:aspect=4/3 \
-o outfileDVD.mpeg
****if audio is not ac3****
mencoder infile.avi -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -srate 48000 -ofps 30000/1001 \
-vf scale=720:,expand=720:480,harddup \
-ovc lavc -oac lavc \
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=6400:vbitrate=6400:vrc_minrate=6400:\
keyint=18:trell:mbd=2:precmp=2:subcmp=2:cmp=2:dia=-10:predia=-10:cbp:mv0:\
vqmin=1:lmin=1:dc=10:vstrict=0:aspect=4/3:acodec=ac3:abitrate=192 \
-o outfileDVD.mpg
***Not HQ******
***If audio is already ac3****
mencoder infile.avi -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -srate 48000 -ofps 30000/1001 \
-vf scale=720:,expand=720:480,harddup \
-ovc lavc -oac copy \
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=6800:vbitrate=6800:vrc_minrate=6800:\
keyint=18:trell:\
vstrict=0:aspect=4/3:dc=10 \
-o outfileDVD.mpeg
****if audio is not ac3****
mencoder infile.avi -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -srate 48000 -ofps 30000/1001 \
-vf scale=720:,expand=720:480,harddup \
-ovc lavc -oac lavc \
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=6050:vbitrate=6050:vrc_minrate=6050:\
keyint=18:trell:dc=10:vstrict=0:aspect=4/3:acodec=ac3:abitrate=192 \
-o outfileDVD.mpg