[mdlug] mpeg files from MythTV play w/o audio in PS3

[Ingles, Raymond]

> From: R. Kannan [mailto:rkannan at peoplepc.com]
> 1) I did not understand the two pass encoding. It looks to me 
> like the first pass is directing output to /dev/null and so 
> basically does not do anything.

 It's outputting a file called "divx2pass.log". The first pass analyzes
the frames and makes a record of where there's more motion vs. less motion,
etc. Then, on the second pass, it uses that information to optimize how it
allocates bits to get the best possible picture.

> 2) The encoding seems to take a long time. Is it because of 
> vbitrate=1024?

 No, it's because it's HD video. Video transcoding is, well, processor
intensive. It takes a while. I've got a dual-core Athlon X2 "5600+" and
I usually just fire things off and go away for a while, or start them
before I go to bed.

> Also this script produced an error as follows 
> videocodec: libavcodec (1280x720 fourcc=78766964 [divx])
> [mpeg4 @ 0x8744570][lavc rc] Error: bitrate too low for this 
> video with these parameters.

 I wasn't aware you were converting HD video; that does need a higher
bitrate than DVD/TV video. Try 2K or 4K. But, that being said...

 Now, DIVX (basically MPEG-4) is better (more efficient in the sense of
"better picture for a given bitrate") than MPEG-2, but takes more CPU to
encode and play. The newer standard, H264, is more efficient than DIVX,
but takes even *more* CPU to encode and play.

 My Palm can play DIVX, but not H264, so that's what I tend to use for
non-HD stuff. The PS3 has some serious CPU horsepower, though, and can
easily handle even 1080p H264. (I know, I've tried.) H264 is probably a
better choice for you, but I have less experience with that. I've *done*
it, and even put together some utility scripts for it, but I don't have
them here. I'll have to find them tonight when I get home. :-/

> BTW, I found another flash drive that worked with PS3. The 
> one I tried earlier seems to have some software tat makes it 
> show up as two drives on Windows. On Linux, it gets mounted 
> as /media/usbdisk but two icons show up on the KDE desktop. 
> This may be the reason for the problems on PS3

 Huh. Maybe the PS3 has problems if it's more than one partition.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                                (313) 227-2317

  "Certitude is not the test of certainty." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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