What Encoder Do You Use With Linux?

[jason50146]

Hi all-

I was thinking about this today and thought I would start a thread asking about the different encoders folks use on Linux systems. I am curious as to what others in the Linux world do. A good discussion may help expand my horizons and help others, too.

I like to use the Handbrake GUI. Before I jumped ship from the Windows world, I used the original Gordian Knot. The handbrake GUI reminds me a lot of Gordian Knot, but there are fewer steps with Handbrake. I like the handbrake interface and it does a lot of the leg work for you.

Before that I used Mencoder from the CLI almost exclusively. The only complaint I had about that was that you had to determine the crop and correct aspect ratio ahead of time. I seem to recall having some problems hard-coding subtitles, but was eventually able to do it. I never tried any of the mencoder GUIs.

I have tried several different versions of AVIDemux, but always seem to have at least one problem with it. Last time I tried to recode a DVD, it did not handle audio with progressive video very well. The audio would always get "chopped off" before the end of the video. That is, the audio lined up great with the video, but about 80% of the way through the audio stopped. Now that I am buying blu-ray disks, it looks like AVIDemux can't handle m2ts files? It loads the file in and then indicates it can't determine the aspect ratio and closes.

[microchip8]

I use mencoder with my own script front-end h264enc. I don't need much and it suits me well

[nm]

Before that I used Mencoder from the CLI almost exclusively. The only complaint I had about that was that you had to determine the crop and correct aspect ratio ahead of time.
Aspect ratio is detected and passed to the encoder automatically (some codecs have a switch for this though, like "autoaspect" for lavc). Cropping isn't that hard either, just copy the line given by mplayer -vf cropdetect, which is pretty much the same as cropping half-automatically with a GUI.

[WalterK]

Mencoder and ffmpeg .
Mencoder with froggy1's scripts and ffmpeg when i need to do a convert that mencoder won't handle example would be A/V sync issues with a wmv/asf convert to avi via mencoder but none when using ffmpeg.

[jason50146]

Aspect ratio is detected and passed to the encoder automatically (some codecs have a switch for this though, like "autoaspect" for lavc). Cropping isn't that hard either, just copy the line given by mplayer -vf cropdetect, which is pretty much the same as cropping half-automatically with a GUI.

I use the x264 codec exclusively. When using mencoder, I used the -aspect option after determining the correct value via mplayer. That seemed to work well. But maybe it is not necessary to supply -aspect?

Also- I wanted to mention that I installed the latest handbrake SVN and it seems to encode a lot faster than the current release version, which I think is 0.93. It seems faster than the current release (not SVN) of mencoder, too. I encoded one movie so far with it and everything worked well.

[nm]

I use the x264 codec exclusively. When using mencoder, I used the -aspect option after determining the correct value via mplayer. That seemed to work well. But maybe it is not necessary to supply -aspect?
No, it shouldn't be necessary. I encode a lot of anamorphic sources with MEncoder & x264 and I've never had problems with automatic aspect ratio signaling. But if you had to correct the ratio on normal playback with MPlayer too, there could be something wrong with the source files.

Also- I wanted to mention that I installed the latest handbrake SVN and it seems to encode a lot faster than the current release version, which I think is 0.93. It seems faster than the current release (not SVN) of mencoder, too. I encoded one movie so far with it and everything worked well.
Encoding speed is mostly determined by the version of x264, if parameters are the same. I don't remember how Handbrake is built, but if the SVN includes a recent version of x264 while 0.93 and MEncoder use older libx264 versions, that could be the cause of the speedup. Or some encoding parameters have simply been changed.

[yeye69]

I use mencoder, mencoder with froggy's script, also tried automkv, sometimes avidemux for a quick building DVD, looked at handbrake just couple times, not so long have used ffmpeg in a pipe with dvgrab.

[qyot27]

Architecture also makes a difference with x264; I tested out different builds - vanilla, -march=pentium3, -march=athlon64, the Windows builds of the same versions using Wine, etc. And you can definitely see a jump in fps by optimizing for your processor. Funny enough, running the Windows versions with Wine is actually faster than using them under Windows itself.

I have AviSynth 2.58, VirtualDub/Mod and a Windows build of mencoder that I use with Wine, which allows me to output a raw i420 or ffvhuff AVI that's exactly what I need to give to the Linux version of x264 (in the case of AVI, with the video piped in through the Linux version of mplayer so the fps and res info is retained). I try not to mix or pipe Wine apps to the native versions if I can keep from it.

Now if only I could manage to get the new revisions of xvid_encraw in a way that's compilable on Linux, I'd be set. I can build the one in the Xvid daily snapshots just fine, but it's missing a bunch of the features that I'm used to. If I can't I can at least fall back to using VirtualDub + Koepi's VFW builds to do it (I tried to get the Windows xvid_encraw to run and I got rather lost; I didn't really want to dive into fiddling with the Wine registry yet).

[cheerow]

I also use froggy's h264enc. I had tried several GUI programs before but they all lacked in some way or another.

Can mencoder be compiled with optimizations for a specific cpu? I just looked at the output of 'configure --help' and there doesn't seem to be anything like that. The autodetection of cpu instruction sets seems to work fine, so I assume I'm getting the optimum by just running plain 'configure'?

[nm]

Can mencoder be compiled with optimizations for a specific cpu? I just looked at the output of 'configure --help' and there doesn't seem to be anything like that. The autodetection of cpu instruction sets seems to work fine, so I assume I'm getting the optimum by just running plain 'configure'?
Autodetection works fine and it is also done at runtime for part of the code. If you want to override something, run CFLAGS="-flag -march=arch ..." ./configure.

[mike3244]

I also use use froggy1's script - divxenc. Produces great results for my PS3 with no fuss and a good range of presets.

[multimediaman]

Mencoder. I update it quite regularly from svn (with latest x264). Most comfortable encoding app ever used. Muxing other than avi/mpg/raw sucks though.

Next goal: Learn man page by heart :D

[kaldi]

I use transcode, usually with the mplayer plugin. Its worked well for everything I need so far. Haven't done much x264 encoding though...

[oldcpu]

I mostly use froggy1's xvidenc script (my PC's are too old to process H.264 with any sort of reasonable speed ... I'm waiting 'til I get a new pc before I use his h264enc script :) ).

I also use avidemux for some files.

For creating dvd compliant mpegs I use tovid, which I believe uses both mencoder and ffmpeg. ( not sure if it still uses mencoder ) .

For Non-Linear-Video editing, I use kdenlive, which uses ffmpeg.

[Rasi]

Also- I wanted to mention that I installed the latest handbrake SVN and it seems to encode a lot faster than the current release version, which I think is 0.93. It seems faster than the current release (not SVN) of mencoder, too. I encoded one movie so far with it and everything worked well.

Handbrake cannot encode audio to vbr, which is a huge disadvantage.