Invisible wrote:
> Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv 
> -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.

	Warp answered that: Why should mencoder choose for you which library 
you should use?

	I think the problem you're dealing with is that mencoder is meant to be 
somewhat general purpose. I can easily imagine another encoder out there 
that's as easy to use as you want, but would simply be inflexible - lack 
of choices. mencoder is designed for flexibility.

> Also, why is there *nowhere* in the manual that says "to produce a 
> standard MPEG-1 file, type XYZ"? Do you have any idea how freakin long 
> it took me to decode the manual to the point where I could construct 
> this commandline?

	They give various examples at the end of the man file. Yes, MPEG-1 is 
not explicitly provided, but then why should they provide that over, 
say, MPEG-4 or some other codec? I think you're mistaken in thinking 
that most people do encoding into MPEG-1 - it's usually to encode to 
xvid, divx or something similar.

	In any case:

mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts 
vcodec=mpeg4

	It shouldn't be too hard to go from there to mpeg1.

> [E.g., nowhere is it actually documented that if you want to pass 
> *multiple* options to lavc, you have to seperate them with colons. 

	Right in the beginning of the section for lavcopts, you see:

EXAMPLE:
                  vcodec=msmpeg4:vbitrate=1800:vhq:keyint=250
	
	Should be enough of a hint.

> Eventually I noticed it in an example - an example demonstrating 
> something completely unrelated to syntax - and copied it. In general, 
> trying to figure out how the hell to make Mencoder do anything reduces 
> to endless trail and cryptic error...]

	Can't say I figured everything out by reading mencoder man file. I have 
in the past done Google searches and looked at other people's scripts. 
However, it's not obvious to me how it can be made better.

> As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally 
> difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an 
> uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.] 
> Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...

	xvid is not exactly rare.

	I'd be curious to see if the same command you're giving will produce a 
working avi file on my side...

-- 
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.


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