#4 Multifile encoding

[Jason Huebel]

Add the ability to rip to multiple AVI files. In
particular, provide the user with the ability to choose
the number of CDs s/he would like to put the movie on.

I like to do this with movies over 90 minutes long,
since a video bitrate under 750 tends to be overly
lossy (IMO) and is really noticeable when playing a
movie fullscreen.

I'd also like to suggest that the ideal range for
encoding video is somewhere between 650 and 1500.
Anything below 650 and you fall below the "VCR quality"
range.

[Tom Chance]

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Hmm, any idea of exactly how you do this? I'm sure there's a
clever set of mencoder options to do it easily, since at the
moment all I can think of is calculating the movie length in
frames, dividing that by the number of CDs the user wants,
then getting mencoder to do seperate rips for each chunk of
frames.

Or, ask for the video bitrate and work out how many CDs that
will use, then do the same operation.

Tricky.

[Jason Huebel]

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I noticed there is an option with mencoder to rip a certain
number of seconds. But that seems to only rip from the
beginning of the file. I'll look to see if I can find
options that let you set the startpoint and duration.

[Jason Huebel]

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OK, given that we know the total running time for a title,
you can use these options for ripping portions:

-ss <start position in seconds>
-endpos <end position in seconds>

So, if a movie is 120 minutes long, these commands should
work to cut the movie in two parts (add in all the other
options too):

# Chunk 1 (60 minutes long, specify end point)
$ mencoder -endpos 3600 -o filename_part1of2.avi
# Chunk 2 (60 minutes long, specify start point)
$ mencoder -ss 3600 -o filename_part2of2.avi

Now, doing three or more parts would be more complicated, of
course. But those options used together should work. :-)

BTW, the reason I don't specify an "-endpos" on the second
chunk is just in case the movie is 120 minutes, 2 seconds long.

[Jason Huebel]

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I guess I should mention that I tried using the -ss option with
only small success. It does some wierd things on my
machine. That may just be my setup, or it may have
something to do with seeking on a DVD.

Let me know if you have more success than I did.