Converting vob to something not ugly

Question

I just used mplayer to rip a dvd to filename.vob, then tried ffmpeg to convert it, but the quality of the resulting avi (and I tried mpeg) sucked.  so how can I convet while retaining quality?

Answer 1

I recommend using ffmpeg-svn and x264-git from AUR.  Development is active in both, but most importantly, recent versions of ffmpeg have libx264 presets which create excellent results.  Once you install ffmpeg you will need to copy the presets from ffmpeg/ffpresets to the .ffmpeg directory in your home folder.
Now you can use the presets.  This is a two-pass example using the fastfirstpass and hq presets:
ffmpeg -y -i input.avi -pass 1 -vcodec libx264 -vpre fastfirstpass -b 512k -bt 512k -threads 0 -f mp4 -an /dev/null && ffmpeg -i input.avi -pass 2 -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -b 512k -bt 512k -threads 0 -f mp4 output.mp4
You will have to add bf=16 to ~/.ffmpeg/libx264-fastfirstpass.ffpreset when used with the normal, max, and hq presets. See FFmpeg libx264 presets for more preset descriptions and usage.
(most of this I just copied from my ffmpeg tutorial)
Last edited by DrZaius (2008-12-08 02:09:58)