Re: [tlug] Video Editing Soft & Formats

["Keith Bawden" <keith@example.com>]

On 7/17/07, Dave M G <dave@example.com> wrote:
> First, in consideration of Mencoder and ffmpeg. I am not an enemy of the
> command line just on principle. I do feel command lines have their
> place. However, I don't think video or graphics is one of them. Graphics
> are, by definition, a visual medium. Using pure text to manipulate
> images is like talking over the phone to tell someone how to paint a
> picture.
>
> This applies even if you're doing something as seemingly simple as
> converting video files from one format to another. Because of aspect
> ratios, frame rates, audio and video codecs, file formats, and other
> issues, the output can be different from what you expected. And
> different video content will compress differently, meaning there is no
> easy way to assume results.

I use mencoder for all of my video transcoding needs. I will transcode
(audio and video) in one terminal. Let it run for a few seconds and
then start to watch the output using mplayer in real time.

This way I can see the results as I go. If I do not like what I see or
hear, I stop the run, tweak the settings and off I go again.

Works for me, but all I'm doing is transcoding (often whilst doing
some re-sizing, deinterlacing and so on, but still pretty simple
stuff).

I know there are gui tools to do this, but I cannot see the point for
such a simple task. If I wanted to actually edit the video then I
would not be using the CLI either.

Regards, Keith