[ale] opinions needed for MPEG2 conversion

[Preston Boyington]

On 7/11/06, Preston Boyington <preston.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/11/06, Paul Cartwright <paul_tbot at pcartwright.com> wrote:
> > On Tue July 11 2006 11:02 am, Preston Boyington wrote:
> > > I have an mpeg file (VCD format) that i edited from my daughters
> > > ballet recital. it's 54 meg in size and I had wanted to convert it
> > > to something my windows using friends could play.
> > >
> > > needless to say the file would need to be much smaller to email.
> > >
> > > while i normally would use something to convert it to DiVX (for
> > > myself), some of these people won't have or be able to install
> > > additional codecs.
> > >
> > > i know they can play wmv's, but i don't know how i would convert to
> > > that format using Linux.
> > >
> > > is there an open format that i could use that plays easily on
> > > Windows?
> > >
> > > any help will be much appreciated.
> >
> > mplayer, or Windows Media Player, will play most MPG/MPEG/VCD files.
> > You aren't going to be able to squish it small enough to email without
> > losing almost all of the resolution. Why not just create a VCD that is
> > playable on most DVD players, and send it to them in the mail?
> > I use tovid to convert most of my videos to a format that K3B can use
> > to make a VCD..
> >
> >
> > --
> > Paul Cartwright
> > Registered Linux user # 367800
> >  X-Request-PGP: http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-pcartwright/key.asc
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
>
> some of the people will get VCDs, but there are a couple of others
> that just want to view it once or so.
>
> i clipped just one segment (about 3 minutes long) and it is still 30.8
> meg.  the video is 352x240 so it could be a bit smaller.  the 224 kbps
> audio could easily be dropped to 48kbps (think shrill little kids
> voices recorded with a camcorder microphone).
>
> mainly i want then to see my daughter "go freestyle" and ham it up.
> she was 3 at the time...
>
> --
> Preston
>

I found this and am playing around with it.  quality is not the
greatest, but should do until i get these burned and mailed.

ffmpeg -i source_video.mpg -b 80 -vcodec wmv1 -acodec mp3 -ar 8000 -ab 16 -y
out_video.wmv

any other tips would be appreciated.

i'm trying both hands and a flashlight right now...

-- 
Preston