6.1. Selecting codecs and container formats

Audio and video codecs for encoding are selected with the -oac and -ovc options, respectively. Type for instance:

mencoder -ovc help

to list all video codecs supported by the version of MEncoder on your machine. The following choices are available:

Audio Codecs:

Audio codec nameDescription
mp3lameencode to VBR, ABR or CBR MP3 with LAME
lavcuse one of libavcodec's audio codecs
faacFAAC AAC audio encoder
toolameMPEG Audio Layer 2 encoder
twolameMPEG Audio Layer 2 encoder based on tooLAME
pcmuncompressed PCM audio
copydo not reencode, just copy compressed frames

Video codecs:

Video codec nameDescription
lavcuse one of libavcodec's video codecs
xvidXvid, MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) codec
x264x264, MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), AKA H.264 codec
nuvnuppel video, used by some realtime applications
rawuncompressed video frames
copydo not reencode, just copy compressed frames
framenoused for 3-pass encoding (not recommended)

Output container formats are selected with the -of option. Type:

mencoder -of help

to list all containers supported by the version of MEncoder on your machine. The following choices are available:

Container formats:

Container format nameDescription
lavfone of the containers supported by libavformat
aviAudio-Video Interleaved
mpegMPEG-1 and MPEG-2 PS
rawvideoraw video stream (no muxing - one video stream only)
rawaudioraw audio stream (no muxing - one audio stream only)

The AVI container is the native container format for MEncoder, which means that it's the one that is best handled, and the one for which MEncoder was designed. As noted above, other container formats are usable, but you may experience problems when using them.

libavformat containers:

If you selected libavformat to do the muxing of the output file (by using the -of lavf), the appropriate container format will be determined by the file extension of the output file. You may force a particular container format with libavformat's format option.

libavformat container nameDescription
mpgMPEG-1 and MPEG-2 PS
asfAdvanced Streaming Format
aviAudio-Video Interleaved
wavWaveform Audio
swfMacromedia Flash
flvMacromedia Flash video
rmRealMedia
auSUN AU
nutNUT open container (experimental and not yet spec-compliant)
movQuickTime
mp4MPEG-4 format
dvSony Digital Video container
mkvMatroska open audio/video container

As you can see, libavformat allows MEncoder to mux into a considerable variety of containers. Unfortunately, as MEncoder was not designed from the beginning to support container formats other than AVI, your should really be paranoid about the resulting file. Please check to be sure that the audio/video synchronization is OK and that the file can be played correctly by players other than MPlayer.

Example 6.1. encode to Macromedia Flash format

Creating a Macromedia Flash video suitable for playback in a web browser with the Macromedia Flash plugin:

mencoder input.avi -o output.flv -of lavf \
    -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=56 -srate 22050 -ovc lavc \
    -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=500:mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3