[MPlayer-users] mencoder: encoding with very low bitrate

[rcooley]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:56:43 +0100 (CET)
Gejzir <gejzir at maffia.hu> wrote:

> It is almost as though some
> option specifies a minimum quality and the encoding won't go below
> that (vbitrate=4 to vbitrate=500 gives same filesize :( )   

I would guess, that using something like hqdn3d would give you a lower
filesize.  I've had times where, even with high bitrates (1,000+) the
filesize balloons.  It's usually when the TV signal is out, and mplayer
is just recording static.  Keyframes can't be infinitely shrunk-down... 
The more complex the picture, the larger the keyframes are going to be,
and no bitrate setting will be able to shrink the file below the size
needed just for the keyframes.

You also might dry reducing your framerate (sure to help).