Encoder and settings

Audio
When I go to reencode my music, the type and bit rate choices are huge:

• 130 kbps results
• 64 kbps tests
• other 64 kbps tests
  

Video
While I don't anticipate using VC-1 a lot, I figured I should capture some baseline good settings that I've come across for encoding, just in case. But before that, why do I not anticipate using VC-1? Because H.264 seems to be somewhat more universal, and computing power is increasing quickly enough that I think very long term, I'd be sorry if I used anything except H.264.


Ben Waggner writes:

My general best practices for quality-emphasized encoding:
B-Frames 1
2-pass encoding, or Lookahead=16 for 1-pass encoding
Full Chroma Search
Adaptive Motion Match
Adaptive Motion Search Range

And you want to run in Complexity 4 (one less than the max).

Depending on the content, DQuant and Adaptive Deadzone can help a lot, especially with film sources

His blog also has screen shots of "good" settings and, more importantly, detailed explainations of what they do and why.

Encoding in Linux
Here is a step-by-step write-up of transcoding in Linux.
There also may be ways to decrease lag of a PVR device.