Sometimes it is necessary to compress video. My preferred codec is XviD, because its GPL.
With the following script the 2 pass encoding is done automatic.
#!/bin/bash bitrate=$3 infile=$1 outfile=$2-xvid-$bitrate.avi # Audio preprocessing mencoder $infile -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o frameno.avi -quiet # 2pass mencoder $infile -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=$bitrate:pass=1 -vf pp=tn/lb/hb/vb -oac copy -o /dev/null mencoder $infile -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=$bitrate:pass=2 -vf pp=tn/lb/hb/vb -oac copy -o $outfile # remove trash rm -f frameno.avi xvid-twopass.stats
call it with ./xvid.sh inputfilename outputfilename bitrate.
It needs twice as long as normal compression but the result is quite better.