From: Jeff Shippen <[email protected]> NOTE: VLC requires the output file to be in ".ogg" extension. Once the ogg file is generated, I manually changed the extension to ".ogv".
as i explained in my previous e-mail, vlc's even latest version (for windows at least) uses an old libtheora... software using latest builds should produce an .ogv file with skeleton for theora video... previous versions produce a file without skeleton and quality is not as good as latest versions... so changing the extension doesn't improve the ecoding quality but just the compatibility with some software... you can use ogginfo to see which version of the encoder is used for the video. it is a command line tool available for all platforms. you can download it from http://www.xiph.org/downloads/ it is a part of vorbis tools.... if you are not familiar with command line, it is easy, just drop the ogginfo file into command window, leave a space and drag and drop the ogg file and hit enter... i would recommend quality based encoding with latest ffmpeg2theora or firefogg to not to waste time to find the optimum quality with various bitrate settings... i made many tests and quality 5 (default setting for ffmoeg2theora) worked best for me to get visibly unblocky image with the minumun fle size... quality mode produces the smallest possible file for the choosen quality parameter.... but this changes form video to video... smaller quality settings may also satify your needs for less complex videos... you can reduce the resolution to get a smaller file with the same visible quality (but this doesn't work very good for subtitles in my experience). if you need a spesific filesize/bitrate then you can use two-pass mode of the latest encoder by using -V command for ffmpeg2 theora. you can also use --soft-target command for more flexible bitrate control and --optimize command for quality mode for slower encoding but better quality/file size optimization. latest builds of ffmpeg2theora for all platforms: http://www.firefogg.org/nightly/ and firefogg for multiplatform gui is out there .-_-.
