or “catchy post title #189″.
I generate the WMV version of our LUG talk videos using ffmpeg. In order to produce a higher quality version of a recent talk, I wanted to create the WMV at full PAL resolution, using a relatively high video bitrate of 900kbps. So, I took the MPEG2 file and ran:
ffmpeg -i input.mpeg -vcodec wmv2 -b 900 -acodec mp3 output.asf
At bit-rates over 600kbps on the large files, I get strange artefacts in the video - blocks missing, strange “deja-vu” repeats. At the same resolution at lower bitrates, it’s not a problem. Even a different MPEG2 (recorded using the same DV camera and processed in the same way) doesn’t have the problem. This is very odd. Does anyone have any ideas?
I was invited by Xalior to be a guest presenter on hashlugradio, the podcast about the podcast. The episode is out today and is available for download.
Listening to the show, I’m reasonably pleased with it. There were several things going on that were distracting me during the recording, including the builders who had suddenly decided to stay until 9pm and wanted to check things with me at a couple of points during the recording. It had also been a very busy week at work so I was feeling fairly knackered by the time of the recording. So for the first half I didn’t say enough. But also because I’m not that interested in Java! It can be difficult to get a word in edge ways between regular presenters who have built up a rapour, particularly over the non-visual medium of Skype. Thank goodness there were only four of us presenting, it would have been much harder with a full complement plus me! Four feels about the right number of presenters for this sort of thing. I’m more pleased with the second half where I managed to sound more lively and get into the debate more. If I am invited back, I’ll make sure to get a better microphone too!
