CentOS - Jun 2008 - Open Source Video Codec and Container (alternative to Xvid)

Hi CentOS users

I am running a forum with small video clips (from YouTube and others). I 
convert those Macromedia Flash videos with:

$ mencoder example.flv -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1000:autoaspect 
-vf pp=lb -oac mp3lame -lameopts fast:preset=standard -o example.avi

I use mencoder RPM from Dag Wieers

1) Its very generic command line to convert videos. What would you 
improve? The size is much bigger than the original FLV :(

2) Is there a real open source format what I should prefer? Can you say 
something about its quality?

3) Whats the most painless format for exchanging videos with Win, Mac 
and Linux users?

cheers
Simon

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I use ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -I filename.ext -f flv -s qvga -qscale 5 filename.flv
I'm more interested in quality than size. (and fortunate my wife is, too %^O
)
We upload them to Amazon S3, and host them from there...
Chenge the qscale setting for quality/size 1 is best quality, 30 is lowest.
HTH,
Dennis

 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: centos-bounces at centos.org 
> [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Simon Jolle sjolle
> Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 12:58 PM
> To: CentOS mailing list
> Subject: [CentOS] Open Source Video Codec and Container 
> (alternative to Xvid)
> 
> Hi CentOS users
> 
> I am running a forum with small video clips (from YouTube and 
> others). I convert those Macromedia Flash videos with:
> 
> $ mencoder example.flv -ovc xvid -xvidencopts 
> bitrate=1000:autoaspect -vf pp=lb -oac mp3lame -lameopts 
> fast:preset=standard -o example.avi
> 
> I use mencoder RPM from Dag Wieers
> 
> 1) Its very generic command line to convert videos. What 
> would you improve? The size is much bigger than the original FLV :(
> 
> 2) Is there a real open source format what I should prefer? 
> Can you say something about its quality?
> 
> 3) Whats the most painless format for exchanging videos with 
> Win, Mac and Linux users?
> 
> cheers
> Simon
> 
>