Problem encoding videos

[aceofbase]

Hello all im having a problem and hope someone can help me.

I have a lot 720 videos I need to encode/convert to play on xbmc, so I used buzz mpeg4 conversion with ffmpeg command.
I realized that all the files ended up 2 or 3 times bigger than the originals. In an attempt to make them smaller I noticed that they were being converted at a higher bit rate than the originals (3000k vs 1200-1500k) but when I adjusted the bit rate to 1500k now they all look worse than the originals! (supper blocky)

Am I doing something wrong?

[kingtiger01]

Hello all im having a problem and hope someone can help me.

I have a lot 720 videos I need to encode/convert to play on xbmc, so I used buzz mpeg4 conversion with ffmpeg command.
I realized that all the files ended up 2 or 3 times bigger than the originals. In an attempt to make them smaller I noticed that they were being converted at a higher bit rate than the originals (3000k vs 1200-1500k) but when I adjusted the bit rate to 1500k now they all look worse than the originals! (supper blocky)

Am I doing something wrong?

havent used the 'buzz mpeg4 converter' referenced, but different codecs require different bit-rates to achieve the same quality on a single encoding pass. mpeg4 is not H.264, 3000k is usually the default for MPEG-4 Part 2(aka xvid/divx). so without some serious scale filters, i have to ask why?

which codec are you compressing with? the libavcodec-mpeg4? libxvid? (libxvid is actively developed still and produces better results vs the ffmpeg libavcodec-mpeg4 variant) libx264?

H.264 is difficult to decode on the Xbox's Pentium3, if you intend on using libx264, take a look at http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/wiki/HOW-TO ... C_For_Xbox

when needing mpeg-4 Part 2, try using a build of ffmpeg with xvid, see if the result is any better. also try a bitrate of 1750-2300k variable.

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Side note: H.264 is playable with coreavc, if developers would add support it in libavcodec.