What Encoder Do You Use With Linux?

[jason50146]

Hi all-

I was thinking about this today and thought I would start a thread asking about the different encoders folks use on Linux systems. I am curious as to what others in the Linux world do. A good discussion may help expand my horizons and help others, too.

I like to use the Handbrake GUI. Before I jumped ship from the Windows world, I used the original Gordian Knot. The handbrake GUI reminds me a lot of Gordian Knot, but there are fewer steps with Handbrake. I like the handbrake interface and it does a lot of the leg work for you.

Before that I used Mencoder from the CLI almost exclusively. The only complaint I had about that was that you had to determine the crop and correct aspect ratio ahead of time. I seem to recall having some problems hard-coding subtitles, but was eventually able to do it. I never tried any of the mencoder GUIs.

I have tried several different versions of AVIDemux, but always seem to have at least one problem with it. Last time I tried to recode a DVD, it did not handle audio with progressive video very well. The audio would always get "chopped off" before the end of the video. That is, the audio lined up great with the video, but about 80% of the way through the audio stopped. Now that I am buying blu-ray disks, it looks like AVIDemux can't handle m2ts files? It loads the file in and then indicates it can't determine the aspect ratio and closes.