how to properly split a movie

[Tasnu Arakun]

whenever i try to split a movie that i have encoded using ffmpeg's libavi-codec the first seconds of the second segment gets awfully pixelated. i've tried both ffmpegx and explicit (which uses mencoder). the latter did not work, but the commands in the readme did, and based on the result i assume that both programs use mencoder.

so i'd like to know if there is any other tool for splitting avi-files or possibly some additional mencoder option that solves this problem.
i fully understand this is no fault of ffmpegx but i think this problem might be of concern to its users.

[DaleMox]

I believe it has nothing to do with ffmpegX but mencoder. I split 1400 MB files very often (habit really), and use Explicit for it.
I suggest you first get an idea of where in the film the two files are < 700MB (so they can fit on a CD) in minutes. Then look in the movie to find a scene, like a fade out or cut to another scene. Then when you've made several trials and errors you can do the following:
Split it on scene you want the second half to start on and keep the first half.
Split it on 5 seconds before that scene and keep the second half.
Beware that Explicit will overwrite files without asking. So move the first half into a folder or rename it.

Dale

[Tasnu Arakun]

tough luck... halfway through the movie there's an intense action scene. but i did manage to find a a calm spot where i could do the split.

still, as far as i understand it, ffmpegx and explicit (using mencoder) does the spit at the nearest keyframe (spaced about 10s apart) so i still don't understand why this problem arises.