Well the title says it all..

here's my settings to encode a normal HQ hdtv rip from mpeg2 to xvid with mencoder (cvs) :

pass 1 :

mencoder boo.mpg -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1:qpel:hq_ac:vhq=2:turbo:stats:max_bframes=2:autoaspect -nosound -o /dev/null

get the average bitrate from the log

pass 2 :

mencoder boo.mpg -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:qpel:hq_ac:vhq=2:turbo:stats:max_bframes=2:autoaspect:bitrate=${AVGBR} -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o boo.avi

If the video has black borders then you can detect them with :

mplayer -ao null -vo xv -vop cropdetect boo.mpg

then it'll print the black borders offsets, set it in the encoding line like :

-vop crop=348:174:4:32,scale -zoom

(where 348:174:4:32 is the value returned from the cropdetect command above).

anyone have anything else to share?

peace