Transcode the Video Bitrate only (not the codec)?

[dbrossard]

I have many files on a server all of diffrent codec types. I currently have to transcode them all to one codec in order to also change the bitrate: ie
--sout='#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=384,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=64,channels=2}

What I would like to be able to do is leave the video codec alone and only change the bit rate: ie:

--sout='#transcode{vb=384}

However when I do this, it does no transcoding at all. Is/should this be allowed? I can't think of any reason vlc wouldn't just use the video files codec by default and change the bitrate....

[dionoea]

Well you need to tell it the codec to use for transcoding (which is vcodec). Else it won't be able to guess what you want to use.

[dbrossard]

The video already has a codec. Why can't it use the video's codec and just change the bitrate? If I don't tell it a specific codec, use the one you already encoded as. No need to reencode. That's the idea I am shooting for. My hope is that, besides avoiding transcoding problems between codecs, it will use less CPU.

<rant>
I used to be able to transcode everything to mp4v with version 0.81. Since I upgraded to 0.84 and up, now all of a sudden it will not transcode divx to mp4. In my opinion, since it was possible, this is a bug and I started another topic for this that everyone ignored. So, instead, use the "default" codec and avoid the heartache. The docs do not say this is not possible, but it just doesn't work. It should be simple for VLC to detect the encoded codec (since it does that anyway), and default to that if no transcode codec is specified.
</rant>

[dionoea]

No need to reencode to change the bitrate ? Wow !