[DEBIAN STABLE/JESSIE] libav's avconv utility is always producing low-quality output

[s3a]

Hello, everyone!

I'm using Debian stable/jessie, and after doing some research on how to convert an ogv file to an avi file using avconv, I ended up with the following command.:

avconv -i input.ogv output.avi -global_quality 100

All I want is to convert the ogv file to an avi without losing any quality whatsoever (in practice - I suppose in theory avi is a lossy format, which I believe means every conversion to avi will lose some unnoticeable amount of quality).

What am I doing wrong?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[slickymaster]

Have you tried mencoder (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MEncoder)?

mencoder input.ogv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o output.aviThe -ovc lavc switch is to encode with the libavcodec codec and the -oac mp3lame switch to encode with the lamp mp3 audio codec.

[s3a]

Thanks for the response, but mencoder is no longer supported in newer versions of Debian (and Ubuntu) (and neither is ffmpeg), so I was hoping I could use something in the repositories that is well-maintained.

[mc4man]

That -global_quality 100 likely does nothing plus it's trailing the output, options should be before.
You need to raise the video bitrate considerably, probably to at least 2500k or more.
You could try using q, 0 would produce best but a large file, wouldn't go over 6 for vid or 2 for audio
ex.

avconv -i input.ogv -q:v 2 -q:a 2 output.avi