x264 Video Codec

Encoding video streams is a task that can be accomplished by using specialized software and it does require some knowledge, so it's not something any user can do without having some basic notions in this field.

One of the most appraised tools of this kind is called x264 Video Codec and is especially designed to handle AVC and H264 streams. The utility can be easily deployed via command-line and it supports several parameters and comes with some built-in presets.

Thus, you can select the desired profile which may be baseline, high, main and extended. Also, the settings can be adjusted to accommodate a specific scenario or source type. Insofar as the available tunings are concerned, you can opt for psy, fastdecode or zerolatency.

x264 Video Codec provides a set of frame-type options you can use to enable interlaced mode with either top or bottom field first. Another parameter you can adjust is the rate control, to be more precise you will be able to set bitrates as well as the video buffering verifier (VBV) size in kilobits.

The settings regarding the input and output configurations are more limited since they only comprise sample aspect ratio, framerate, maximum number of frames to be encoded and you can also specify the first frame to encode.

When it comes to filters, x264 Video Codec supports only a couple. You can crop the video and input the exact values for top, bottom, left and right to define the new dimensions. The 'Resize' filter allows you to set the desired width and height, modify the dimensions and keep the aspect ratio to avoid stretching.

To sum things up, it's safe to say that with x264 Video Codec you can successfully encode videos while performing some basic changes to the overall aspect of the output. It is not the most easy to use tool but since it is not made for novice users, it serves its purpose quite well.