andy vt's tools & blog

Well, it WAS working, I swear! :)

 jelwood, did you get the settings you provided to work?

Mencoder will make a h264/aac AVI that plays in VLC, but without audio.
Ffmpeg will remux the AVI to mp4 once you take the :raw off the mencoder faacopts, and the resulting mp4 now has the audio... but no video! (even though VLC correctly reports the video as being h264/320x240/29.94)

Quicktime, needless to say, has no idea what to do with the mp4 (Invalid sample in movie error)

 
Another thought: Mencoder can output in Quicktime .mov format.  This might be the best way to go (for the iPod at least)
 

I just tried it and I have really good success (at least using quicktime) using Mencoder into the MP4 container.  Then using ffmpeg to mux from MP4 to MP4.  Of course, the big problem with this is you have to make sure when muxing that you don't use the exact same filename.  Below are the command lines I used.

mencoder "Miss Congeniality_TBSP_17_02_2007_18_24_10.dvr-ms" -vf pp=md,scale=320:-10,harddup -ovc x264 -x264encopts turbo=1:bitrate=384:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=244:nocabac:level_idc=13:threads=2 -oac faac -faacopts br=128:object=2:mpeg=4:raw -of lavf -lavfopts i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames:format=mp4 -o "Miss Congeniality_TBSP_17_02_2007_18_24_10.mp4"

ffmpeg -benchmark -y -i "Miss Congeniality_TBSP_17_02_2007_18_24_10.avi" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "NewMiss Congeniality_TBSP_17_02_2007_18_24_10.mp4"

Hopefully this will work better for you.  If it does, then I think we are really close to just having Mencoder write to the MP4 container.  I'm working on a few bugs in ffmpeg (and better threading support), as soon as I have that finished I'm going to take a look at Mencoder again.  I'll see if there is anything I can do...

I see you still have ffmpeg taking an AVI as input, is that a typo or did you mean to post a completely different ffmpeg command line?

I think I tried having mencoder output -lavfopts format=mp4 to a .tmp file and then having ffmpeg try to remux that... got the same results as
avi->mp4 (audio, no video, no load in quicktime)

fixed. yeah, remembering to put of=lavf=yes helps... 

 

typo, sorry...  I just tried it again with another show and it worked.

mencoder "ABC_HD.dvr-ms" -vf pp=md,scale=320:-10,harddup -ovc x264 -x264encopts turbo=1:bitrate=384:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=244:nocabac:level_idc=13:threads=2 -oac faac -faacopts br=128:object=2:mpeg=4:raw -of lavf -lavfopts i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames:format=mp4 -o "ABC_HD.mp4"

"ffmpeg" -benchmark -y -i "ABC_HD.mp4" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "NewABC_HD.mp4"

kingtone:

onlydarksets:

Here is a modification of the WMV-Good profile for archiving to WMV.  However, while these files play properly on VMC, I can't get them to play on my Xbox 360 extender :(

[WMV-Archive]
profile-desc="WMV Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,harddup
ovc=lavc=yes
oac=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=wmv2:vqscale=4:acodec=wmav2:abitrate=128
of=lavf=yes
lavfopts=i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames=yes
#DtbExtension=wmv

i think the xbox is expecting Windows Media 9 and wvm2 is producing Windows Media 8. I think this is the issue with my dlink extender as well. Unfortunately I don't think mencoder will do wmv3 (AKA Windows Media 9) 

This issue is now fixed with Mencoder version 12.  It still only produces Windows Media Version 8 content, but it will now play on the Xbox 360 just fine.

jelwood:

kingtone:

onlydarksets:

Here is a modification of the WMV-Good profile for archiving to WMV.  However, while these files play properly on VMC, I can't get them to play on my Xbox 360 extender :(

[WMV-Archive]
profile-desc="WMV Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,harddup
ovc=lavc=yes
oac=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=wmv2:vqscale=4:acodec=wmav2:abitrate=128
of=lavf=yes
lavfopts=i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames=yes
#DtbExtension=wmv

i think the xbox is expecting Windows Media 9 and wvm2 is producing Windows Media 8. I think this is the issue with my dlink extender as well. Unfortunately I don't think mencoder will do wmv3 (AKA Windows Media 9) 

This issue is now fixed with Mencoder version 12.  It still only produces Windows Media Version 8 content, but it will now play on the Xbox 360 just fine.

Nice! I didn't know 12 was out yet. I'll give this a try with my Dlink DSM520 and see if the WMV files play right there as well. I've been using xvid for a while now it it is working great. The new Xvid-Archive looks interesting as well. Though it looks a bit time consuming with the mpeg step.

Question: Mencoder demuxer vs. ffmpeg dmuxer? Is one better or it a situational kind of thing where one would be used because it serves a purpose for what you are tying to do (like in the xvid-archive profile). Or is it just user preference?

kingtone:

Question: Mencoder demuxer vs. ffmpeg dmuxer? Is one better or it a situational kind of thing where one would be used because it serves a purpose for what you are tying to do (like in the xvid-archive profile). Or is it just user preference?

I wouldn’t say either the Mencoder demuxer or the ffmpeg demuxer is better, just different.  There are two things that can affect your decision.  First, I’m sure there are bugs in both demuxers.  So, try either demuxer and select the one that works the best for your purpose.  Secondly, they both do the same thing technically; however, they go about it VERY differently.  The biggest difference is the way they perform AV sync.  Mencoder uses keyframes on both the Video and Audio streams as well as the fps calculations to keep everything in sync.  Ffmpeg has a “simpler” approach of ignoring the keyframes, and the fps, and just using time stamps on the Audio and Video streams to keep everything is sync.  Although the ffmpeg solution is much simpler, it isn’t simple for DVR-MS files because only roughly 5% - 10% of the frames in a DVR-MS file will have timestamps, and even if the frame does have a timestamp it can’t always be trusted (there are many places where DVR-MS files will have non-sequential timestamps).  To work around all of this we had to build some pretty heavy interpolating logic to modify the timestamps in the demuxer.  This is why the ffmpeg project took so long.

Anyway, I personally use the Mencoder demuxer in Mencoder because it conforms more closely to the way everything else in Mencoder works (and the way DVR-MS files work).  However, if you are having issues with the Mencoder demuxer, try the ffmpeg demuxer and see if it works better for your purposes.  It’s always nice to have options…

 

jelwood:

Anyway, I personally use the Mencoder demuxer in Mencoder because it conforms more closely to the way everything else in Mencoder works (and the way DVR-MS files work).  However, if you are having issues with the Mencoder demuxer, try the ffmpeg demuxer and see if it works better for your purposes.  It’s always nice to have options…

 

It is nice to have the option and, currently, I have no reason to switch from Mencoder. Thanks for the update! 

Just started having a look through version 12. In the WMV-Archive section you have:

vf=pp=md,scale=-1:-2,harddup

are those scale switches correct? I thought you needed to supply one value or the other (x or y). 

kingtone:

Just started having a look through version 12. In the WMV-Archive section you have:

vf=pp=md,scale=-1:-2,harddup

are those scale switches correct? I thought you needed to supply one value or the other (x or y). 

It should work.  We could change it to scale={0}:-2, however, I decided to keep it at -1:-2 so the resolution doesn't change (since it's an Archive).  Do you think we should allow the user to change the resolution?

jelwood:

kingtone:

Just started having a look through version 12. In the WMV-Archive section you have:

vf=pp=md,scale=-1:-2,harddup

are those scale switches correct? I thought you needed to supply one value or the other (x or y). 

It should work.  We could change it to scale={0}:-2, however, I decided to keep it at -1:-2 so the resolution doesn't change (since it's an Archive).  Do you think we should allow the user to change the resolution?

Maybe. Personally I use a xvid profile similar to the new xvid-archive that does no scaling because Im just going to stream it to my dsm-520 and I want the full resolution. I may do the same with wmv instead if it will work. Not sure which would produce a better output. xvid looks good to me.

Still experimenting. 

OP updated for Mencoder version 12.

Jelwood,

 I finally got an H.264 AVC profile working for the PSP.

 Jim

 

Thought I'd post what is really working well for me lately.

My goal is to have excellent video that I can stream to my D-Link DSM-520. I have a processing condition set up to funnel HD channels through the  Xvid-HD-Good profile while the rest of the channels go through Xvid-SD-Good. The sound is AC3 192 average bit rate and surround is preserved. Additionally I'm using xvid profiles to ensure compatibility. I'm not completely positive the xvid profiles are needed but I'm getting flawless playback and jelwood's latest Mencoder is handling the occasional ATSC glitch with superb audio/video sync.

 
[Xvid-SD-Good]
profile-desc="SD Xvid/AC3 Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,scale=720:480,harddup
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=fixed_quant=4:threads=2:profile=dxnhtntsc
# the next line sets the video to Divx 5 (more hardware players support Divx 5 than Xvid)
ffourcc=DX50
oac=lavc=yes
lavcopts=acodec=ac3:abitrate=192
#DtbExtension=avi
#dtbhres="-vf pp=md,scale=720:480,harddup"

[Xvid-HD-Good]
profile-desc="HD Xvid/AC3 Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,scale=1280:720,harddup
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=fixed_quant=4:threads=2:profile=dxnhdtv
# the next line sets the video to Divx 5 (more hardware players support Divx 5 than Xvid)
ffourcc=DX50
oac=lavc=yes
lavcopts=acodec=ac3:abitrate=192
#DtbExtension=avi
#dtbhres="-vf pp=md,scale=1280:720,harddup"
 

Note: The Xvid profiles are strict. You have to scale to the proper dimensions (720x480 or 1280x720) to use them.

Give them a try and let me know what you think. 

Well, I have tried using lavc and ac3 but i get a video that audio and video is way off and then the video is missing scenes. if you try to select a position on the avi then it doesn't let you and takes to last frame. Video time is also way off, going from 10:01 to 23:02 in a second.Only a 60 second test dvr-ms