[FFmpeg-user] getting 'Invalid pixel format string '-1' when encoding

[Lou]

On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 13:47:59 -0700 (PDT)
pgoldweic <pgoldweic at northwestern.edu> wrote:

> I am trying to encode a Quicktime movie with a h264 codec in an mp4
> container. However, I get the following error message when I try to
> do so: 'Invalid pixel format string '-1'  Error opening filters!.
> 
> My command is as follows:
> ffmpeg -i mymovie.mov -vcodec xlib264 -acodec copy -f mp4 mymovie.mp4

xlib264 is incorrect. Should be libx264. Can you show your complete
FFmpeg terminal output too? Also useful would be a sample input file
that is giving you the troubles if you have the ability to upload one.

If you simply want to dump the input into a new container (assuming
your input is suitable for mp4 container):

ffmpeg -i mymovie.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mp4

This will avoid re-encoding. Think of it as a copy and paste.

> Note the following:
> - The same command works on other movies which are not Quicktime
> movies. 
> - I am using a Windows 64 bit version of ffmpeg I downloaded a couple
> of days ago
> - When I searched for similar posts in this list, I came across a
> recent one describing the same kind of error message, and the
> response given to the post at the time was: 'The problem is that the
> input file is missing the pixel format information, the decoder
> doesn't guess it and ffmpeg fails because of
> that.
> File a bug report, and we'll try to fix it.'
> 
> Am I hitting the same ffmpeg bug here? And if so, is there a way to
> tell ffmpeg what the missing pixel information is for that input
> movie, to work around this problem?