[MEncoder-users] problem with big files

[The Wanderer]

a a wrote:

> Hello, all
> 
> James Hastings-Trew wrote:
> 
>> Presumably these oversized avi files did not arrive on your machine
>> unbidden.
> 
> Yes, they are the output of capturing from tv-card by streamer
> program of xawtv application on a linux( Ubuntu=7.10-amd64 on a
> 2-core intel cpu computer).
> 
>> They came from somewhere, and if the spec for AVI limits file size
>> to 4Gb, regardless of what your file system can handle, then, by
>> definition, any AVI larger than 4Gb is broken.
> 
> Do you know that xawtv ?
> 
> Its output files can be played with the same version of mplayer that
> i use its mencoder for encoding (1.0rc2-4.1.3) (the newest stable
> version of mplayer & mencoder)

Can MPlayer play them past the point where MEncoder cuts off?

If so, then yes, there might be a problem with MEncoder somewhere.
However, in order to go any further, we would need to see the complete
console output of both MPlayer and MEncoder, and the complete MEncoder
command line which you are using.

If not, then there is no effective difference between MEncoder and
MPlayer in this respect, and the problem remains elsewhere.

> Thus probably there is not problem related to avi format. and mplayer
> and mencoder as the "The Wanderer" tells in bellow can work with more
> that 4 Gig .avi files.

That's not quite correct.

MPlayer and MEncoder can read AVI files which were created to be OpenDML
AVIs, including ones bigger than 4GB. However, if the files were *not*
created as OpenDML AVIs but only as regular AVI files, then the
additional OpenDML information *is not there*, and MPlayer/MEncoder
cannot handle them.

If your file source (xawtv, as you say) is writing OpenDML AVIs, then
MPlayer and MEncoder should both be able to read them, no matter how big
they might be.

It is, however, very likely indeed that xawtv does not write OpenDML
AVIs - if it even knows how, it almost certainly does not do it by default.

Very likely, the problem lies in the software you are using to capture
the video. You will need to either capture to a different (non-AVI
container format, which does not have the 4GB file-size limit, or use a
capturing program which understands how to create OpenDML AVIs.

The only other alternative I see would be to split the capture into
multiple files somewhere not later than the 4GB mark, so that you have
multiple usable files instead of one only-partly-usable one.

The over-4GB files you have are probably (not definitely, but probably)
not salvageable.


Incidentally: please fix your mail client to quote correctly. Placing a
'>' at the beginning of every new quote block is not enough; there
should be one at the beginning of every new quoted line. I have fixed
the quotes in this response by hand, but it quickly becomes irritating
to do that for very long.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.