[MEncoder-users] mencoder //tv capture avi index problem

[ted morris]

greetings,

I'm using mencoder to capture live  /dev/video[x] streams tv:// with v4l2
and saving them as ffmpeg mpeg4, single pass files, no audio.

They playback fine with the media player in Debian linux, and VLC in windows
ok.

But I want to use VirtualDub and with any version I try I get this warjning:

AVI:Index not found or damaged -- reconstructing via file scan.
AVI:keyframe flag reconstruction was not specified in option options
and the video stream is not a sknown keyframe-only type. Seeking in the
video stream may be extremely slow.

Note that I have tried both, the fastfreempeg codec for windows for the
fourcc FMP4, as well as -forcecc "XVID" with mencoder, to use the XVID codec
on windows and the same message appears. So it must be something going on in
the header structure of the file :-?

I have also played with keyint=<frames> option.

Same result.

As another test, I tried the xvid codec instead and that did work although
the files generated were much larger for similar visual quality (single
pass). Although THIS ONE loaded fine in VirtualDub (1.91, 1.8x....).
So I must be missing something or there is a bug with avicodec usage.

So I am stuck and stumped. Would anyone have any insight into this problem
and a way around it?

At least for the copious files I have, I read some threads that indicate
mencoder itself can rebuild the index (sometimes) but I'm fairly new with
mencoder and I can't quite tween out the best way to do that from the
on-line doc and man-page.

thanks very much in advance!

t