[MPlayer-users] Coverting RealVideo to MPEG.

[The Wanderer]

Jesse W. Asher wrote:

> Ok! That worked great! Now, I'm trying to convert to an mpeg and
> here's the command I'm using (taken from document off the mplayer
> home page):
> 
> mencoder -of mpeg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video -oac lavc $1 -o 
> output.mpg
> 
> Here's the message I receive when I run it:
<snip>
> Couldn't open codec mp2, br=224
> 
> Any ideas as to what may be happening here?

At a guess, libavcodec is trying to use 224kbps MP2 audio (which is the
default), and for some reason that isn't available. Try specifying
acodec=mp3 and/or abitrate=<bitrate> in lavcopts, and see if that
changes anything. (It would probably also be a good idea to specify
video-encoding options, since the default while not terrible isn't that
good, but that doesn't so far seem related to your problem.)

> Also, anyone know of any good books that are for the lay person on
> the various video/audio formats?  I don't know anything about this
> kind of stuff and I find the documentation on the net to be scattered
> an somewhat frustrating.  Any tips would be appreciated.   Many
> thanks!!

I don't really know much about them, no. Most of what I do know I've
picked up from lurking on these mailing lists over time. I do know that
depending on what kind of information you want (how to encode? what the
advantages and disadvantages of each format are? the technical
specifications of the bitstream for each format?), you'd have to look in
different places, and in some cases there might not be clear and
well-done documentation anyway.

-- 
       The Wanderer

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

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.