[MPlayer-users] Having trouble producing mpeg from mov

[The Wanderer]

Philip Walden wrote:

> Philip Walden wrote:
> 
>> The Wanderer wrote:
>> 
>>> Philip Walden wrote:

>>>> Writing AVI header...
>>> 
>>> Okay, this is a problem right there. Since you specified -of
>>> mpeg, there should be no "AVI header" involved. I do not get a
>>> corresponding message with the same set of options and a random
>>> MOV file I happen to have sitting around (for which I specify
>>> -noaudio to duplicate your situation as closely as possible).
>>> This is with MPlayer/MEncoder from CVS as of the 27th.
>>> 
>>> If I try to play the resulting file with no MPlayer options, I
>>> get the same messages you do up through "may be a bug", then it
>>> falls back on XMMS plugins trying to demux the file. If I
>>> explicitly specify -demuxer 35, I then get the "broken file?"
>>> message you describe.
>>> 
>>> I suspect that the MEncoder output you gave and the MEncoder
>>> command line you provided do not go with one another. However,
>>> the problem appears to exist regardless.
>>> 
>> No fooling, the output from the "$ mencoder -of mpeg ... " and on
>> was cut-n-pasted directly from the terminal window. So there is no
>> chance that I mucked it up. However, I doubled checked now and have
>> the same output results.

As RC indicated, my suspicion was baseless, the message would be printed
by the version you were using regardless of the output container. This
has since been fixed, which is why I didn't see the same output.

>> I also tried adding an -audiofile with acodec=mp2, but I get the
>> same bad results indicating an AVI header is being written.
> 
> I have downloaded dev-CVS-060106 and attempted to produce mpeg and
> avi files with mpeg compression with very mixed results. You all may
> want to check this out
> 
> For avi container with mpeg video:
>   mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=<see table below> -o PC290052.avi PC290052.MOV
> 
> vcodec            |   -o file sz   |   mplayer   |   realplayer10        |   MS media player   |   Quicktime7
> mpeg1video   |   3028430    |   works      |   fails                     |   fails                        |   crashes
> mpeg2video   |  3027836    |    works      |   needs new codec  |   needs new codec     |  needs new SW
> msmpeg4v2   |  3013762    |  works        |   works                   |   works                      |   needs new SW
> 
> 
> For mpeg container with mpeg video:
>    mencoder -of mpeg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=<see table below> -o PC290052.mpg PC290052.MOV
> 
> vcodec            |   -o file sz   |   mplayer   |   realplayer10        |   MS media player   |   Quicktime7
> mpeg1video   |   3051524    |   works      |   fails                     |   crashes                    |   not recognized
> mpeg2video   |   3051524    |   works      |   fails                     |   fails                        |   not recognized
> msmpeg4v2    |  2052 !!!!    |   no video  |    needs new SW    |   needs new SW       |   not recognized

Oof. Let me guess, you tried to make that table using a proportional
font, right? I had to copy it out and rejigger the spacing by hand in
order to make it readable.

I agree that some of the observations involved are interesting. Here's
the same table with what is hopefully better formatting:

==
For avi container with mpeg video:
   mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=<see table below> -o PC290052.avi 
PC290052.MOV

vcodec       |   -o file sz   |   mplayer   |   realplayer10     |   MS 
media player   |   Quicktime7
mpeg1video   |   3028430      |   works     |   fails            | 
fails             |   crashes
mpeg2video   |   3027836      |   works     |   needs new codec  | 
needs new codec   |   needs new SW
msmpeg4v2    |   3013762      |   works     |   works            | 
works             |   needs new SW


For mpeg container with mpeg video:
    mencoder -of mpeg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=<see table below> -o 
PC290052.mpg PC290052.MOV

vcodec       |   -o file sz   |   mplayer   |   realplayer10    |   MS 
media player    |   Quicktime7
mpeg1video   |   3051524      |   works     |   fails           | 
crashes            |   not recognized
mpeg2video   |   3051524      |   works     |   fails           | 
fails              |   not recognized
msmpeg4v2    |   2052 !!!!    |   no video  |   needs new SW    | 
needs new SW       |   not recognized
==

(I presume, since you mention "needs new codec" explicitly elsewhere,
that "needs new SW" means "said it would have to download a new version
in order to play the file"?)

I expect that there were error messages printed during the encode which
resulted in the 2052-byte output file. Although this may well not be
related, it looks vaguely like a problem I've had (with AVI and MP4, not
MPEG and MPEG) in which there is a buffer overflow of some sort and
MEncoder halts itself prematurely (without crashing) in response,
producing a ~26MB unplayable file from a ~230MB quite playable source..

I think there's something else I should be able to say about this, but
it's not coming to mind...

-- 
       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.