Multimedia format conversion

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

I'm wondering about experimenting with a FlyCamOne, a tiny, lightweight,
cheap video and still camera. It shoots AVI videos at 320x240 or JPG
stills at 1024 x 768.

I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch an
example AVI file I have lying around.

Can anybody suggest a multimedia program that does handle AVI videos or a
converter that can convert AVI to something that VLC or mplayer can
handle?

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Phil Stovell · External Since: May 04, 2005 Posts: 21

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:

> I'm wondering about experimenting with a FlyCamOne, a tiny, lightweight,
> cheap video and still camera. It shoots AVI videos at 320x240 or JPG
> stills at 1024 x 768.
>
> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch an
> example AVI file I have lying around.
>
> Can anybody suggest a multimedia program that does handle AVI videos or a
> converter that can convert AVI to something that VLC or mplayer can
> handle?

AVIDemux?

Ian Rawlings · External Since: Oct 07, 2006 Posts: 245

On 2009-04-27, Phil Stovell <phil.DeleteThis@stovell.org.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
>> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch an
>> example AVI file I have lying around.
>
> AVIDemux?

I'd expect that to fail too if the others won't handle it, might be
best to find out some more info about the AVI file, basically what
codecs is it using, and is it larger than 0 bytes Wink

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12quidkidinnit

AVS Video Converter. Good but not free. Although there is a free trial version but it's nowhere near as good as the paid for version.

AVS seems to be able to convert anything. I've had similar problems with certain AVI files and AVS seems to handle them no problem. Someone even told me it can be used to back up copy protected DVDs. I didn't bother with the whole process but it seems willing to do it. Just comes up with a warning asking if you want to copy it, and if you say yes, it starts.

http://www.avsmedia.com/AVS-Video-Converter.aspx

rich · External Since: Apr 08, 2009 Posts: 4

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:

> I'm wondering about experimenting with a FlyCamOne, a tiny, lightweight,
> cheap video and still camera. It shoots AVI videos at 320x240 or JPG
> stills at 1024 x 768.
>
> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch an
> example AVI file I have lying around.
>
> Can anybody suggest a multimedia program that does handle AVI videos or
> a converter that can convert AVI to something that VLC or mplayer can
> handle?

From a couple of links gleaned from a google search the .avi file should
be a motion-jpeg, 320x240 @ 25 fps. VLC should play this and since it
does not I would suspect a corrupt video file. Have a look at the start
of the file, first few bytes should be something like "RIFFJ®æAVI
LISTR hdrlavih8"

perhaps make a new sample or see http://tinyurl.com/ctgcqc

--
rich

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:27:10 +0100, Phil Stovell wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering about experimenting with a FlyCamOne, a tiny,
>> lightweight, cheap video and still camera. It shoots AVI videos at
>> 320x240 or JPG stills at 1024 x 768.
>>
>> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch
>> an example AVI file I have lying around.
>>
>> Can anybody suggest a multimedia program that does handle AVI videos or
>> a converter that can convert AVI to something that VLC or mplayer can
>> handle?
>
> AVIDemux?

Excellent suggestion: Thanks.

Somewhere along the line I'd managed to scramble my test avi, but
avidemux managed to rescue at least the audio once I'd found how to drive
it thanks to having the actual FlyCamOne AVI Rich mentioned.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:37:41 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:

> On 2009-04-27, Phil Stovell <phil RemoveThis @stovell.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>>
>>> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch
>>> an example AVI file I have lying around.
>>
>> AVIDemux?
>
> I'd expect that to fail too if the others won't handle it, might be best
> to find out some more info about the AVI file, basically what codecs is
> it using, and is it larger than 0 bytes Wink

Its a pretty good program. My test file as got corrupted but its
interesting to see what various programs can do:

Mplayer VLC AVIdemux ffmpeg

FlyCamOne example PLAYS Says its broken Converts OK 16-bit sound
only
Damaged AVI AUDIO ONLY Audio only Audio only format not
recognised

FlyCamOne AVI Damaged AVI test sample

Mplayer Plays played audio
VLC Broken AVI file played audio
AVIdemux Converts OK converted audio
ffmpeg Failed - only format not recognised
16 bit sound

IOW, I've now deleted ffmpeg and added avidemux to my keepers.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:26:23 +0000, rich wrote:

> perhaps make a new sample or see http://tinyurl.com/ctgcqc
>
Thanks for that. Told me exactly what I wanted to know.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Will Kemp · External Since: Jan 13, 2009 Posts: 16

Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:37:41 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:
>
>> On 2009-04-27, Phil Stovell <phil.DeleteThis@stovell.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:19:50 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have VLC, mplayer and ffmpeg installed, but none of these can touch
>>>> an example AVI file I have lying around.
>>> AVIDemux?
>> I'd expect that to fail too if the others won't handle it, might be best
>> to find out some more info about the AVI file, basically what codecs is
>> it using, and is it larger than 0 bytes Wink

>
> Its a pretty good program. My test file as got corrupted but its
> interesting to see what various programs can do:
>
> Mplayer VLC AVIdemux ffmpeg
>
> FlyCamOne example PLAYS Says its broken Converts OK 16-bit sound
> only
> Damaged AVI AUDIO ONLY Audio only Audio only format not
> recognised
>
> FlyCamOne AVI Damaged AVI test sample
>
> Mplayer Plays played audio
> VLC Broken AVI file played audio
> AVIdemux Converts OK converted audio
> ffmpeg Failed - only format not recognised
> 16 bit sound
>
> IOW, I've now deleted ffmpeg and added avidemux to my keepers.

(This table is horribly munged on my newsreader!)

If mplayer plays it, mencoder should be able to transcode it too.

--
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Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:31:20 +0100, Will Kemp wrote:

> Martin Gregorie wrote:
>> FlyCamOne AVI Damaged AVI test sample
>>
>> Mplayer Plays played audio
>> VLC Broken AVI file played audio
>> AVIdemux Converts OK converted audio
>> ffmpeg Failed - only format not recognised
>> 16 bit sound
>>
>> IOW, I've now deleted ffmpeg and added avidemux to my keepers.
>
> (This table is horribly munged on my newsreader!)
>
Sadly, it was when it left here too. I did a horizontal version, changed
my mind and created the above vertical format but forgot to remove the
horizontal one. The above is cleaned up and should be OK with a fixed
pitch font.

> If mplayer plays it, mencoder should be able to transcode it too.
>
Once I found that AVIdemux could make clean copies of the FlyCamOne AVI
using Flash, MPEG and VCD and that Mplayer and VLC can both display the
results I haven't looked further or done anything else except for erasing
ffmpeg.

Right. Onwards.... I does anybody on here know anything about validating
OpenAir files?

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Ian Rawlings · External Since: Oct 07, 2006 Posts: 245

On 2009-04-28, Martin Gregorie <martin.RemoveThis@see.sig.for.address.invalid> wrote:

> Once I found that AVIdemux could make clean copies of the FlyCamOne AVI
> using Flash, MPEG and VCD and that Mplayer and VLC can both display the
> results I haven't looked further or done anything else except for erasing
> ffmpeg.

With avidemux, if you set up a conversion how you want it to go, you
can then use the "save as a job" menu option to save it as a ".js"
file, then remove all the guff about loading a saving the file from
the resulting .js file then save it as a script in the "custom"
directory of the .avidemux directory. Then you can repeat the
settings by just picking them off the "Custom" menu. Here's an
example script from my custom dir;

--------------------
//AD <- Needed to identify//
//--automatically built--
//--Project: /media/Lounge temp/Sorted/Drama/Danger Man/Series
1/new/DVD-Low.js

var app = new Avidemux();

//** Video Codec conf **
app.video.codec("X264","2PASSBITRATE=750","188 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 1e 00 00 00 64 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 33 00 00
00 04 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 19 00 00 00 fa 00 00 00 01 00
00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 0f
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00
00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5a 00 00 00 ");

//** Audio **
app.audio.reset();
app.audio.codec("aac",56,4,"80 00 00 00 ");
app.audio.normalizeMode=0;
app.audio.normalizeValue=0;
app.audio.delay=0;
app.audio.mixer("STEREO");
app.setContainer("MP4");
setSuccess(1);
//app.Exit();

//End of script
--------------------

All the above was generated by the "Save as job" option, I just took
out all the other stuff about loading a particular file and saving it
at the end so now I can repeat those settings whenever I want them.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!
http://youtube.com/tarcus69
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/