Puzzling ffmpeg

[nujinini]

Hello!

The other day I was using ffmpeg and executing the below without any problems

$ ffmpeg -i video.flv video.mp4

And it would just execute and transcode.

Today, I still have to make a successful transcode. I execute this and this is the error report I get which was not there the other day.

jun@jun-laptop ~/Projects $ ffmpeg -i The\ Silence\ of\ the\ Lambs.avi The\ Silence\ of\ the\ Lambs.mp4
FFmpeg version 0.5-svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --extra-version=svn17737+3:0.svn20090303-1ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-libdc1394 --disable-armv5te --disable-armv6 --disable-armv6t2 --disable-armvfp --disable-neon --disable-altivec --disable-vis --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Apr 23 2010 15:08:34, gcc: 4.3.3
Input #0, avi, from 'The Silence of the Lambs.avi':
  Duration: 01:58:31.51, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 763 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 672x362 [PAR 1:1 DAR 336:181], PAR 185344:185325 DAR 16384:8825, 29.97 tbr, 29.97 tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 32 kb/s
Output #0, mp4, to 'The Silence of the Lambs.mp4':
    Stream #0.0: Video: 0x0000, yuv420p, 672x362 [PAR 1:1 DAR 336:181], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 90k tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: 0x0000, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Unsupported codec for output stream #0.0
jun@jun-laptop ~/Projects $

I transcoded at least 18 flvs to mp4s the other day with only that simple command and it was a success. Now it wouldn't work and give me that error instead.

Very puzzling. Really hope to hear your advises regarding my situation.

Thanks!

[Rubberman]

Nujinini,

Does it still transcode the flv files ok? Or are they also giving you problems? If the latter, then possibly some component update has caused a problem with ffmpeg. This has happened to me and I had to either rebuild/reinstall it, or do other contortions to get it fixed. What if you try to transcode it to another output format? Same problem?

[Rubberman]

FWIW, yours is a pretty old version of ffmpeg. I just recently rebuilt from source and it was at svn-r23640.

[nujinini]

Hi Rubberman,

I googled around and have found this site.

Then I tried to execute this:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-unstripped-52 libavdevice-unstripped-52 libavformat-unstripped-52 libavutil-unstripped-49 libpostproc-unstripped-51 libswscale-unstripped-0

It installed some things afterwhich I am now again able to transcode avi or flv to mp4. I think I uninstalled something during the past days while I was playing around with it.

FWIW, yours is a pretty old version of ffmpeg. I just recently rebuilt from source and it was at svn-r23640.

It would be nice if I can update my version too. May I please ask how?

Thanks!

[Rubberman]

Hi Rubberman,

I googled around and have found this site.

Then I tried to execute this:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-unstripped-52 libavdevice-unstripped-52 libavformat-unstripped-52 libavutil-unstripped-49 libpostproc-unstripped-51 libswscale-unstripped-0

It installed some things afterwhich I am now again able to transcode avi or flv to mp4. I think I uninstalled something during the past days while I was playing around with it.




It would be nice if I can update my version too. May I please ask how?

Thanks!

I went to the FFmpeg web site, downloaded the latest stable version source code tarball, futzed with configure, determined I needed some new support libraries that were incompatible with the ones installed on my OS (CentOS 5.5), so I installed them into /usr/local instead of via the package manager into /usr, then finished with configure, built the sources, and installed into /usr/local (default). I have to set /usr/local/lib first in my LD_LIBRARY_PATH now to run ffmpeg, but that's a small price to pay so I can run both regular video applications (kaffeine, mplayer, et al) and the latest ffmpeg. Altogether, it was a couple of hours on the weekend to sort it all out, but now I can transcode HD videos to play on my Nexus One phone...

[Segfault]

I'm a die-hard CLI user. When I transcode I want to see what I'm doing, Avidemux is great for this.

[Rubberman]

ffmpeg is purely CLI. Best tool of its type for my time/$$ as far as I'm concerned.

[Segfault]

ffmpeg is purely CLI. Best tool of its type for my time/$$ as far as I'm concerned.

time/$$ is not what I had in mind. I want my outcome to be best possible, I need visual for that. Sorry for being perfectionist. Avidemux can be used from command line, too, in case you need batch processing.

[nujinini]

I went to the FFmpeg web site, downloaded the latest stable version source code tarball, futzed with configure, determined I needed some new support libraries that were incompatible with the ones installed on my OS (CentOS 5.5), so I installed them into /usr/local instead of via the package manager into /usr, then finished with configure, built the sources, and installed into /usr/local (default). I have to set /usr/local/lib first in my LD_LIBRARY_PATH now to run ffmpeg, but that's a small price to pay so I can run both regular video applications (kaffeine, mplayer, et al) and the latest ffmpeg. Altogether, it was a couple of hours on the weekend to sort it all out, but now I can transcode HD videos to play on my Nexus One phone...

I already downloaded the latest version and extracted it in my Desktop using package manager. What would be the next step please?

[Segfault]

They say if you do not need watermark use SVN version. You do not need to unpack it, and future upgrades are simple with SVN.

mkdir work
cd work
svn checkout svn://svn.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
./configure
...

In case you want to stick with tarball ... desktop is kind of weird place for it, but choice is yours. Read the README and INSTALL, proceed as directed.