Remux CBS HD flv file to MP4?

[txporter]

I have been tinkering around with some flv files that I downloaded from CBS.com. I am trying to remux them into mp4 containers so that I can push them up to my Tivo to watch them. I am having no luck. I tried flvextract to extract the elementary streams. That seems to work fine. Then I try to remux them with either mp4box or mp4creator and I end up with a mp4 file that is roughly half the total size as the flv. It doesn't play back in MPCHC (blank screen and timeline doesn't progress).

I found a thread on this where someone uses ffmpeg to copy both streams into a mp4, and then extracts the elementary streams with mp4box and then remuxes them again with mp4box. That doesn't work either.

I then tried encoding the file with avisynth (ffmpegsource2+assumefps(24)) and x264 (r1745). That also doesn't play in MPCHC.

This is on a new laptop, so it is possible that I don't have something set up correctly. Don't know.

What am I doing wrong? Also, flvextract will output a timecode file when I demux a flv. What is that used for?

MediaInfo on flv:

General
Complete name                    : D:\encode\Test\Blue.Bloods-101-pilot.flv
Format                           : Flash Video
File size                        : 794 MiB
Duration                         : 42mn 47s
Overall bit rate                 : 2 594 Kbps
aacaot                           : 2.000
audiochannels                    : 2.000
audiocodecid                     : mp4a
avclevel                         : 40.000
avcprofile                       : 100.000
moovPosition                     : 28.000
videocodecid                     : avc1

Video
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 2 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@4.0
Duration                         : 42mn 47s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Nominal bit rate                 : 2 500 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate mode                  : Constant
Frame rate                       : 24.000 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.050
Color primaries                  : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics         : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients              : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio
Format                           : AAC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version                   : Version 4
Format profile                   : LC
Format settings, SBR             : Yes
Format settings, PS              : No
Duration                         : 42mn 47s
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L R
Sampling rate                    : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth                        : 16 bits

[jman98]

If CBS actually lets you download unprotected files of complete episodes, that would certainly be a first for the US major TV networks. If you did something you aren't telling us to get these files, like you actually used a recording program of some kind to capture the streams, it would be useful to mention that.

[txporter]

I used StreamTransport to download it.

[txporter]

Nevermind. Looks like I have a codec problem that is futzing with my playback in MPCHC. Videos remuxed in ffmpeg play fine in VLC.

[iana]

The best way to remux a flv to mp4 is with Avi demux https://www.videohelp.com/tools/AviDemux, open your flv (this works if the flash video us compressed with h264 + aac not with VP6, if the video is vp4 or vp6 you'll need to re-compress the video) select copy stream for the audio and video, for output container select mp4 and process, ffmpeg (mencoder) re-compresses the file, and doing a lossy compression on an already lossy compressed file is not a good idea. by the way mpc-hc has build in support for h264 and aac so you shouldn't get a codec problem using it.

[txporter]

Thanks for the response, iana. I just did a stream copy with ffmpeg, so all that I was doing was remuxing. I prefer to have command line utilities if possible so that I can just incorporate into batch files. Thanks though!

Your point about mpc-hc is interesting. I don't know what the exact cause of the problem is. The files play back fine using MPC-HC on my home machine. It was just on my new laptop at work using MPC-HC (VLC was fine). I figured that I just didn't have something set up correctly and was too lazy to troubleshoot it since I don't generally do much video work on the laptop.

[iana]

well you should check your mpc-hc config, a frined of mine had a lot of trouble playing some (not all) files with mpc-hc it turned out it was the Direct Show output config, options->playback->output check and see what's the setup for DX output, I use VMR-9 (renderless) (on an XP and a 7-64 machines), if that's ok see options->Internal Filters and confirm that all the apropriate source filters are active (mp4), as well as the transform filters (aac, h264 etc) if U are having problems with the DXVA filters disable them and use the software renders they're bases on ffmpeg

ps. I didn't know ffmpeg could do stream copy I should reread their FAQ.

[iana]

just remembered a few months ago I was having problems rendering mp4 files in mpc and mpc-hc it turned out to be a bug in haali media splitter, K-Lite usualy installs haali so if U have it installed you should update it, the last build 14/08/2010 fixes problems with mp4 rendering.

[txporter]

Thanks for the pointers on MPC-HC. Will have to take a look. Here is the batch file that I use to remux flv if you are interested. At least you can see the syntax for stream copying with ffmpeg.

setlocal
set ffmpeg="D:\encode\ffmpeg.exe"
set mp4creator="D:\encode\mp4creator\mp4creator.exe"

FOR %%A IN (*.flv) DO (
%ffmpeg% -i %%A -vcodec copy -acodec copy %%~nA.mp4
%mp4creator% -O %%~nA.mp4
)

The mp4creator line isn't really necessary for standard playback, but I push my video up to my Tivo for playback, so I need to move the moov atom to the front of the file. It doesn't hurt anything to have it like that though.

[Riot Nrrrd]

txporter, do you mind if I jump in on your thread?

I'm in a similar boat, I have a quasi-HD 1024x576 PAL 25fps FLV file that won't play in my Networked Media Tank box (but plays fine in VLC/Movist on my Mac).

The video/audio streams inside are H.264/AAC. I'd like to get the streams sucked out and remuxed into something palatable to my NMT (it's a Chinese analog to a Popcorn Hour A110), like to either MP4 or MKV.

I tried using avidemux on the Mac already but it crashes

Wondering if I should be using ffmpegX or something else for this task. Or going for your command-line ffmpeg invocation. (What does "%%~nA" get expanded to?)

[iana]

setlocal
set ffmpeg="D:\encode\ffmpeg.exe"
set mp4creator="D:\encode\mp4creator\mp4creator.exe"

FOR %%A IN (*.flv) DO (
%ffmpeg% -i %%A -vcodec copy -acodec copy %%~nA.mp4
%mp4creator% -O %%~nA.mp4
)

is a windows batch file you can't use it under a Unix like system, I forgot what I knew about bash scripting but the simplest thing you could do is

ffmpeg -i yourFile.flv -vcodec copy -acodec copy yourFile.mp4

just remember to place ffmpeg in your path (haven't used OSX but most Linux systems have a writable $Path folder located at $HOME/bin)
avidemux might crash if the flv file uses b frames as references (instead of i frames).

[txporter]

iana got it right.

The windows script looks at all flv files in a directory and runs them through the DO loop. Each file is assigned to %%A when it passes through the script. %%~nA tells it to use the name of the file before the extension. Adding the .mp4 just adds that to the file name.

example:
%%A=video1.flv
%%~nA=video1
%%~nA.mp4=video1.mp4

[Riot Nrrrd]

Thanks for the tips, unfortunately ffmpeg croaked when I tried to do it this way with an error.

I was eventually able to use iSkysoft iMedia Converter to convert the FLV file into an equivalent MKV file, so I'm good to go now.