[SOLVED] H.264 (.264 Extension) to, well, ANYTHING..

[DizzyThermal]

Hey guys, I had pulled a video clip off of a security camera's DVR.. It is an H.264 DVR and the file contains video only..

I have tried running this through ffplay and I had success and was able to see the video (though the video was fast, it was there)..

Here is a screenshot of it working using ffplay:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-FinULUoQs4Y/Thi3eq3zVhI/AAAAAAAAGB8/9HMmMAM7JN4/s720/video.jpg

I have been using Google to search ways to convert this file and a lot of places say that it should have came with software.. Well the company told me that if there was software, it's long gone.. (idiots >.<)

Anyway, I have some hope that it isn't completely proprietary seeing how I can play the file using ffplay..

I have tried using ffmpeg -i file.264 file.mp4 and it keeps telling me "file.264: Invalid data found when processing input"

Some forums have mentioned that it might be "Raw" .264..

The ideal destination Codec/Container for me would be: x264/mp4

Just sucks when you think the DVR is making clips in the format you want, and you pull of these raw files..

Anyway, thanks in advance for any insight and help you guys can provide!

-DizzyThermal

[M Bruner]

See if VDub can open it with perhaps an AviSynth DirectShowSource/Bilinear script.

[DizzyThermal]

The file won't even open in VirtualDub 1.9.11 (64 bit).. It says "The file "beach.264" is of an unknown or unsupported file type."

I wasn't sure how to run scripts in VirtualDub, I know you had mentioned running the AviSynth DirectShowSource/Bilinear script..

[DizzyThermal]

Any other ideas on how I can convert this?

[redwudz]

You might drop it into MediaInfo and post a screen shot of that here, Tree view, to see what the format really is. If it plays at all on your PC, you should be able to convert it.

And welcome to our forums.

[DizzyThermal]

Alright, here is a screenshot of MediaInfo: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-LLnNUTY6wfo/ThsCl4a9zLI/AAAAAAAAGEo/FHsPY89sZN0/s512/Untitled.png

[poisondeathray]

try putting it into a container with yamb (mp4box), or mkvmerge before you do any manipulations

many programs cannot parse elementary streams

dgavcindex can handle elementary streams, try indexing it

[DizzyThermal]

I called the company and they were able to give me a link to the AVIGenerator.. If anyone is interested in what software made this work, it seems like a pretty basic .exe (The icon is a blue MFC logo).. Let me know if you're interested, and thanks a ton for all the help guys!

[lupin_sansei]

Hi,
Just in case anyone else stumbles on this thread like I did, you can force ffmpeg to convert these .h264 security camera files like so:

ffmpeg -f h264 -i in.h264 out.mp4

I got the lead from here: https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2012-February/005297.html

I also found the mpc-hd could play some of the .h264 files, but not all of them, and seek was disabled.

[trampjuice]

Wow thanks for this - Had the same problem with ffmpeg - its far too strict and who knows about -f option?
Must have exact same chinese CCTV as you as I get avi files with missing codec metadata and all the ffmpeg errors.

another tip for CCTV is that you can concatinate the cctv files with ffmpeg:
concat demuxer

$ cat mylist.txt
file '/path/to/file1'
file '/path/to/file2'
file '/path/to/file3'

$ ffmpeg -f -safe 0 concat -i mylist.txt -c copy output.avi