h.264 only works with DVD folders not VOBs or M2Vs

[timmillea]

I have tried many h.264 encodings with 0.09t and I am consistently getting the same results. Works fine with DVD folder as input, but not a .VOB. Unfortunately some of my DVD collection is old and scratched and while I can get .VOBs out of most of them (by discarding the the audio, video and subpicture tracks I don't need) I cannot extract the whole DVD to suit ffmpegx.

I believe the encoding completes, but the conversion of the resulting .264 file into an .mp4 movie file fails every time.

Perhaps related, even after a succesful encode from a DVD folder, Quicktime does not allow 'saving as' a self-contained mov.

Here is the log of the last failed encode.

Encoding started on Tue Sep 6 16:02:32 EEST 2005
MEncoder dev-CVS-050814-13:46-3.3 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
Mac OSX static build for ffmpegX
AltiVec found
CPU: PowerPC
success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0xc767610
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x576 (aspect 3) 25.000 fps 7500.0 kbps (937.5 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:1 fourcc:0x10000002 size:720x576 fps:25.00 ftime:=0.0400
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
Opening video filter: [scale w=704 h=416]
Crop: 704 x 416, 8 ; 80
Opening video filter: [pp=0x33]
================================================== ========================
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Also try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred csp: Mpeg PES)
[PP] Using external postprocessing filter, max q = 6.
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
VDecoder init failed
Opening video decoder: [libmpeg2] MPEG 1/2 Video decoder libmpeg2-v0.4.0b
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm:libmpeg2 (MPEG-1 or 2 (libmpeg2))
================================================== ========================
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
[PP] Using external postprocessing filter, max q = 6.
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
SwScaler: using unscaled Planar YV12 -> Planar YV12 special converter
x264 [info]: using SAR=91/64
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities Altivec
1 duplicate frame(s)!
1 duplicate frame(s)!
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
[PP] Using external postprocessing filter, max q = 6.
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
1 duplicate frame(s)!
Flushing video frames
Fixing AVI header...
Video stream: 685.437 kbit/s (85679 bps) size: 520829343 bytes 6078.800 secs 151970 frames
x264 [info]: slice I:2203 Avg QP:22.00 Avg size: 19230
x264 [info]: slice P:76528 Avg QP:25.00 Avg size: 4857
x264 [info]: slice B:73236 Avg QP:27.00 Avg size: 1447
x264 [info]: slice I Avg I4x4:61.7% I8x8:0.0% I16x16:38.3%
x264 [info]: slice P Avg I4x4:5.7% I8x8:0.0% I16x16:8.6% P:42.3% P8x8:4.9% PSKIP:38.5%
x264 [info]: slice B Avg I4x4:0.9% I8x8:0.0% I16x16:1.8% P:17.7% B:5.2% B8x8:1.5% DIRECT:2.1% BSKIP:70.7%
x264 [info]: kb/s:684.3
ffmpeg version CVS, build 3211265, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Input #0, mpegvideo, from '/DVDs/LOTR_SEE_D1/TITLE02-ANGLE1-VIDEO1.M2V':
Duration: 01:20:04.3, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 7500 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x576, 25.00 fps, 7500 kb/s
No audio or video streams available

[thoughton]

Hmm last night I noticed the same problem (despite posting a rebuttal to the contrary on VersionTracker ). Converting mpegs has been going fine. I end up with a fantastic h264 .mp4. However I recently tried to convert some vobs and some mjpeg movs, and I keep getting this same error (end up with a .ff.264 file which cannot play in QT). The end of the info log is the same as timmillea's (missing the AVC-H264 Import section):

ffmpeg version 0.4.9-pre1, build 4736, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Duration: 00:00:04.0, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2664 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, 720x576, 25.00 fps
No audio or video streams available

[major]

Input #0, mpegvideo, from '/DVDs/LOTR_SEE_D1/TITLE02-ANGLE1-VIDEO1.M2V'

This does not seem a VOB file, but a video-only m2v track?

[major]

No audio or video streams available

Could you email me to major4@mac.com a short clip for testing?

[thoughton]

Emailed.

I'm now wondering (based on your comment to timmillea) if it is because there is no audio in the source mov?

[major]

Indeed, your mov had no audio. MP4 H264 currently requires a source with both video and audio.