Errors with MPEG4 ASF file

[Dobermann]

I give up. I have been trying for hours on end and nothing works right. I cannot play this file:

[file no longer available]

On one computer, I get video and no audio. On another, I get nothing, just the error message that "one or more codecs required to open this media could not be found."

Yet when I play it in my camera that I recorded it in, Panasonic PV-DV953D, I get audio and video. The manual says it creates MPEG4 files that have the extension of ASF.

VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc, will not open it on my main computer (the one with the error message).

GSpot plays the video (claims a "Render: Partial Failure" for the 1 button) but provides no audio. Says it is:

File Type: ASF (.WMA/.WMV)
Mime Type: video/x-ms-asf

I did the latest MS codec (mpg4vki.zip) from another link here, but again to no avail.

Will some kind soul please help me out and tell me what I am missing/doing wrong?



Thanks ever so much,
Dobermann

This vehicle is unlocked and the keys are under the Dobermann...

[celtic_druid]

Video FourCC is MP4S and the audio is I believe G.726. Plays ok via mplayer.

[Dobermann]

Thanks for the link. Color me confused, but when I play it back with mplayer as suggested, this is the info I get:

Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 8000 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 32.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 4000->16000)
Selected audio codec: [ffg726] afm:ffmpeg (Sharp G.726 Audio)
================================================== ========================
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
================================================== ========================
Checking audio filter chain for 8000Hz/1ch/s16le -> 8000Hz/2ch/s16le...
AF_pre: 8000Hz/1ch/s16le
AO: [dsound] 8000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bps)
Building audio filter chain for 8000Hz/1ch/s16le -> 8000Hz/2ch/s16le...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 320 x 240 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [directx] 320x240 => 320x240 Planar YV12


While this player works, I believe I am still in need of the codecs, as my friends and other dog club members will be viewing the clips, too. They need to be able to just click on them on the web site and view them. Many of them will have no idea or understand how to use mplayer. While we believe you *can* teach an old dog new tricks (we are, after all, dog trainers), not many of us can ourselves learn new tricks.

I searched the Tools section for the libavcodec, but it was not there. Then I Googled for it, and well, let's just say that while the results were huge, there seemed to be no clear cut compiled codec that matched what mplayer said it used.

There's got to be an easier way so my friends and I can just install the codecs (that I would like to link to) so we can simply click on the website's file link and it is off and playing...

Dobermann

This vehicle is unlocked and the keys are under the Dobermann...

[celtic_druid]

ffdshow uses libavcodec, however I don't think that it supports G.726. VLC should work and is a little more user friendly. Otherwise you need to find a dshow (better) or ACM decoder.

Could also add a request over at sf for Milan to add G.726 support.

[Dobermann]

Well, VLC lets me see the video, but the sound is like the cell phone commercial and the "can you hear me now" routine. It throbs in and out most terribly.

I cannot believe how difficult this whole process can be. What happened to the days when one could easily find the required codec, download it, install it, then be off and cooking with gas.....

My Premiere Pro 1.5 cannot even open the file, which will make the next step difficult, as once I can view it properly (and hear it), I need to be able to pull a single frame from it to put up as the marque for it.

Thanks for your help,
Dobermann

This vehicle is unlocked and the keys are under the Dobermann...

[celtic_druid]

Should be able to save out any frame you want with mplayer. If you want people to be able to play it, then I would suggest converting to something more common, although when I looked the other day it definatly looked like there were at least ACM decoders available for your audio.

[Dobermann]

celtic_druid, media player classic plays my files and it lets me extract a single frame (as you suggested to someone else in another post). I am not able to find a method to automate the extraction of a single frame from multiple ASF files. Is this just not possible with the sw? If not, is there another free sw that can do this with those files?

Thanks ever so much for all you help so far!
Dobermann

This vehicle is unlocked and the keys are under the Dobermann...

[celtic_druid]

Should be possible using mplayer -vo jpeg/png -frames #, etc. and a for statement. That way you could simply have it process all files in a give dir and have it output jpeg's or png's of a certain frame.

[Dobermann]

Well, just now getting the time to try this out. As suspected, it works great. I used, "mplayer.exe -vo png:z=0 -frames 1 C:\Pictures\Extract\*.asf" to get the first frame out of each one. It numbered them all consecutively, and extracted them starting with the oldest file creation date working towards the newest. I found that renumbering the ASF files to the same beginning name, ie, 00000001.ASF, made it easy to match them up with the extracted file, 00000001.png. 87 files had their first frames all extracted for me quicker than anything else.

Thanks again for all your help!
Dobermann

[Dobermann]

Well, just now getting the time to try this out. As suspected, it works great. I used, "mplayer.exe -vo png:z=0 -frames 1 C:\Pictures\Extract\*.asf" to get the first frame out of each one. It numbered them all consecutively, and extracted them starting with the oldest file creation date working towards the newest. I found that renumbering the ASF files to the same beginning name, ie, 00000001.ASF, made it easy to match them up with the extracted file, 00000001.png. 87 files had their first frames all extracted for me quicker than anything else.

Thanks again for all your help!
Dobermann

I don't get it -- the video gods must not like me tonight.... for some unknown reason, this is simply not working correctly. I have even tried putting MPlayer and all its components in the same directory that I have all the ASF files numbered and ready to go to have their first frame extracted and named *.png. What it does is instead of doing that for each ASF file, it picks one file and literally extracts each and every frame and names them sequentially, then stops when all frames are extracted. What could be wrong? I used the latest MPlayer from the link provided here.

Dobermann

[celtic_druid]

It worked before though right? So what exactly has changed? Just the mplayer binary? If so I guess try the old one. Personally I always use my own cvs mplayer compiles.
http://celticdruid.no-ip.com/xvid/

[Dobermann]

It did work before. What changed is the computer... the other one's HD died, and I have not had the time to install all the software and stuff on its new HD, so I am using another one.

This time I used your own compile (mplayer2005.10.03.tbird.7z), and got 2 separate frames from each asf. On a lark, I tried changing -frames 1 to 0, but then nothing was extracted.

Here are the messages it shows when it runs,

Playing C:\delete\Extract\00000080.ASF.
ASF file format detected.
VIDEO: [MP4S] 320x240 24bpp 1000.000 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
comments: Panasonic DVC PV-DV953
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [acm] Win32/ACM decoders
Loading codec DLL: 'scg726.acm'
Loaded DLL driver scg726.acm at 8da0000
Warning! ACM codec reports srcsize=0
AUDIO: 8000 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 32.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 4000->16000)
Selected audio codec: [g726] afm:acm (Sharp G.726 Audio)
================================================== ========================
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
================================================== ========================
Building audio filter chain for 8000Hz/1ch/s16le -> 0Hz/0ch/??...
AO: [dsound] 8000Hz 1ch s16le (2 B/s)
Building audio filter chain for 8000Hz/1ch/s16le -> 8000Hz/1ch/s16le...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 320 x 240 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [png] 320x240 => 320x240 BGR 24-bit
PNG Warning: compression level set to 0, compression disabled!
PNG Info: Use -vo png:z=<n> to set compression level from 0 to 9.
PNG Info: (0 = no compression, 1 = fastest, lowest - 9 best, slowest compression
)
A: 3.8 V: 3.8 A-V: 0.004 ct: 0.695 3/ 3 ??% ??% ??,?% 0 0

------

Next, I found the May 5th compile, (MPlayer-cvs-20050508.exe), and installed that one. This time, it worked perfectly like it did before! It sure seems like there is is bug in the coding revisions since the May 8th distribution.

Thanks,
Dobermann