Unrecognized format?

[Dale1990]

I have some MPEG video captures from my old Hauppage 350 that I am trying to run thru ffmpegx (to reduce the file size) and the GUI lists them as Unrecognized video. Quicktime says they are MPEG2 640x480. I don't know how to find more info than that. Needless to say, if ffmpegx doesn't open them, I am kinda stuck.

They play fine in Quicktime, MPEG Streamclip and XBMC. I'd just leave it and call it a day except that they are 500MB for 20mins - I am not made of hard drives

Any help would be appreciated. I would like to convert these puppies to something maybe half the size they are now.

[Case]

QuickTime Player isn't so accurate when it comes to the video size of MPEGs, so please report what MPEG Streamclip says under File>Show Stream Info (Cmd-I).

ffmpegX should recognize MPEG captures, but if you can't get it to work, then you can use MPEG Streamclip to convert, using QuickTime codecs, including conversion to DivX AVIs.

[Dale1990]

Here is the info from Streamclip:
Type: MPEG program stream

Duration: 0:20:37
Data Size: 502.14 MB
Bit Rate: 3.41 Mbps

Video Tracks:
224 MPEG-2, 720 × 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps, 4.40 Mbps, upper field first

Audio Tracks:
192 MP2 stereo, 48 kHz, 384 kbps

Thanks!

[Case]

The file header in your MPEG file may be broken/corrupt/non-standard beyond what ffmpegX can recognize. Re-saving the MPEG file in MPEG Streamclip may fix the header.

If small file size is important, then I'd suggest converting to H.264 .MP4. Try both the h264 mencoder and h264 x264 presets, even if the Summary window has trouble recognizing your source file. One of them may be able to convert anyways. That's what I would try.

[Dale1990]

I tried resaving before with no success. After letting it churn for a few hours, h.264 mencoder produced an unreadable file. The x264 errored out.

It appears that despite being able to play these things with all my players, ffmpegx can't work with them. Not sure where to go from here. I suppose I can use Streamclip.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks for the help!

[llee782]

If VLC will play them, you might try the Streaming/Exporting Wizard.

You might be able to monkey around with the beginning of the file with something like Hexedit or Hex Fiend to get it to work. Only open copies with the hex editing application so you don't risk any originals. Sometimes I can use a hex editor to compare a file that won't process successfully with ffmpegX to one that will, and find some repetetive garbage at the beginning of the file which, when deleted, allows it to be processed successfully. The more similar the two files being compared, the more chance there is that you'll be able to identify inappropriate data in the one that won't process.

[Dale1990]

Thanks for the tip!

I was able to get ffmpeg to recognize the files when I saved them with "Convert to Headed MPEG". ffmpegx now recognizes them but unfortunately, the h.264 format is not playing nice with XBMC. I did get XviD to work and the filesize/quality is acceptable - 220MB for 20mins.

Now the only problem is that I have about 120 of these files to convert and each one takes 2-3 hours on this old G4...