Newbie: Why doesn't it work?

[orchestr]

I am new to ffmpegX, though I've been fooling around with video encoding for a while now. I have tried to convert 3 videos, now, 2 AVI's and one .mkv (which I know has its own problems). With each one, they convert nearly immediately, the program goes "ding!" and I'm given a 0kb file that won't open in anything. What am I doing wrong?

[orchestr]

For those curious, I did a complete uninstall and reinstall, and things seem to be working much better.

[orchestr]

Okay, nevermind. It encoded one video, all the following did the same 0KB thing. Frustrating!

[Ezrabbit]

I had the 0kb problem when the source file was an flv.
The solution was to turn on "Invert mapping" on the audio tab.
Try that, even if you're not working with flv files.

[Case]

To see why a conversion failed, take a look at the log (Process Information). Likely, it will have an error message. If you can't figure out the cryptic language in there, you can post the output here, so that others can have a look at it.

[pachara]

Hey I got the same problem with you (encoding instantly finished, results in 0 GB file). Here, I converted a .MOV file to the .FLV format, also chose the 'invert mapping' button on the audio tab as suggested.

Here's my log message:

-----------------
Encoding started on Wed May 23 16:16:16 BST 2007
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
Seems that stream 1 comes from film source: 1000.00 (3000/3) -> 30.00 (30/1)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/Users/pachara/Desktop/theptidateaser1':
Duration: 00:04:59.5, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1859 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: WMA2 / 0x32414D57, 44100 Hz, stereo
Stream #0.1(eng), 30.00 fps(r): Video: wmv2, yuv420p, 320x240
Output #0, flv, to '/Users/pachara/Desktop/thep.flv':
Stream #0.0, 12.00 fps(c): Video: flv, yuv420p, 320x240, q=2-10, 200 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, stereo, 56 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.1 -> #0.0 [sync #0.0]
Stream #0.0 -> #0.1 [sync #0.1]
Unsupported codec (id=0) for input stream #0.0
-----------------

The last line is in red.

Best,
P

[Case]

Input #0
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: WMA2 / 0x32414D57, 44100 Hz, stereo
Unsupported codec (id=0) for input stream #0.0

It looks like ffmpeg doesn't support WMA2 / 0x32414D57 audio. Nothing to be done about that, untill the developers release a new version that can decode it.

What program puts Windows Media codecs in a .mov container, in the first place? It seems so counterintuitive.

Flip4Mac and QuickTime Pro might be able to convert it; not sure tho'...

[pachara]

Input #0
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: WMA2 / 0x32414D57, 44100 Hz, stereo
Unsupported codec (id=0) for input stream #0.0

It looks like ffmpeg doesn't support WMA2 / 0x32414D57 audio. Nothing to be done about that, untill the developers release a new version that can decode it.

I see.

What program puts Windows Media codecs in a .mov container, in the first place? It seems so counterintuitive.

I downloaded the file using flip4mac and save it as a quicktime file. Didn't do anything fancy, really.

Flip4Mac and QuickTime Pro might be able to convert it; not sure tho'...

[Case]

I downloaded the file using flip4mac and save it as a quicktime file. Didn't do anything fancy, really.

Ah yes, that explains it. I usually do a Save as source, to keep the movie "as-is".

If the file plays correctly in QuickTime Player, then you could try to activate Decode with QT in the Options tab. ffmpegX then uses QuickTime (which uses Flip4Mac) to decode/read the file, hopefully including audio, so that ffmpegX can encode it correctly.