FFMPEGX problems- MOV to AVI

[ker-plop]

Whenever I use ffmpegX to convert a .mov to an .avi, the sound is gone. Is there anything I can do? Otherwise, what else can I use?

[terryj]

1. If you open the .mov in Quicktime/QT Pro, does it have sound?

2. With the movie open in Quicktime, perform a cmd-i, and tell
us what codecs it is saying is required to decode the audio and sound
please?

3. in ffmepgx, have you tried to encode it to .avi with
the sound set to Passthrough? if so, does the audio
play fine then?

4. Do you have any other tools that you could transcode it to .avi
such as MpegStreamclip, iSquint, or VisualHub?

[ker-plop]

1) Yes.

2) Uh... I'm not quite sure what you're asking for. If that's a QuickTime Pro only feature, I can't tell you; I don't have that.

3) No, it does not work if I set the audio to "passthrough."

4) When I save it as an AVI in MPEG Streamclip, I get the same soundless result. If I tell it to "export to AVI," I get an error that it can't set a "compression buffer."

If it makes things easier, this is a .mov I created in iMovie HD.

1. If you open the .mov in Quicktime/QT Pro, does it have sound?

2. With the movie open in Quicktime, perform a cmd-i, and tell
us what codecs it is saying is required to decode the audio and sound
please?

3. in ffmepgx, have you tried to encode it to .avi with
the sound set to Passthrough? if so, does the audio
play fine then?

4. Do you have any other tools that you could transcode it to .avi
such as MpegStreamclip, iSquint, or VisualHub?

[tomlee59]

When using ffmpegx, click on the "i" in the Progress pane. Out will poop a logfile. Post its contents here if you're unable to decipher its meaning.

In the interim, try clicking on "invert mapping" in ffmpegx. This reverses the order in which audio and video are interleaved. Ffmpegx is fussy about this, and will choke if the source file has things backwards from what it expects.

As to the cmd-i business in QT, what it refers to is that you can ask QT (pro or free) to tell you what it knows about the files it plays. If the keyboard shortcuts don't work for some reason, you can always use a pulldown menu option to get the same info. As you can imagine, that information can be useful in debugging problems like yours. But the Progress logfile will give us equivalent (indeed, more expansive) information. Take your pick. Or do both.

[ker-plop]

OK, it says this:

Fourcc: 362h Codec: 'H.263'
[V] filefmt: 7 fourcc: 0x33363268 size:
320 x 240 fps: 14.98 ftime=0.0667

And "invert mapping" didn't work.

When using ffmpegx, click on the "i" in the Progress pane. Out will poop a logfile. Post its contents here if you're unable to decipher its meaning.

In the interim, try clicking on "invert mapping" in ffmpegx. This reverses the order in which audio and video are interleaved. Ffmpegx is fussy about this, and will choke if the source file has things backwards from what it expects.

As to the cmd-i business in QT, what it refers to is that you can ask QT (pro or free) to tell you what it knows about the files it plays. If the keyboard shortcuts don't work for some reason, you can always use a pulldown menu option to get the same info. As you can imagine, that information can be useful in debugging problems like yours. But the Progress logfile will give us equivalent (indeed, more expansive) information. Take your pick. Or do both.

[tomlee59]

Ok, let's try something else.

In your current ffmpegx setup, are you decoding with mplayer, or with quicktime? My guess is that it's currently decoding with mplayer, which may have problems with the audio. Since you've successfully played the clip in quicktime, decoding with QT ought to give you the best shot at success.

Of course, you'll probably post back that you are already currently decoding with QT, but let's drive off that bridge when we get to it.

[ker-plop]

Well, I don't know how I would fix that.

Ok, let's try something else.

In your current ffmpegx setup, are you decoding with mplayer, or with quicktime? My guess is that it's currently decoding with mplayer, which may have problems with the audio. Since you've successfully played the clip in quicktime, decoding with QT ought to give you the best shot at success.

Of course, you'll probably post back that you are already currently decoding with QT, but let's drive off that bridge when we get to it.

[tomlee59]

Ffmpegx has multiple panes that change dynamically as a function of what choices you've made for target format and codec. Cycle through the panes and look at them. Under the Options pane, may see options for "decode with..." If you don't, then go back to the Video pane and select ffmpeg as the encoder. Then you'll get a "decode with QT" option in the options pane. Click that, and give it a go.

[ker-plop]

OK, that seems to work. Thanks.

Ffmpegx has multiple panes that change dynamically as a function of what choices you've made for target format and codec. Cycle through the panes and look at them. Under the Options pane, may see options for "decode with..." If you don't, then go back to the Video pane and select ffmpeg as the encoder. Then you'll get a "decode with QT" option in the options pane. Click that, and give it a go.