Hi Folks, First post, getting 0 K Mov to FLV conversion...

[dainis]

Hiya,

Glad to see such an active forum!

I'm converting MOV files to FLV, and here's my workflow:

1) Record skype call with ecamm recorder
---looks and sounds great, really happy with it, except for some video delay, which I've been taking care of with QT Sync (but maybe this forum has a better solution)
2) Import into iMovie
---but this step...umm...sux
-however, I can add text and edit the video (which I just figured out how to do in QuickTime Pro)
2.1) edit in QuickTime Pro (much faster and preferred)
3) Export from iMovie (which I know how to do)
---also really sucky
3.1) or export from QuickTime Pro (which I'd like some help on)
4) Convert to FLV
5) Stream

Now, if I'm at 3.1, exporting from QuickTime Pro, what I have is a MOV file in Quicktime Pro and I've added some PNG slides. When I use FFMPeg on my server to convert, it does not include the PNG slides...and I don't know why.

When I try to use FFMPegX on my mac, it just goes "bing" and there is a 0 kb file on my HD.

What I would like to be able to do is edit the MOV file I get from ecamm recorder right in QT Pro (add slides, etc), and then convert that file without exporting it again. The file is a really nice size, it sounds and looks good, and I just don't want to go from recorded MOV to edited MOV to FLV, because then I lose the nice quality of the itty bitty ecamm source file.

That's what's a bit challenging here, since the tiniest file looks the best (the ecamm recorded MOV source file). It looks and sounds great. All I need to do is as 2 slides at the beginning, 2 slides at the end, and an overlay in the middle.

OK, greetings and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Dainis

[Case]

The QuickTime .mov container format is very versatile: a mix of movie clips and still pictures is perfectly fine.
When converting outside of QuickTime, this may lead to problems, as many converters expect a single video codec.

You may try the "Decode with QuickTime" option inside ffmpegX. Perhaps that is enough to overcome this issue. Not sure, tho'. OTOH, it only takes a second to find out.

You may need to "flatten" the .mov file first by exporting from QuickTime Pro to a codec of your choice that is also supported by ffmpegX, so that your .png images are converted and integrated into the movie.

[dainis]

I'm totally going to try to figure out how to get "Decode with QuickTime" to work. Is that something I can "call" in the command line? Wow, it would be tremendous, if that would work, as it would save me a mega bundle of time.

[Case]

I'm not sure how the author of ffmpegX implemented Decode with QuickTime (and thus disabled decoding with ffmpeg). I kinda doubt it works through the command line, but I might be wrong.

[dainis]

Oh, I was hoping to do it with ffmpeg on my server (since my host has it installed), instead of locally with ffmpegx. Also, even though I installed ffmpegx, it doesn't work. It just goes "bing!" and doesn't do anything. I followed the install instructions yada yada...and I posted at their forum (if I remember correctly), but I'm really hoping to end this black-hole vortex of time-sucking configuration! Thanks for your help!