Trying to convert .mov to .flv - aspect ratio problems

[Graeck]

I took a video with my new camera that records them in 16:9 HD .mov format. When I convert it to flv in ffmpegX the video width gets squished (to 4:3?) and appears with black bars on the left and right.

Any idea how to fix this? I'm selecting 16:9 in the video options.

[Case]

How does ffmpegX see your source video specs (in the Summary) ?
What is your target video size (width x height) ?

[Graeck]

source: mjpeg, yuvj420p, 1280x720
target: ffmpeg Flash Video, 512x288, 322 kbps, 29.97 fps, no crop

[Case]

I can't seem to replicate your issue with my MJPEG file. Perhaps you could shoot a few (~20) seconds with this camera for me to test?
Also, what did you use for viewing the FLV file and seeing the squished playback? (Just to make sure it's the conversion issue and not a playback issue.)

[Graeck]

I tried playing the .flv clip back using both VLC (which shows 4:3 video, no bars), and also on the web, in a Wordpress blog (showing the 4:3 video with black bars on either side) using the Flash Video Player plugin.

I'll try to shoot a couple small clips and send them over today. Thanks.

[Case]

I'll try to shoot a couple small clips and send them over today. Thanks.

Don't go Kubrick on this. A single clip of something boring is fine. It's about the format, not the content.

If you can't host the file yourself, there are several sites that will temporarily host big files, for others to get. (E.g. YouSendIt, SendSpace, Uploaded.to, MediaFire, Send2Deliver, WeTransfer). Just pm me the URL that they provide.

[yitibit]

I have the same problem converting an mov to flv. Source is 720 x 1280 and trying to go to 360 x 640. Tried 16x9, 16x9 save height, etc.... Here's the process info:


Encoding started on Sun Oct 17 21:51:15 EDT 2010
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
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5597b8]negative ctts, ignoring
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/Users/yitibit/Desktop/Movies/Past the Fields/PTF_Song_Trailer_720_3(forflv).mov':
Duration: 00:04:06.2, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 23100 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng), 23.98 fps(r): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo
Output #0, flv, to '/Users/yitibit/Desktop/Movies/Past the Fields/PTF_Song_Trailer_720_3(forflv).mov.ff.flv':
Stream #0.0, 23.98 fps(c): Video: flv, yuv420p, 640x360, q=2-9, pass 1, 96883 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, stereo, 56 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
bench: utime=138.434s
video:49723kB audio:1683kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.465949%
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
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5597b8]negative ctts, ignoring
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/Users/yitibit/Desktop/Movies/Past the Fields/PTF_Song_Trailer_720_3(forflv).mov':
Duration: 00:04:06.2, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 23100 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng), 23.98 fps(r): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo
Output #0, flv, to '/Users/yitibit/Desktop/Movies/Past the Fields/PTF_Song_Trailer_720_3(forflv).mov.ff.flv':
Stream #0.0, 23.98 fps(c): Video: flv, yuv420p, 640x360, q=2-9, pass 2, 96883 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, stereo, 56 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
bench: utime=138.915s
video:49715kB audio:1683kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.466022%
/Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/flvtool2:2:in `require': no such file to load -- flvtool2 (LoadError)
from /Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/flvtool2:2

[Case]

I have the same problem converting an mov to flv. Source is 720 x 1280 and trying to go to 360 x 640. Tried 16x9, 16x9 save height, etc.... Here's the process info:

Input #0, mov:
Duration: 00:04:06.2, bitrate: 23100 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng), 23.98 fps(r): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo
Output #0, flv:
Stream #0.0, 23.98 fps(c): Video: flv, yuv420p, 640x360, q=2-9, pass 1, 96883 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, stereo, 56 kb/s
video:49723kB audio:1683kB

The logs shows a successful encoding to 640x360. In which player do you get issues?

Your target bitrate seems rather high, although that shouldn't be a problem, as ffmpeg will only use what it needs and come out at an effective lower bitrate than assigned here.

[yitibit]

I'm using the jw player. I used it on other file formats like mov without losing the aspect ratio. You can see it here:

http://www.yitibitfilms.com/demo.html

But if you review the code on the page, the player code is a little wonky at the moment because I kept screwing with it to see if anything helped. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Case]

Yeah, I was looking at your code, specifically the video part.

Which version of JW Player are you running? The latest (v5.3)?
You vid played okay 16:9 on my server with an old JW Player from February 2008, but it would be best if I tried the same version as you.

[yitibit]

yup, says 5.3 on the download I grabbed. Thanks for taking a look.

[Case]

The video code in your html file is (mostly) fine. Using the <object> tag is one of the many supported ways, and it works well, it seems. The issue is with the FLV file itself.

1/ Your FLV file is missing meta data.
ffmpegX tries to inject some file properties inside the FLV file, like: width, height, duration, seek points
in order for players to know these properties.
ffmpegX does this by calling on flvtool2. If you haven't installed flvtool2, then ffmpegX won't add this meta data.

The JW Player 5.3 finds no meta data and assumes the default: that it's native resolution is old-skool 320x240 (that is 4:3), and will scale it to the specified video window height, keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio.

/Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/flvtool2:2:in `require': no such file to load -- flvtool2 (LoadError)
from /Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/flvtool2:2

This error line in your log says that ffmpegX failed to invoke flvtool2, because it couldn't find flvtool2. Hence, no meta data was added.

Instructions on how to install flvtool2 are on the ffmpegX website and on the 0.0.9y release post on this forum.

You may also use this same flvtool2 from the command line to add meta data to already encoded FLV files, by using

flvtool2 -UP ~/Desktop/foo.flv

2/ Your specified dimensions are off. You specify width="640" height="360" for the flash video window, which is the same as your video, but the JW Player 5.3 needs 24 pixels height for the controlbar. So you should adjust the flash window size to width="640" height="384".

[yitibit]

winner winner chicken dinner. Thanks so much for your help.