how did I break ffmpegx

[kingm]

I was happily making SVCDs using the .mov -> SVCD (NTSC) quick preset. I must have changed something, because now the SVCDs I make do not play in my Magnavox player. My old ones still play, and my new ones play using vlc. I even re-burned the files img files from ffmpegX from before I messed something up, and they play. I am using ffmpegX 4d on OS X 10.1.4. Here is my terminal output:


pbpaste | sh
% pbpaste | sh
## Component Manager: somone is attempting to find symbols in a component alias of type (regR/carP/x!bt)
++ WARN: [mpeg2enc] Generating dummy SVCD scan-data offsets to be filled in by "vcdimager"
++ WARN: [mpeg2enc] If you're not using vcdimager you may wish to turn this off using -d
## Component Manager: somone is attempting to find symbols in a component alias of type (regR/carP/x!bt)
INFO: Opened WAV file, freq = 48000 Hz, channels = 2, bits = 16
INFO: format = 0x1, audio length = 3055680 bytes
INFO: slots/frame = 731
INFO: frac SpF=0.429, tot bitrate=224 kbps, s freq=44.1 kHz
INFO: Fractional number of slots, padding required
INFO: System is big endian
INFO: Avg slots/frame = Inf; b/smp = Inf; br = Inf kbps
INFO: Encoding with psychoacoustic model 2 is finished
INFO: The MPEG encoded output file name is "/Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.mp2"
INFO: [mplex] mplex version 2.2.1 ($Date: 2002/04/20 19:08:30 $)
INFO: [mplex] File /Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.m2v looks like an MPEG Video stream.
INFO: [mplex] File /Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.mp2 looks like an MPEG Audio stream.
INFO: [mplex] Found 1 video streams 1 MPEG audio streams and 0 AC3 streams
INFO: [mplex] Selecting SVCD output profile
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Video stream e0 (/Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.m2v)
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO STREAM: e0
INFO: [mplex] Frame width : 480
INFO: [mplex] Frame height : 480
INFO: [mplex] Aspect ratio : 4:3 display
INFO: [mplex] Picture rate : 29.970 frames/sec
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 2500000 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Vbv buffer size : 229376 bytes
INFO: [mplex] CSPF : 0
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Audio stream c0 (/Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.mp2)
INFO: [mplex] AUDIO STREAM:
INFO: [mplex] Audio version : 1.0
INFO: [mplex] Layer : 2
INFO: [mplex] CRC checksums : no
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 28672 bytes/sec (224 kbit/sec)
INFO: [mplex] Frequency : 44100 Hz
INFO: [mplex] Mode : 0 stereo
INFO: [mplex] Mode extension : 0
INFO: [mplex] Copyright bit : 0 no copyright
INFO: [mplex] Original/Copy : 0 copy
INFO: [mplex] Emphasis : 0 none
INFO: [mplex] SYSTEMS/PROGRAM stream:
INFO: [mplex] rough-guess multiplexed stream data rate : 2780000
INFO: [mplex] target data-rate specified : 2788800
INFO: [mplex] Setting specified specified data rate: 2788800
INFO: [mplex] Sectors = 78 Video delay = 46800 Audio delay = 46800
INFO: [mplex] New sequence commences...
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 235520 frame=000000 sector=00000000
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 4096 frame=000000 sector=00000000
INFO: [mplex] Scanned to end AU 476
INFO: [mplex] STREAM e0 completed @ 476.
INFO: [mplex] STREAM c0 completed @ 608.
INFO: [mplex] Multiplex completion at SCR=1473000.
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 220617 frame=000476 sector=00002124
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 2633 frame=000608 sector=00000195
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO_STATISTICS: e0
INFO: [mplex] Video Stream length: 605832 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Sequence headers: 33
INFO: [mplex] Sequence ends : 1
INFO: [mplex] No. Pictures : 477
INFO: [mplex] No. Groups : 33
INFO: [mplex] No. I Frames : 33 avg. size 20742 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. P Frames : 127 avg. size 11611 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. B Frames : 317 avg. size 8500 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. D Frames : 0 avg. size 0 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Average bit-rate : 2436000 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Peak bit-rate : 2479600 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 26 Buf max 118247
INFO: [mplex] AUDIO_STATISTICS: c0
INFO: [mplex] Audio stream length 445440 bytes.
INFO: [mplex] Syncwords : 609
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 348 padded
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 261 unpadded
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 17 Buf max 744
INFO: [mplex]
INFO: [mplex] MUX STATUS: no under-runs detected.
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Volumes/TEMP/video/small2/iDVD_not.xml'
++ WARN: initializing libvcd 0.7.12 [darwin5.2/powerpc]
++ WARN:
++ WARN: this is the UNSTABLE development branch!
++ WARN: use only if you know what you are doing
++ WARN: see http://www.hvrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
++ WARN:
Encoding complete!

[squeed]

I don't think that ffmpeg likes file names with things like "_" in them.

-Squeed
http://www.squeeds.com
VCD & SVCD Support For MAC

[kingm]

Squeed
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried again without underbars and got the same results. Could I have messed things up by changing which application should be used to open either the .m2v, .mp2 or .mpg files. For a while, I thought I would preview my SVCDs by watching them in VideoLAN Client (vlc), so I changed one of the above files so that when I dragged the file over to the vlc icon, it would open up. In the Finder, I get this for the files:
.m2v MPEG-2 Video File
.mp2 MP2 Audio File
.mpg MPEG Movie
The .m2v file opens with vlc, the .mp2 with iTunes, and the .mpg file with QuickTime.

[kingm]

After days of experiments (including re-installing my OS (10.2), all of my video-related applications, and Toast), and burning about 40 coasters, I stumbled on the answer to my question. NOTHING WAS BROKEN.

After making 4 half hour SVCDs, I had decided to experiment to find a way to reduce/eliminate the blockiness problem many others are reporting. In doing this, I was working with a 10 second clip. I burned some SVCDs, and my DVD player (Magnavox MDV 450) wouldn't play them. It still played my half-hour SVCDs. I re-burned one of them and it played. I tried many other experiments, including reinstalling software, and none worked on my DVD player, but all played using VLC. So I gave up and decided to continue with my project of moving home analog videos onto SVCDs in half hour chunks. If I could only play them on the computer, then so be it. At least I would have another backup of my aging video tapes. To my surprise, IT WORKED.

My conclusion: Apparently, my DVD player cannot read/find files if they are too small. I haven't found the smallest size it will read, but .img files that total about 3MB are too small.

-Mike