AVI to DVD broken in 10.4.9?

[mactavish]

4-9-07
AVI to DVD conversion problem:

ffmpegX version: 0.0.9x r2
OS: 10.4.9 PPC
QuickTime Pro version: 7.1.5

Dropping in AVI movie, choosing DVD-mpeg2enc conversion.

PROBLEM DETAILS:
Using standard presets, I keep getting error message pasted below. AVI movie opens and plays fine in QuickTime. Tried changing some settings, same error. Tried reinstalling "mpeg2enc" binary as well.

MAJOR ISSUE: Since having this problem I went back to an AVI that I had successfully converted not long a go, when my OS was 10.4.8. Since I am now getting this error message under 10.4.9, I suspect the OS upgrade maybe a suspect, but see nothing in this forum suggesting that 10.4.9 and ffmpegX 0.0.09x r2 has any problems like this. OS 10.4.9 was a huge update and caused many an issue across the board. Since I'm using the same file that worked before and the same version of ffmpegX, I had no choice but to post here. While I never like movie AVI files, converting them to burnable DVD files (Video TS), in ffmpegX seems to be the best solution to make a desktop playable DVD, and has worked in the past.

Any suggestions are welcome, I have searched and read a lot of posts here, the error message below has been pasted in other and often OLD posts.

PASTED ERROR MESSAGE:

INFO: [mpeg2enc] SETTING AltiVec for MOTION!
Mon Apr 9 15:42:18 EDT 2007
INFO: [mpeg2enc] SETTING AltiVec for TRANSFORM!
INFO: [mpeg2enc] SETTING AltiVec for PREDICTION!
INFO: [yuvscaler] yuvscaler 1.9.0 (15-02-2004) is a general scaling utility for yuv frames
INFO: [yuvscaler] (C) 2001-2004 Xavier Biquard <xbiquard@free.fr>, yuvscaler -h for help, or man yuvscaler
movtoy4m
Copyright 2002-2006 Johan Lindstr??m
All rights reserved..
**ERROR: [yuvscaler] Could'nt read YUV4MPEG header!
**ERROR: [mpeg2enc] Could not read YUV4MPEG2 header: system error (failed read/write)!

[Case]

AVI to DVD doesn't seem broken in 10.4.9 for lots of users, so there may be something extarordinary about your setup.
Is the video and audio of the AVI recognised in the Summary tab, under Source format on the left side? Does the Play button work for this file?
As ffmpegX seems to have trouble reading your file, maybe it has to do with the filename or location on your drive. QuickTime Player is less picky about that than some of the Unix tools in ffmpegX. Try putting the AVI file on the desktop and naming it simply "movie.avi". Then try encoding again. That should rule out any possiblity of errors due to naming of files and folders.

[mactavish]

AVI to DVD doesn't seem broken in 10.4.9 for lots of users, so there may be something extarordinary about your setup.
Is the video and audio of the AVI recognised in the Summary tab, under Source format on the left side? Does the Play button work for this file?
As ffmpegX seems to have trouble reading your file, maybe it has to do with the filename or location on your drive. QuickTime Player is less picky about that than some of the Unix tools in ffmpegX. Try putting the AVI file on the desktop and naming it simply "movie.avi". Then try encoding again. That should rule out any possiblity of errors due to naming of files and folders.

Yes, the .avi is recognized and does play using the play button. I already tried moving the file and giving it a short simple name, did not change the error. I'm only guessing the OS upgrade being at fault since has been the only major change to my system since the same file was successfully encoded before. Do appreciate the help. Currently trying "VisualHub" to convert to DVD, but there are NO setting choices in that app., so it does not seem near as useful as ffmpegX, and of course I'd love to solve this "new" mystery here.

[RioCreations]

Hi mactavish,

I had similar issues when I Updaded to 10.4.9. I have since then gone back to 10.4.8 and everything works again. I don't know what the problem was but since things work now I'll stick with 10.4.8.

Rio.

[mactavish]

Hi mactavish,

I had similar issues when I Updaded to 10.4.9. I have since then gone back to 10.4.8 and everything works again. I don't know what the problem was but since things work now I'll stick with 10.4.8.

Rio.

THANKS, saves me lots of PAIN, since the only other explaination would be some other app I might have installed since updating to 10.4.9 that would interfer, also means NOT everyone using ffmpegX has upgraded since there are NO other reports at least here.

Did you write "major" about this potential "bug" issue? If not I will. BTW: I got a great AVI to DVD conversion using Visual Hub, but you don't have many "options" at all, but it sure did guess right giving me a full 16:9 DVD I played back on my DVD player. I dislike AVI files since they are encoded many different ways it seems.

Appreciate you taking your time to confirm I'm NOT alone and it may not just be "my system". Good news, bad news. To test I'll boot from my last 10.4.8 clone and try again, that should be a real good test on this subject. And maybe when more ffmpegX users upgrade we'll see more trouble reports. Once again, I have been using the exact same AVI file that WORKED before, with NO error message like the one I quoted above.

[RioCreations]

Hi mactavish,

FYI: I also refused to update to the latest version of QT since there were to many bugs. I'm running with iDVD and iMovie 6.0.3 and I don't plan on updading anything since it's all working. Maybe when all the bugs have been officially sorted out by all the manufacturers...

However, if updading does not cause any issues for you and your system, then by all means, go for it...

I also forgot to mention that I am using ffmpegX 0.0.9u since it's the only version that would recognize all my multiple video containers (.avi, .ogm, .mkv).

I would have prefered to use the latest version of ffmpegX but it just would not work for me. I'm glad it worked for you though.

I have also tried VisualHub but I did not like it and I noticed how much of a Knockoff it was from ffmpegX. I personally prefer ffmpegX and will stick with it and like the help forum.

Wishing you the best of luck!

Rio.

[mactavish]

4-14-07

Can now confirm, booted from OS 10.4.8 Clone, same AVI file, same settings exactly, conversion works as I reported originally......

Booting back to OS 10.4.9 PPC, conversion FAILS with error message I have already reported, at least here on my system.

Look forward to a fix in next release.