converting MOD to AVI to MP4 using avisynth, x264, mp4box & ffmpeg

[Wakewatcher]

I've mashed up the above to make small key frame rich mp4 files. From DV captured by either WinDV or Scenalyzer adding a bit of avisynth (LanczosResize and Converttoyv12)

Its worked nice for a few years. Now with the advent of these HDD camcorders I'm trying to work with MOD files. There probably is a more elegant solution of converting from MOD to the final mp4 files but I didn't make much headway there so I've been trying a brute force method of first converting the MOD to AVI then put it back in the original process.

I've tried (among hours of other things):

ffmpeg -i infile.MOD -f avi -r 29.97 -b 6000kb -mbd 2 -aic 3 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -an - g 4 -vcodec xvid outfile.avi

(I don't need audio) This creates a nice quality avi but when I run it through my x264/Mp4box mashup I get an mp4 file of zero length. Obviously I'm not gifted things ffmpeg.

On the otherhand I downloaded the "free" download of AVS Video Converter and using it to convert MOD to AVI I could then run my mashup and get the results I want. I have two problems with AVSVC. 1) for all the "free" download hype they then want to charge you to actually practically use it. (As an editorial I'm happy that it could be worth what they are asking its just disingenuous to bait on a 'free' download as frankly all downloads are free but I digress...) and 2) the main reason is I'd like to run this from the command line not a graphical gui approach. Also my guess is that the avsvc folks have ffmpeg buried in there someplace anyway.

Any suggestions? -thx-

[buzzqw]

you could try autox264 (and tune the keyint_min)

BHH

[Wakewatcher]

Thanks. I'll take a look but I do need something that I can run in batch mode.

[buzzqw]

feel free to check the application

BHH