MKVTools and Xvid problem

[Geiger9]

Story: I have a MKV file. Inside the MKV container is
-video stream encoded with WMV3
-audio stream encoded with MP3
-subtitles in the .ssa format

I got the video and audio info using MediaInfo Mac.

I'm using the program MKVTools because it's supposedly an all in one tool. I can convert the files inside the MKV container into an AVI where it's encoded with Xvid which in turn will play on my DVD player.

Problem: I open MKVTools, select the three streams I want and hit the AVI button beneath "Conversion". I choose Xvid 1-pass under video, mp3 at 192 kbps under audio, and the option for burn underneath subtitles. When I try and do a test or convert it, it tells me an error has occurred. I open the log and here is what it says:

MEncoder dev-CVS-060307-04:23-4.0.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
Mac OSX static build for ffmpegX
CPU: Intel (Family: 6, Stepping: 6)
FIXME:Hardenabling SSE and SSE2 without detection
CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2

success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x1160ddeb
[mkv] Track ID 1: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC), -vid 0
[mkv] Track ID 2: audio (A_MPEG/L3), -aid 0, -alang und
[mkv] Track ID 3: subtitles (S_TEXT/SSA), -sid 0, -slang und
[mkv] Will play video track 1
[mkv] Will play audio track 2
[mkv] Will display subtitle track 3
Matroska file format detected.
VIDEO: [WMV3] 640x480 24bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:31 fourcc:0x33564D57 size:640x480 fps:23.98 ftime:=0.0417
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
================================================== ========================
xvid: using library version 1.2.-127 (build xvid-1.2.0-dev)
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
Opening video filter: [harddup]
================================================== ========================
Requested video codec family [wmv9dmo] (vfm=dmo) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Requested video codec family [wmvdmo] (vfm=dmo) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x33564D57.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
================================================== ========================

Question: Why does it say the requested codec family [wmv9dmo] is not available? The codec must be on the computer, otherwise I wouldn't be able to play WMV files using VLC right? Please correct me if I'm wrong. If anyone can help me solve this problem, I would really appreciate it. I know it's annoying to see some many users register for this site just once and ask a question, I'm sorry, I've just exhausted all my options and done all the research I can but no luck.

[Baldrick]

VLC has builtin codecs. I guess the mencoder build must support wmv9dmo.

Try instead handbrake or avidemux and see it works better.

[Geiger9]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I tried to use handbrake but I do not have Leopard. The older version only supports video_ts files and such it seems. It won't open my MKV file.

avidemux won't open my MKV file either. I get an error saying "Internal error opening CODEC_ID_WMV3"

Maybe I don't understand how codecs work in OS X VS Windows.

In Windows, if you needed a codec to play a video file, you'd download the installer (ie. Divx) and it would install a .dll file somewhere. Forgive me, I haven't used Windows at home in..5 or 6 years now, but wasn't there a folder in Windows where all the codec files were located? There was also a handy program which would tell you which codecs were installed. Also in Windows, if you had a codec installed, does that necessarily mean you could encode using that codec if given the proper software? Or would you have to have some other file on top of the encoding software and codec?

In OS X, I can find no codec files. You say that VLC has built in codecs. Does that mean that for a program in OS X to do anything with a video file, it's got to have the codec built into it? Is there no folder in, I don't know, user/library where all the codecs are contained?

Back to the problem. Despite the fact it said the codec family was not available, I tried other programs. I tried Visualhub and it was able to convert the WMV file inside the MKV into something else. So, why can Visualhub find the WMV codec file and MKVtools cannot?

[jpschuck]

VLC has built-in codecs. That is how the program works under Mac OS X _and_ Windows. There are some programs for Mac OS X that uses Quicktime plug-ins (i.e. system wide codecs, in a similar way to the "video for windows" plugins), but most of Mac OS X video tools use their own built-in version of mencoder/ffmpeg.

VisualHub probably uses a newer version of mencoder/ffmpeg than the one used by MKVTools, that is why the first one is able to convert WMV files.

[Geiger9]

VisualHub probably uses a newer version of mencoder/ffmpeg than the one used by MKVTools, that is why the first one is able to convert WMV files.

Would it be correct to say that most programs which convert one codec to another are just graphical interfaces for these command line tools?

[jpschuck]

That's totally correct.