ffmpeg displaying extras in mov files

[encodingmonkey]

Hi guys, haven't really seen this problem before...

I'm transcoding some mov files to mp4 using the ffmpeg CLI. The problem is that when I watch the video in vlc, it's perfectly fine. However, once I run it through ffmpeg, it displays a title board (displaying the season number, etc, things for video editing). Does anybody have an idea of what's going on?

[poisondeathray]

Describe what you mean by "title board" - do you mean extra footage, like a clapper ? or is it a "watermark" or overlayed title like subitles ? Maybe a screenshot would help

What command line ?

[encodingmonkey]

Sorry, no screenshots yet. It's a scorecard that displays for 5-10 seconds before the actual content is being played. I think it might be a hidden track, but I can't figure out how to find it. It doesn't show up when I play the source file, but shows up after running a transcode through ffmpeg CLI ubuntu

[encodingmonkey]

Apparently, when displaying the metadata, the video starts the source at a negative time, which coincides with the scorecard. I can't seem to find this in QuickTime though for editing through a UI

[poisondeathray]

Are you sure there aren't other streams

What was the command line used?

What does ffmpeg -i input.mov report ?

What does VLC indicate as streams ?

You're on linux, but if you have access to a PC or MAC what does quicktime show as the streams ?

If you know the time that you want to encode from , you can encode from that start time in ffmpeg using -ss 00:00:00 to skip over the beginning part

[encodingmonkey]

OK, sort of fixed the problem with the first videos: The start time for problematic videos would be in the negatives, like -1425.3, and so I'd just skip it by using the -ss command.

New/similar problem: In Quicktime, you can see a video and audio stream, along with a timecode stream. The problem is that instead of a scorecard at the begining, it displays long (1-3min) black slugs at various points where advertisements were originally shown, after being run through ffmpeg. The interesting thing is that when you view the source through VLC or QuickTime, you can't see the slugs. (Originally we thought we had deleted this by using QuickTime's trim feature) Here is what I get when I run "ffmpeg -i"

ffmpeg -i '/media/PORTABLE16-STG/big-media/big-media-uce-aof/uce-ep-1.mov'
ffmpeg version 0.10.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 24 2012 14:58:49 with gcc 4.6.3
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-version3 --enable-x11grab
libavutil 51. 35.100 / 51. 35.100
libavcodec 53. 61.100 / 53. 61.100
libavformat 53. 32.100 / 53. 32.100
libavdevice 53. 4.100 / 53. 4.100
libavfilter 2. 61.100 / 2. 61.100
libswscale 2. 1.100 / 2. 1.100
libswresample 0. 6.100 / 0. 6.100
libpostproc 52. 0.100 / 52. 0.100
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x34ed3e0] multiple edit list entries, a/v desync might occur, patch welcome
Last message repeated 2 times
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/media/PORTABLE16-STG/big-media/big-media-uce-aof/uce-ep-1.mov':
Metadata:
major_brand : qt
minor_version : 537199360
compatible_brands: qt
creation_time : 2009-03-05 17:43:55
Duration: 00:44:03.41, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 35258 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Video: mpeg2video (Main) (hdv2 / 0x32766468), yuv420p, 1440x1080 [SAR 4:3 DAR 16:9], 25000 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 2997 tbn, 59.94 tbc
Metadata:
creation_time : 2009-03-05 17:43:55
handler_name : ?Apple Alias Data Handler
Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le (sowt / 0x74776F73), 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s
Metadata:
creation_time : 2009-03-05 17:43:55
handler_name : ?Apple Alias Data Handler
Stream #0:2(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2009-03-05 18:29:15
handler_name : ?Apple Alias Data Handler
timecode : 01:00:00;00
At least one output file must be specified

VLC only indicates Stream 0 (video) and Stream 1 (video).

Any help would be great, thanks!

[poisondeathray]

what do you mean by "slugs?" ???

you can remove stream 0:2 in quicktime pro (uncheckmark it)

[encodingmonkey]

"slugs" are black spots that some producers put in to allow for commercials. It's basicallly periods of a black screen. I'll try removing the 2nd stream, but I don't think it's helped me with the first problem in this thread either...

[poisondeathray]

So when you watch the original MOV directly in VLC, there are no "slugs" or intro "title board" ? But when you convert with ffmpeg, they appear in the encoded file ?

What happens when you watch the original MOV in quicktime ?

Did you try another ffmpeg build ? Maybe the one you have is defective ? Or try ffmbc instead

What happens if you do the conversion in quicktime ?

Did you try rewrapping to another container first (just the elementary video and audio, so you can be 100% certain there can be no other streams - if you want to be absolutely certain, demux them first to .m2v and .sowt) . You might use mkvtoolnix or mp4box, or even ffmpeg . If this fails, then this suggests extra video footage is actually in the original stream - it might be the timecodes telling the player to skip it. Some players or apps might obey the timecodes, some might act differently

You can examine the elementary video to see if it contains the footage you expect. If you still can't figure it out, post a sample video

[encodingmonkey]

Exactly. I'm a bit noob at this, and will try all those suggestions, but is there also a way to discard the "Stream #0:2" in ffmpeg? It's only a data stream and I highly suspect that might be the cause for this whole mess.

[poisondeathray]

if you re-wrap it , and omit stream 0:2 (ie. you don't specify using -map), it won't be there anymore . ie. just select track 0:0 and 0:1 (these are default for video and audio)

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mkv

You don't have to use mkv, you can use another container

You can check ffmpeg -i output.mkv , and 0:2 won't be there anymore.

But I suspect there is something else going on

[encodingmonkey]

Did the ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mkv command, still getting black slugs, but stream 0:2 is gone now. Might just do this with all files then manually cut it out in QuickTime if there's no easier way

[poisondeathray]

VLC can convert as well. If there are no problems when watching in VLC, chances are it will convert ok as well . Although VLC uses the same libraries as ffmpeg, the versions might be different (something in your ffmpeg build might be broken)

[encodingmonkey]

Very odd: did stream copy, then edited out black slugs and tried to encode again thinking that the slugs were taken out. I've noticed that "delete" through quicktime still keeps the file the same size. Is there a way to cut out chunks of video in ffmpeg?