Mirillis Action! FICV codec issue

[Voxel]

Hey there,

I need to convert some avi videos captured by Mirillis' Action! tool (FICV codec) to h264 but Avidemux does not recognize the format at all. All it displays is only a green screen. I tried to re-install both Action! and my K-lite codec pack and all the encoding tools below several times but no success everything remained the same.

I also tried to use H.264 Encoder, HandBrake, MEncoder, VidCoder and some other tools aswell but all of them reported a scanning error right after load any of the FICV videos.

Would you elaborate how can I fix this issue please?

[Baldrick]

Can you play the videos in wmp?

[Voxel]

I can play them on all players including WMP, VLC, MPC, MPC-64 without any problem.

[Selur]

Can you post a sample? (would like to test if Hybrid can handle such content)

[ndjamena]

http://forum.mirillis.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=29264

You need to use player that supports external decoders, e.g. MPC-HC.

Or a converter that uses external decoders.

-Edit- AVISynth DirectShowSource or AVISource maybe...

[Voxel]

FICV sample

[ndjamena]

Can you post a sample? (would like to test if Hybrid can handle such content)

Are you going to download the Free Trial of Action! just to test this?

[Voxel]

I am able to convert my videos with hybrid however a huge amount of error messages pops up at the beginning and the end of the encode progress :

Error: "FFmpegSource2 called, but wasn't initialized!"
Error: "ColorMatrix called, but wasn't initialized!"
Error: "Crop called, but wasn't initialized!"
and so on and so on..

Is there a way to eliminate that disturbing spam-pile? I don't want to crop or resize or whatever just a simple conversion.

[roma_turok]

Mirillis Action! have option to convert file,
by right click in program and select Export selected file
or this option don't work for you?

[Voxel]

No.

Export is for mobile devices mostly and it has a very poor interface. You can't set anything here beside the profile and a reduced bitrate slider.

[roma_turok]

Its have option export to Full HD MP4 with bitrate up 20mbps
and quality very good
what file you trying to convert?

[Voxel]

A full-hd graphic footage with intensive movements. Even with maxed out bitrate slider it creates a very low quality copy of the original file. This Export feature is not a serious thing and is definitely not for converting videos without quality loss.

I just need to convert this codec to h264 / avc and its already done with Hybrid but now I have an issue with the tremendous popup error messages described above and a motion issue because in the outcome video my mouse pointer leaves trails for some reason. Do you have any idea what causes this and how to eliminate the error messages in Hybrid?

[poisondeathray]

I don't use hybrid, but selur will answer the questions about it

I found it interesting that you said VLC could play it. This suggests ffmpeg has a decoder for it - I confirmed it does and works on your sample. So you don't have to install anything or Mirillis software

So you can use any ffmpeg GUI , eg. winff, tencoder, ffcoder, avanti, a gazillion others are based on ffmpeg

Or use ffmpeg itself

e.g
ffmpeg -i sample.avi -c:v libx264 ouput.mp4

[Voxel]

Thanks a lot for sharing those options, poisondeathray! All works well. I like tencoder's interface the most.

However I would like HandBrake or VidCoder a bit more but they both report an error after analyzing the FICV files I don't know why. If there's no way to load the FICV into them, I'll stick with tencoder. Still hope, there's a way.

[poisondeathray]

The Mirillis decoder is probably newly introduced into libav/ ffmpeg code. Although handbrake/vidcoder use some of the same libraries as ffmpeg, but not exactly, and some are modified. But they don't sync their versions as quickly as ffmpeg. So you can try a nightly handbrake build, it might have the decoder merged already
https://handbrake.fr/nightly.php

Another GUI for ffmpeg that many people like is ffqueue, might be worth checking out

[Voxel]

Bingo!
It's included in the latest nightly HB. Thanks for all the tips guys, I learned much today.

[Selur]

Is there a way to eliminate that disturbing spam-pile? I don't want to crop or resize or whatever just a simple conversion.

Assuming I can reproduce the problem: Yes
(you can also choose not to install the avisynth extension)

[Selur]

The pop-ups appear since mediainfo doesn't provide any color space info for the file.
-> I think I can write a workaround for that (in the mean time removing the avisynth support should help, on an installed Hybrid, you can do this by simply renaming the avisynthPlugins folder)

[Voxel]

Ok, thank you.

Does any of you know which setting is responsible for mouse cursor display? I already tried several encoders and depends on the encoders the mouse pointer is either fully visible or leaves trails or not visible at all. Can't figure out which is the option to set that.

[Selur]

Don't think that's an encoder, but a decoder problem.
Got no problem converting the content when using the Hybrid version I send you a link to.

[Voxel]

yes, the file you sent is working properly no more popup errors comes up. Thank you!

However about the mouse cursor thing it seems that's something with the encoding because if I import the encoded mp4 file into lets say Sony Vegas and recode it as a part of a project it still retains the mouse cursor issues like printed trails or completely missing pointer (depending on what tool I used to encode before - hybrid, handbrake, etc.)

[Selur]

No clue about handbrake, but the output of Hybrid (attached above) doesn't show mouse trailing.
So the problem seems to be related to Vegas if has problems decoding the content.
(Mouse trailing could also be introduced if you change the frame rate and blending or similar methods are used)

[poisondeathray]

Yes, it's likely vegas related. It converted fine with ffmpeg as well

In vegas, you probably don't have matching project settings with the file (it was set to 30.0p) , and have smart resample on = blended frames