Hi Folks, I'd be most grateful for help with the foloowing puzzle.
Background: I VHS-taped an item from yesterday evening's BBC1 "Look East", since it is of interest to people I know. I then copied this onto a "scratch" DVD, to have it readable on my Debian laptop (OK, I know it can probably be done with a cable, but I'm not up to that).
I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows (following an example in 'man mplayer'):
mencoder dvd://1 \ -o denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
The resulting .avi file plays fine using totem. I then ftp'd it to my website, and tried playing it from there using IE on Windows Vista. It failed, saying a codec was missing. However, the file on the website still plays fine on Debian with totem.
So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with:
mencoder dvd://1 \ -o Denver.wmv \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2
Then I uploaded this one as well. Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site.
This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get the video OK, but no sound.
So I'm wondering what the problem is, and how to solve it!
In the past, I've had no problems with playing AVI files created by my digital camera using IE (video and sound both OK), though I haven't tried WMV before. So presumably there's some mysterious mismatch between the AVI created by mencoder as above, and AVI as Windows MediaPlayer expects to see it; ditto with WMV.
The files in question can be found at
http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/DenverMill
AVI: denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi WMV: Denver.wmv
and an example of a working AVI (both in totem and IE) at
http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25.avi
As well as the video, there is background noise from the water falling over the sluice, and from passing traffic, which comes through quite clearly both in totem and in IE.
For anyone interested: this is probably a Mitten Crab which has found its way some 30 miles upstream from the sea, spotted by me when I was strolling over the bridge above the sluice-gate on the Old Bedford River at Earith, in the shallow water above the concrete sill below the sluice-gate. A still photo is at
http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25cropped.jpg
The location of the photo is marked "A" on:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=52.353953,0.038109&... daddr=&hl=en&geocode=&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=15&sll=52.353901,0.038023& sspn=0.011586,0.034719&ie=UTF8&z=15
[equivalent: http://tinyurl.com/yb57epr ]
Any comments on the problem would be most welcome! With thanks, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 06-Jan-10 Time: 21:38:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 21:38 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows (following an example in 'man mplayer'):
...
So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with:
mencoder dvd://1 \ -o Denver.wmv \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2
Then I uploaded this one as well. Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site.
This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get the video OK, but no sound.
IIRC in the mencoder command line above the -oac option specifies the output audio codec and copy means leave the audio encoded as it was before, presumably whatever is used in the DVD standard. I am surprised vista has problems with that as I would expect it could play DVDs but it may be worth experimenting with changing that.
Interestingly the GUI for trancoding in VLC has some pairs of video/audio codec that I assume the writers think are often used together these are:
VIDEO AUDIO H.264 AAC(TS) Dirac AAC(TS) Theora Vorbis Theora FLAC MPEG-4 AAC(MP4) MPEG-2 MPGA(TS) WMV WMA DIV3 MP3
HTH, Steve.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
| On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 21:38 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote: |> I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can |> view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). |> So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows |> (following an example in 'man mplayer'): | ... |> So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with: |> |> mencoder dvd://1 \ |> -o Denver.wmv \ |> -oac copy \ |> -ovc lavc \ |> -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2 |> |> Then I uploaded this one as well. |> Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the |> Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site. |> |> This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get |> the video OK, but no sound.
I don't know if it's even remotely helpful (and apologies as this reply is stuffed with non-ASCII characters), but if I fetch your video over a raw connection I see:
: telnet www.zen89632.zen.co.uk 80
Trying 212.23.8.80...
Connected to www.zen89632.zen.co.uk (212.23.8.80).
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /DenverMill/denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi HTTP/1.1
Host: www.zen89632.zen.co.uk
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:32:43 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.9 Vary: Host Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:27:36 GMT ETag: "c826e-efd49e-47c83f263e2ba" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 15717534 Content-Type: video/x-msvideo
RIFF<96>Ôï^@AVI LIST&^A^@^@hdrlavih8^@^@^@@<9c>^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^P ^@^@K^K^@^@^@^@^@^@^B^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Ð^B^@^@@^B^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@LISTt^@^@^@strlstrh8^@^@^@vidsFMP4^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^Y^@^@^@^@^@^@^@K^K^@^@^]2^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Ð^B@^Bstrf(^@^@^@(^@^@^@Ð^B^@^@@^B^@^@^A^@^X^@FMP4^@ü^R^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@LIST^^@^@^@strlstrh8^@^@^@audsP^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@}^@^@^@^@^@^@á58^@<80>>^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@strf^R^@^@^@P^@^B^@<80>»^@^@^@}^@^@^A^@^P^@^@^@LIST$^@^@^@INFOISFT^X^@^@^@MEncoder dev-SVN-r26940^@JUNK<92>^N^@^@[= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk
<snip />
data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayerLISTn^Aï^@movi01wb<80>>^@^@^@L<83>UDTfwwfffffºY$h<90>^@^@^@^@^@^@ª*¦ªj«<9e>¨«mÃ^\¯Ë^\qÇ^/Ç^L±Ã<0Æû°Ç<2Ë^M0ÆüoÇLqÈõ<91>,^T/wIÄN$Üí-Q<8d>o3ñ»3̾ºÔ¸ÖM^O±s86wD^U^W»^]<92>è<9a>9ó¤ ¢-3^]<95>6pÝ^D¸¸<91>¸\äXPè^^^U2<9d>^Ûö¨<8c>bâL}$8ß/HY<91><9a>iU¢Ù¥¨K^V^Uª<97>e`ÊBí«°ØîR<92>Ófi<9e>§A¼<92>^K²<91>%VÏF¨\<80>®QÂU éFDç#ï+S.Të^]{î7^Ms{èÖG<8f>jW^U:<8c><93><93>7;$,<86>$éiUIj<95><9a>W#%S^Y4^BMm^GJAU<85>å;ºîD+)^L^UÄËbË^VmC2é<90>àä^O^KRç[AÏZW^CÉvØ^QN§<8c>^E]Ì0)gUm)<96>^O(âàä<92>FqçÈ<94>ꦩ%^N´Ew<8e>¢ÄM<8c>·),<8a>n·<9d>eTÚöÙÎ<94>`^<Ï<91><9b>1³<83>V!^SY^]<94>æ¸<95>À9TB8ü5<8c>Ê^^<8a>^Z93<93>ÖÉ UÉC^S¬«-^Qº^Tº¨êJ<90>yÝ*Å1#^Z¨Ñ¯«±q<88>õWd<81><85><89>ѹ^Q^V7½<8b>$Ä<93>"sªÙ^Xx®<90>\ Ô^¨
whereas if I "head" a standard AVI from a camera, I see:
RIFF?;?AVI LIST?%hdrlavih85??????LIST?$strlstrh8vidsmjpg5?@B??'??strf((???MJPGstrdZ$AVIF ~ d2t?W"???i??FUJIFILMFinePix F31fd 2009:02:27 16:30:22 ????|???2009:02:27 16:30:222009:02:27 16:30:22FUJIFILM ~ !01FC A1208707 592D313237320703058CE33022B70CNORMAL d????? x?!??? }!1AQa"q2??#B??R??$3br? ??%&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? w!1AQaq"2B???? #3R?br?
It looks like some encoding or serving issue (not least excepting the "junk data" stuff in your header), but the presence of lots of @^ reminds me of UTF-8 encoding, whereas an AVI should probably be raw bytes.
Not really an answer, but it may give a clue :-)
- -- - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon Ransome http://nosher.net
Photography RSS feed - http://nosher.net/images/images.rss
Thanks for the valiant effort Simon! See at end.
On 06-Jan-10 23:43:35, simon ransome wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 | On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 21:38 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote: |> I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can |> view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). |> So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows |> (following an example in 'man mplayer'): | ... |> So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with: |> |> mencoder dvd://1 \ |> -o Denver.wmv \ |> -oac copy \ |> -ovc lavc \ |> -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2 |> |> Then I uploaded this one as well. |> Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the |> Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site. |> |> This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get |> the video OK, but no sound.
I don't know if it's even remotely helpful (and apologies as this reply is stuffed with non-ASCII characters), but if I fetch your video over a raw connection I see:
: telnet www.zen89632.zen.co.uk 80 Trying 212.23.8.80... Connected to www.zen89632.zen.co.uk (212.23.8.80). Escape character is '^]'. GET /DenverMill/denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi HTTP/1.1 Host: www.zen89632.zen.co.uk HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:32:43 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.9 Vary: Host Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:27:36 GMT ETag: "c826e-efd49e-47c83f263e2ba" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 15717534 Content-Type: video/x-msvideo
RIFF<96>Ôï^@AVI LIST&^A^@^@hdrlavih8^@^@^@@<9c>^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^P ^@^@K^K^@^@^@^@^@^@^B^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Ð^B^@^@@^B^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^ @^@^@^@^@LISTt^@^@^@strlstrh8^@^@^@vidsFMP4^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^ @^@^Y^@^@^@^@^@^@^@K^K^@^@^]2^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Ð^B@^Bstrf(^@^@ ^@(^@^@^@Ð^B^@^@@^B^@^@^A^@^X^@FMP4^@ü^R^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ ^@LIST^^@^@^@strlstrh8^@^@^@audsP^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^ @}^@^@^@^@^@^@á58^@<80>>^@^@^@^@^@^@^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@strf^R^@^@^@ P^@^B^@<80>»^@^@^@}^@^@^A^@^P^@^@^@LIST$^@^@^@INFOISFT^X^@^@^@MEncoder dev-SVN-r26940^@JUNK<92>^N^@^@[= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk
<snip />
data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayer junk data! =][= MPlayerLISTn^Aï^@movi01wb<80>>^@^@^@L<83>UDTfwwfffffºY$h<90>^@^@^@^@^@^@ ª*¦ªj«<9e>¨«mÃ^\¯Ë^\qÇ^/Ç^L±Ã<0Æû°Ç<2Ë^M0ÆüoÇLqÈõ<91>,^T/wIÄN$Üí-Q<8d>o 3ñ»3̾ºÔ¸ÖM^O±s86wD^U^W»^]<92>è<9a>9ó¤ ¢-3^]<95>6pÝ^D¸¸<91>¸\äXPè^^^U2<9d>^Ûö¨<8c>bâL}$8ß/HY<91><9a>iU¢Ù¥¨K^V^U ª<97>e`ÊBí«°ØîR<92>Ófi<9e>§A¼<92>^K²<91>%VÏF¨\<80>®QÂU éFDç#ï+S.Të^]{î7^Ms{èÖG<8f>jW^U:<8c><93><93>7;$,<86>$éiUIj<95><9a>W#%S^Y 4^BMm^GJAU<85>å;ºîD+)^L^UÄËbË^VmC2é<90>àä^O^KRç[AÏZW^CÉvØ^QN§<8c>^E]Ì0)g Um)<96>^O(âàä<92>FqçÈ<94>ꦩ%^N´Ew<8e>¢ÄM<8c>·),<8a>n·<9d>eTÚöÙÎ<94>`^<Ï <91><9b>1³<83>V!^SY^]<94>æ¸<95>À9TB8ü5<8c>Ê^^<8a>^Z93<93>ÖÉ UÉC^S¬«-^Qº^Tº¨êJ<90>yÝ*Å1#^Z¨Ñ¯«±q<88>õWd<81><85><89>ѹ^Q^V7½<8b>$Ä<93> "sªÙ^Xx®<90>\ Ô^¨
whereas if I "head" a standard AVI from a camera, I see:
RIFF?;?AVI LIST?%hdrlavih85??????LIST?$strlstrh8vidsmjpg5?@B??'??strf((???MJPGstrdZ $AVIF ~ d2t?W"???i??FUJIFILMFinePix F31fd 2009:02:27 16:30:22 ????|???2009:02:27 16:30:222009:02:27 16:30:22FUJIFILM ~ !01FC A1208707 592D313237320703058CE33022B70CNORMAL d????? x?!??? }!1AQa"q2??#B??R??$3br? ??%&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz???????[= MPlayer junk
data! =]??????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????? w!1AQaq"2B???? #3R?br?
It looks like some encoding or serving issue (not least excepting the "junk data" stuff in your header), but the presence of lots of @^ reminds me of UTF-8 encoding, whereas an AVI should probably be raw bytes.
Not really an answer, but it may give a clue :-)
Simon Ransome http://nosher.net
Unfortunately your message was sat on by the ALUG mail server and only arrived this morning -- 5 days later! Sent at 06-Jan-10 23:43:35, it now predates the revised version of the file which I uploaded at 07-Jan-2010 18:29, and this one works:
http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/DenverMill/denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi
Inspecting my local copy (of the revised version, which works), I find similar sequences of "00" ("^@") bytes, and of "[= MPlayer junk data! =]".
Your comments got me googling for "MPlayer junk data". This seems have raised queries on many occasions, and the general response from those who seem to know what they're talking about is that this is just mplayer filling-in unused space in the header block (presumably of fixed size). I didn't see and comments about "00" bytes, but quite possibly these are similar unused space.
See, for instance,the reply by Joe Forster/STA to Cyber Akuma on http://fileforums.com/archive/index.php/t-77955.html (about halfway down the page, dated 20-08-2006, 02:27).
The fact that the revised version now plays perfectly well on Linux and in Windows (as confirmed by some people I pointed to the file) indicates that the original problem has nothing to do with these features.
It may amuse people to read a comment in the reply from one:
"initially it said the file was corrupt but after saving it to the desktop it played just fine. I have had that issue with other files so it's not just yours. Probably a Windoze problem as usual."
Thanks again, and best wishes to all, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Jan-10 Time: 15:17:47 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:38:55 -0000 (GMT) (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk allegedly wrote:
I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows (following an example in 'man mplayer'):
mencoder dvd://1 \ -o denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
The resulting .avi file plays fine using totem. I then ftp'd it to my website, and tried playing it from there using IE on Windows Vista. It failed, saying a codec was missing. However, the file on the website still plays fine on Debian with totem.
So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with:
mencoder dvd://1 \ -o Denver.wmv \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2
Then I uploaded this one as well. Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site.
This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get the video OK, but no sound.
Ted
The output video and audio codecs are wrong. You have selected a straight copy for audio and mpeg4 for video. By default, MS windows media player always seems to have problems with this. aac is a better bet for audio (though mp3 works fine too - particularly the mp3lame codec) and msmpeg4 for video. They should work without problems. So try -oac libfaac and -vcodec msmpeg4.
For straight file to file conversion, ffmepg tends to be faster than mencoder (which simply uses the ffmpeg libraries anyway). So if you have the original file in digital format on the linux pc and want to play the output file (in an avi container) on windows, try this:
ffmpeg -i infile -vcodec msmpeg4 -acodec aac outfile.avi"
There is a pretty good gui for ffmepg called WinFF which comes with loads of presets too. I recently read about another gui called synthgunt (unfortunate name). I tried that and it is not nearly as good as WinFF.
HTH
Mick
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm most obliged to STeve and to Mick for guiding me on the issue of converting from a video DVD film to a file whch can be nicely watched using Windows -- to both for pointing out that I had been using the wrong audio encoding and to Mick for suggesting possibilities. In the end this led me to run
mencoder -oac help
which showed that the available audio codecs were
copy, pcm, mp3lame, lavc, twolame, faac
Some experimentation led, after a few failures, to the command
mencoder dvd://1 -o denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi \ -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2
which gave a result which plays satisfactorily using both Windows IE and totem on Linux (though I don't guarantee that it is optimal! It's just what happened to work). The result is at
http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/DenverMill/denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi
Thanks for the help! (But what a caper). Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 07-Jan-10 Time: 19:29:39 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
-
mick -
simon ransome -
Steve Fosdick -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk