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I have a folder full of PNG files. Does *anybody* have the slightest
clue how to persuade Mencoder to transform these into an AVI file that
will actually play?? (Or better yet, an MPEG file.)
I can make a file which Mencoder claims is an AVI file. But nothing will
play it. [Except MPlayer.] Which obviously isn't very useful...(!)
I did originally try MPEG, but Mencoder just complains that lavc doesn't
exist.
Seriously - the manual is the size of a small plannet, and goes into
vast detail about stuff I don't give a damn about, but it doesn't tell
me how to perform this simple little task! >_<
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I have a folder full of PNG files. Does *anybody* have the slightest
> clue how to persuade Mencoder to transform these into an AVI file that
> will actually play?? (Or better yet, an MPEG file.)
Try the command here:
http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/September2004/article347.shtml
I think most people use ffmpeg for this kind of thing. Here's the command:
ffmpeg -y -i renderframes/example1a_%3d.png -b 98000 video/example1a.avi
example1a_%3d just means that the files are in sequential order with 3
digits after the underscore:
example1a_000.png
example1a_001.png
etc.
If you don't have lavc, then go install it! I believe it comes with ffmpeg.
It'd help if you gave us the mencoder command you're using.
--
Sign found in a gym: Dieting is the punishment you get for exceeding the
feed limit.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawaz org<<<<<<
anl
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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Try the command here:
>
> http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/September2004/article347.shtml
Well... that works even less well than what I'm using already. (I.e.,
now even MPlayer can't play the file properly!)
[Changing the video type from 'copy' to 'raw' makes it work though...]
> I think most people use ffmpeg for this kind of thing.
I don't have that. [Note that we're talking about M$ Windoze here.]
> If you don't have lavc, then go install it! I believe it comes with
> ffmpeg.
Yeah, like I'm going to be able to figure out how to do that...
> It'd help if you gave us the mencoder command you're using.
mencoder mf://*.png -ovc raw -ofps 12 -vf scale=720:576 -of avi -o out.avi
What what's supposed to do is take all the *.png files in the current
directory and build an uncompressed AVI file at 12 frames/second and
resize the frames to 720x576 if nececcsary.
It *does* produce a file. And MPlayer will play it quite happily, and
the contents look correct. However, Windoze Media Player won't play it,
and Virtual Dub complains too. (Something about "no decompressor for '
RGB'" - note the space in there.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I did originally try MPEG, but Mencoder just complains that lavc doesn't
> exist.
Wait - I was wrong. Turns out the correct option is "mpeg1video", not
just "mpeg1". Now it works...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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The following [huge] command line generates an MPEG-1 file which is
actually playable:
mencoder mf://*.png -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=5000
-ofps 12 -vf scale=720:576 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mpg -o out.mpg
(As a nice bonus, since it's compressed it doesn't take up my entire
harddrive! The bitrate shown seems to produce pretty good results.)
I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The following [huge] command line generates an MPEG-1 file which is
> actually playable:
Weeeeee.... Windoze Media Player can't handle any MPEG file that has a
framerate other than 25 FPS. Yay. :-S
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Weeeeee.... Windoze Media Player can't handle any MPEG file that has a
> framerate other than 25 FPS. Yay. :-S
OMG... It's worse than I thought:
** MUXER_LAVF
*****************************************************************
REMEMBER: MEncoder's libavformat muxing is presently broken and can generate
INCORRECT files in the presence of B frames. Moreover, due to bugs MPlayer
will play these INCORRECT files as if nothing were wrong!
*******************************************************************************
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Am Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:33:27 +0100 schrieb Orchid XP v8:
> The following [huge] command line generates an MPEG-1 file which is
> actually playable:
>
> mencoder mf://*.png -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=5000
> -ofps 12 -vf scale=720:576 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mpg -o out.mpg
It has been some time since I used it, but for that reason I liked
transcode better. It provided some standard settings - such as for VCD
and DVD. Don't know what the current stage of that program is though.
>
> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
I wonder myself. If you tried to compile it - there seems to be a dozen
of dependencies and different libraries which partly do the same. I
wonder, why there is not one big library - or maybe two for competition.
Would simplify things a lot.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
>
Because there's so many options to choose from and no GUI (feel free to
write one;).
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> mencoder mf://*.png -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=5000
> -ofps 12 -vf scale=720:576 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mpg -o out.mpg
Nowadays you might want to use mpeg4 instead of mpeg1. The former can
compress to less than one fourth the size of the latter, while retaining
the same image quality (or even better).
mpeg1 is just old and obsolete nowadays.
> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
mencoder is a tool from hackers to hackers.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Nowadays you might want to use mpeg4 instead of mpeg1. The former can
> compress to less than one fourth the size of the latter, while retaining
> the same image quality (or even better).
>
> mpeg1 is just old and obsolete nowadays.
Yes, but... does any program known to Man actually *play* MPEG-4?
I'd use AVI, except that the AVI files Mencoder produces won't play
properly. MPEG-1 may be old and stuff, but it _works_ everywhere. (Also,
sometimes large AVI files won't play properly because my HD isn't fast
enough. MPEG easily fixes this.)
>> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
>
> mencoder is a tool from hackers to hackers.
*sigh* Yes, from reading the "documentation" you do get that
impression... :-(
Personally I think Virtual Dub is a fine tool, but I'm looking for
something that can *programatically* build and play animations.
Mencoder/MPlayer can do this - although it seems to be horribly
difficult to get right. (E.g., I just discovered that the filename used
for the output file can actually affect the transcoding process - WTF?)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> Yes, but... does any program known to Man actually *play* MPEG-4?
>
MPlayer does :).
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Nowadays you might want to use mpeg4 instead of mpeg1. The former can
> > compress to less than one fourth the size of the latter, while retaining
> > the same image quality (or even better).
> >
> > mpeg1 is just old and obsolete nowadays.
> Yes, but... does any program known to Man actually *play* MPEG-4?
> I'd use AVI, except that the AVI files Mencoder produces won't play
> properly.
You are confusing the AVI format, which is a *container* format, with
a video format, which for example MPEG4 is.
AVI doesn't specify the format of the video. You can have an MPEG4 video
inside an AVI file just fine.
Most current players will play MPEG4 just fine if you have the proper
codec installed, and a few will play it even if you don't (such as eg.
vlcplayer).
> MPEG-1 may be old and stuff, but it _works_ everywhere.
At the cost of looking like crap or being humongous.
> >> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
> >
> > mencoder is a tool from hackers to hackers.
> *sigh* Yes, from reading the "documentation" you do get that
> impression... :-(
I see nothing wrong with the documentation. You just have to learn to
read it.
> Personally I think Virtual Dub is a fine tool, but I'm looking for
> something that can *programatically* build and play animations.
I don't understand what you mean by that.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> mencoder is a tool from hackers to hackers.
In other words, hey, the guy who wrote it knows how to use it... :-)
It always bugs me when people build open-source tools they expect others
to use (like libraries and such) and then expect you to read the source
code to try to figure out what it does because they're too lazy to write
even the vaguest of documentation.
For something like mencoder, it's pretty reasonable. Author needs to
encode some video, author writes a tool, author gives it away.
But I run into way too many situations where people write stuff with the
express intent of you using it and/or even improving it, and they don't
put any documentation into it. Imagine POV-Ray if it came with no
documentation but the sample files....
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
Helpful housekeeping hints:
Check your feather pillows for holes
before putting them in the washing machine.
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>> Yes, but... does any program known to Man actually *play* MPEG-4?
>
>> I'd use AVI, except that the AVI files Mencoder produces won't play
>> properly.
>
> You are confusing the AVI format, which is a *container* format, with
> a video format, which for example MPEG4 is.
OK, I rephrase: I'd use fully uncompressed AVI, but when I ask Mencoder
to do that, the result isn't playable with anything except MPlayer.
> Most current players will play MPEG4 just fine if you have the proper
> codec installed, and a few will play it even if you don't (such as eg.
> vlcplayer).
OK, well if I ever see an MPEG4 file, I'll try it. ;-)
[I suppose I could ask Mencoder to make one - but then how would I know
if it's really an MPEG4 file?]
>> MPEG-1 may be old and stuff, but it _works_ everywhere.
>
> At the cost of looking like crap or being humongous.
Well size isn't too much of an issue for me. Besides, the final image
will be encoded with MPEG-2 anyway.
[Although actually... Mencoder is doing something strange at me. No
matter how high I turn up the bitrate, the colours look a tad blocky for
no apparent reason...]
>>> mencoder is a tool from hackers to hackers.
>
>> *sigh* Yes, from reading the "documentation" you do get that
>> impression... :-(
>
> I see nothing wrong with the documentation. You just have to learn to
> read it.
You realise I've spent several *hours* today reading it trying to find
the information I want, right?
>> Personally I think Virtual Dub is a fine tool, but I'm looking for
>> something that can *programatically* build and play animations.
>
> I don't understand what you mean by that.
Virtual Dub is nice, but you can only control it using a mouse. I want
something I can control from the program I wrote.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Darren New wrote:
> In other words, hey, the guy who wrote it knows how to use it... :-)
It always surprises me when a big well-known "jewl" of the open source
scene has really poor documentation. You'd think something that popular
would be well-documented...
It seems to be kinda pot luck though. Some open source still *is*
fabulously documented. [The GIMP, MySQL, PostgreSQL off the top of my
head.] And some things are shockingly UNdocumented. [I wouldn't say that
Mencoder is *that* bad, but it could be much better.]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> OK, well if I ever see an MPEG4 file, I'll try it. ;-)
Isn't a VOB file on a DVD an mpeg4 file?
> [Although actually... Mencoder is doing something strange at me. No
> matter how high I turn up the bitrate, the colours look a tad blocky for
> no apparent reason...]
If the problem with Mencoder is B-frames, that would explain it.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
Helpful housekeeping hints:
Check your feather pillows for holes
before putting them in the washing machine.
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It always surprises me when a big well-known "jewl" of the open source
> scene has really poor documentation. You'd think something that popular
> would be well-documented...
Yeah. Stuff like Freenet, which last I looked, was documented by people
reading the source code and trying to figure out what it did well enough
to write a user manual on how to use it. Like, WTF?
I personally can't imagine how you even start a major complicated
project without writing some documentation first. "Hey, let's make this
database engine, write all the code, then try to figure out what the
layout in the files will be and what the API to access it should look
like." WTF? At a minimum, put the notes you made while you were
thinking about it on the wiki along with everything else.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
Helpful housekeeping hints:
Check your feather pillows for holes
before putting them in the washing machine.
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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> OK, well if I ever see an MPEG4 file, I'll try it. ;-)
>
> Isn't a VOB file on a DVD an mpeg4 file?
Nope. Mpeg2.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I think most people use ffmpeg for this kind of thing.
>
> I don't have that. [Note that we're talking about M$ Windoze here.]
Did you install the binary mplayer codecs package? It may have it.
Here's an old version for Windows:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ffmpeg
Somehow, I feel there must be tools other than mencoder that will let
you do this on Windows. I'm the wrong person to tell you them, though.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> mencoder mf://*.png -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=5000
> -ofps 12 -vf scale=720:576 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mpg -o out.mpg
>
> (As a nice bonus, since it's compressed it doesn't take up my entire
> harddrive! The bitrate shown seems to produce pretty good results.)
>
> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
Why do you think it's hard.
-ovc is needed to specify the codec. You'd need this for any general
purpose encoder.
-lavcopts specify the options for the lavc codec.
vcodec is to specify the format (they have mpeg2 if you want that instead).
vbitrate specifies the bitrate.
-ofps is the framerate - needed if you're not going to use the default.
-vf scale is because you wanted to scale.
-of is needed because it does avi by default. My mencoder has an mpeg
option - but you chose lavf...
Most of these things will be needed whatever software you use. I've
noticed converting to MPEG1 or 2 is always a pain - I just use the avi
format and a codec like xvid. The commandline is a bit short.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Warp wrote:
> Nowadays you might want to use mpeg4 instead of mpeg1. The former can
> compress to less than one fourth the size of the latter, while retaining
> the same image quality (or even better).
Many DVD players can't handle it. However, if that's not his target,
I'll agree that mpeg1 is a bad idea. But then again, I get occasional
requests from friends to encode stuff from one format to another because
they want to send it to relatives, and they want to make sure it'll
work. The assumptions are that they won't have special software like
Quicktime Player or VLC, nor will they have any codecs that don't come
with Windows. The only real option is MPEG1 or 2.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
Post a reply to this message
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Mencoder/MPlayer can do this - although it seems to be horribly
> difficult to get right. (E.g., I just discovered that the filename used
> for the output file can actually affect the transcoding process - WTF?)
I find this hard to believe - especially when you specify the format
and codec.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
Post a reply to this message
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> [Although actually... Mencoder is doing something strange at me. No
> matter how high I turn up the bitrate, the colours look a tad blocky for
> no apparent reason...]
MPEG1 sucks.
--
In an Astronomy class (toward an Astronomy major, not that gen-ed crap)
the professor did not tell us we would have to remember constants, and
he asked them as questions. They were short questions, and weren't worth
a lot.
One of them was: What is the orbital period of Saturn? (2 pts/100)
I started thinking about Bode's law and the posibility I could calculate
it from an approximate radius I would get from that law... if I could
remember it. But when you expect a 72% to be an A on a test, you have
bigger fish to fry.
Then I got it. It was right, it should work, and no one would have to be
nailed to anything.
I wrote: One Saturn-Year
I didn't get credit for it. A couple years later a sophomore was telling
me about this funny question he had in the same class. He showed it to
me. It read:
What is the orbital period of Saturn? (Do not put one Saturn-Year)
I was so right that it had to be guarded against. Yet those were 2
points I would never have.
(as told by SetupWeasel on Slashdot)
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>
> Many DVD players can't handle it. However, if that's not his target,
> I'll agree that mpeg1 is a bad idea. But then again, I get occasional
> requests from friends to encode stuff from one format to another because
> they want to send it to relatives, and they want to make sure it'll
> work. The assumptions are that they won't have special software like
> Quicktime Player or VLC, nor will they have any codecs that don't come
> with Windows. The only real option is MPEG1 or 2.
>
On that target (have-to-play for relatives etc) I'd shoot for MPEG-2 and
a "real" playable DVD-Video -disc (as I guess Andrew will finally be
doing). It would seem the easiest and nicest way to watch such a video.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:52:54 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It always surprises me when a big well-known "jewl" of the open source
> scene has really poor documentation. You'd think something that popular
> would be well-documented...
This isn't unique to the open-source world. I've seen plenty of
commercially-available offerings over the years that the documentation
was nonexistent.
Jim
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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> On that target (have-to-play for relatives etc) I'd shoot for MPEG-2 and
> a "real" playable DVD-Video -disc (as I guess Andrew will finally be
> doing). It would seem the easiest and nicest way to watch such a video.
This is my ultimate target, yes.
Weirdly, my PC will play DVDs, but if I tell Mencoder to produce an
MPEG-2 file instead of MPEG-1, the result isn't playable.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> I'm curios... why is it so damned hard to do this??
>
> Why do you think it's hard.
Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.
Also, why is there *nowhere* in the manual that says "to produce a
standard MPEG-1 file, type XYZ"? Do you have any idea how freakin long
it took me to decode the manual to the point where I could construct
this commandline?
[E.g., nowhere is it actually documented that if you want to pass
*multiple* options to lavc, you have to seperate them with colons.
Eventually I noticed it in an example - an example demonstrating
something completely unrelated to syntax - and copied it. In general,
trying to figure out how the hell to make Mencoder do anything reduces
to endless trail and cryptic error...]
> Most of these things will be needed whatever software you use. I've
> noticed converting to MPEG1 or 2 is always a pain - I just use the avi
> format and a codec like xvid. The commandline is a bit short.
As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally
difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an
uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.]
Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> [Although actually... Mencoder is doing something strange at me. No
>> matter how high I turn up the bitrate, the colours look a tad blocky
>> for no apparent reason...]
>
> MPEG1 sucks.
Define "sucks".
MPEG1 works just fine, and I've used it plenty of times before. However,
Mencoder is doing something weird with it. One could argue that Mencoder
sucks, not MPEG1. :-P
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible wrote:
>>
>> MPEG1 sucks.
>
> Define "sucks".
The picture quality of MPEG1 is something horrible.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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>>> MPEG1 sucks.
>>
>> Define "sucks".
>
> The picture quality of MPEG1 is something horrible.
Doesn't that rather depend on what bitrate you select? [Same as any
other lossy codec...]
Now, if you wanted to say that the picture quality to bitrate ratio is
inferior, that's another matter.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible wrote:
>>>> MPEG1 sucks.
>>>
>>> Define "sucks".
>>
>> The picture quality of MPEG1 is something horrible.
>
> Doesn't that rather depend on what bitrate you select? [Same as any
> other lossy codec...]
No, AFAIK with MPEG-1 the bitrate only defines *how* horrible the
picture quality is.
Go ahead, prove me wrong and throw a link to MPEG-1 -file, which
actually has good picture quality?
> Now, if you wanted to say that the picture quality to bitrate ratio is
> inferior, that's another matter.
Yes, that's another matter, but that's also true.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> It always bugs me when people build open-source tools they expect others
> to use (like libraries and such) and then expect you to read the source
> code to try to figure out what it does because they're too lazy to write
> even the vaguest of documentation.
Fortunately mplayer isn't such a software.
Can you give me an example of a library which is almost completely
undocumented? (Sure, in many cases the documentation sucks big time,
but usually you *can* start using the library by reading the documentation,
even if it could have been made easier.)
In fact, many open source libraries have pretty decent documentations.
One example: http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/
--
- Warp
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Weirdly, my PC will play DVDs, but if I tell Mencoder to produce an
> MPEG-2 file instead of MPEG-1, the result isn't playable.
Just because both use the same video standard doesn't mean that the same
codec can be used for both cases.
--
- Warp
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>> Weirdly, my PC will play DVDs, but if I tell Mencoder to produce an
>> MPEG-2 file instead of MPEG-1, the result isn't playable.
>
> Just because both use the same video standard doesn't mean that the same
> codec can be used for both cases.
It's just a little strange that if I have an MPEG-2 file on a DVD, it
plays, but if I have one on my harddrive, it doesn't. Oh well...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv
> -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.
Because you might want to use some other library than lavc to create
your mpeg1 stream.
(Yes, creating an mpeg video is not an unambiguous process. Some encoders
do a better job than others.)
> Also, why is there *nowhere* in the manual that says "to produce a
> standard MPEG-1 file, type XYZ"?
Because mplayer is not an mpeg1 encoder?
> As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally
> difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an
> uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.]
> Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...
Why would it make matters worse? I would say all the contrary.
--
- Warp
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>> Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv
>> -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.
>
> Because you might want to use some other library than lavc to create
> your mpeg1 stream.
OK, so why does each library have its own completely unrelated interface
then? Why should I have to memorise which library does what just to
perform the very simple task of producing a plain ordinary MPEG file?
>> Also, why is there *nowhere* in the manual that says "to produce a
>> standard MPEG-1 file, type XYZ"?
>
> Because mplayer is not an mpeg1 encoder?
I... don't even know what to say to that.
>> As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally
>> difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an
>> uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.]
>> Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...
>
> Why would it make matters worse? I would say all the contrary.
My problem is with programs not being able to read the data. Surely the
correct course of action is to seek out more common file formats, not
more obscure ones?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK, so why does each library have its own completely unrelated interface
> then? Why should I have to memorise which library does what just to
> perform the very simple task of producing a plain ordinary MPEG file?
Because it's not a GUI.
If you want a GUI, use VirtualDub.
> >> As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally
> >> difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an
> >> uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.]
> >> Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...
> >
> > Why would it make matters worse? I would say all the contrary.
> My problem is with programs not being able to read the data. Surely the
> correct course of action is to seek out more common file formats, not
> more obscure ones?
Which raw video format are you using? Those are obscure, if any.
--
- Warp
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Invisible wrote:
>> Just because both use the same video standard doesn't mean that the
>> same
>> codec can be used for both cases.
>
> It's just a little strange that if I have an MPEG-2 file on a DVD, it
> plays, but if I have one on my harddrive, it doesn't. Oh well...
That may say something about your media player on your computer.
--
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Invisible wrote:
> Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv
> -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.
Warp answered that: Why should mencoder choose for you which library
you should use?
I think the problem you're dealing with is that mencoder is meant to be
somewhat general purpose. I can easily imagine another encoder out there
that's as easy to use as you want, but would simply be inflexible - lack
of choices. mencoder is designed for flexibility.
> Also, why is there *nowhere* in the manual that says "to produce a
> standard MPEG-1 file, type XYZ"? Do you have any idea how freakin long
> it took me to decode the manual to the point where I could construct
> this commandline?
They give various examples at the end of the man file. Yes, MPEG-1 is
not explicitly provided, but then why should they provide that over,
say, MPEG-4 or some other codec? I think you're mistaken in thinking
that most people do encoding into MPEG-1 - it's usually to encode to
xvid, divx or something similar.
In any case:
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts
vcodec=mpeg4
It shouldn't be too hard to go from there to mpeg1.
> [E.g., nowhere is it actually documented that if you want to pass
> *multiple* options to lavc, you have to seperate them with colons.
Right in the beginning of the section for lavcopts, you see:
EXAMPLE:
vcodec=msmpeg4:vbitrate=1800:vhq:keyint=250
Should be enough of a hint.
> Eventually I noticed it in an example - an example demonstrating
> something completely unrelated to syntax - and copied it. In general,
> trying to figure out how the hell to make Mencoder do anything reduces
> to endless trail and cryptic error...]
Can't say I figured everything out by reading mencoder man file. I have
in the past done Google searches and looked at other people's scripts.
However, it's not obvious to me how it can be made better.
> As far as I can tell, making Mencoder output any format is equally
> difficult and error-prone. [I still can't get it to produce an
> uncompressed AVI file that anything except MPlayer can comprehend.]
> Adding a rare codec like XviD would just make matters worse...
xvid is not exactly rare.
I'd be curious to see if the same command you're giving will produce a
working avi file on my side...
--
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Warp wrote:
> Fortunately mplayer isn't such a software.
I did not mean to imply it was, nor that all open source software is
that way.
> Can you give me an example of a library which is almost completely
> undocumented?
Many are, usually in the initial phases when they really need the most
help to get going. As I said, Freenet was essentially undocumented for
about 5 years when it started. Apache 2.0 was undocumented for over a
year, without even mentioning in the documentation distributed with the
package that the documentation was from a different and completely
incompatible version. CouchDB has no documentation on what the file
formats are, which makes it difficult to learn anything or understand
and of the code without learning all of it.
It's not so much that the project isn't documented. It's that the
project *is* documented, but the documentation isn't put anywhere that
people willing to help (or at least provide suggestions) can get to it.
I find it tremendously hard to believe that anyone would write a major
distributed database engine without ever once embodying the format of
the data stored in the files other than in the source code. It would be
like beliving Microsoft never documented the format of Word files, and
always told new programmers "just read the source to figure it out."
> In fact, many open source libraries have pretty decent documentations.
> One example: http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/
Yes, many do. I have, sadly, run up against way too many that don't,
usually when my boss says something like "Hey, I just heard about X,
let's use that!"
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
Helpful housekeeping hints:
Check your feather pillows for holes
before putting them in the washing machine.
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Darren New wrote:
> Many are, usually in the initial phases when they really need the most
> help to get going.
Incidentally, I might see this more than you do, depending on how you do
your development stuff. The sorts of projects I work on usually involve
mash-ups of half a dozen different functionalities.
For example, the thing I did most recently (www.poundsky.com), we have
direct relationships with some 15 different suppliers, as well as
needing to meet the criteria of all our suppliers' suppliers. (I.e., we
not only have to work with the supplier, but what that supplier is
providing to us is access to *their* partners, who we also have to
satisfy. E.g., we not only have to fetch ads from the ad servers, we
have to only put the appropriate ads on the right pages.)
MG uses WebSphere, which is well-documented in an IBM Mainframe sort of
way - heaven help you if actually want to use it from a language other
than COBOL. (Heaven help you if you don't know COBOL, for that matter.)
STI uses SOAP libraries that are so poorly written they don't even talk
to other SOAP libraries, let alone export WSDL. And whatever XML parser
they mashed up for the other part doesn't quote strings right, so you
can't read it with a standard XML parser.
Every feed we get has a different format, none of which is documented.
So if I can drag out whether it's TCP or UDP they're sending, the next
step is to log all the bytes that come in and try to figure out what the
syntax of the messages is.
Another provider uses real SOAP, but their documentation doesn't match
their WSDL. They have "optional" fields that the WSDL requires you to
provide, and "required" fields that the WSDL lets you omit, just as one
example.
The ones giving us ads give you a blob of PHP that you're supposed to
run to fetch the ads. Often, it has a bunch of crap in there to make up
for deficiencies in their database. Often, it misformats the result
compared to how you want to format it (like, "no, thanks, we don't want
the ad centered" or even leaving mismatched tags in). It invariably just
dumps the ad to stdout, rather than giving it back to you so you can,
say, plug it into a template or log to the database what you got so you
can fix it when they break it. So every ad service I use, they drop me a
couple hundred lines of awful PHP and I have to figure out what it does
and rewrite it to actually work with our system.
(Yes, I'm being fairly vague about what I'm talking about specifically.
Welcome to commercial software. :-)
So, yeah, I probably wind up getting tasked more often with figuring out
WTF is going on with some new library thingie than most people.
Nowadays, of course, much of that sort of stuff is web services instead
of libraries, so it tends to be a bit better documented, because if
nothing else it's commercial and they know you won't use it if it isn't
documented.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
Helpful housekeeping hints:
Check your feather pillows for holes
before putting them in the washing machine.
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>>> I think most people use ffmpeg for this kind of thing.
>>
>> I don't have that. [Note that we're talking about M$ Windoze here.]
>
> Did you install the binary mplayer codecs package? It may have it.
Turns out I do have it. I was mistaken - it seems I just used the wrong
codec name.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> OK, so why does each library have its own completely unrelated interface
>> then? Why should I have to memorise which library does what just to
>> perform the very simple task of producing a plain ordinary MPEG file?
>
> Because it's not a GUI.
>
> If you want a GUI, use VirtualDub.
I don't see why a CLI necessarily means it must be cryptic.
>> My problem is with programs not being able to read the data. Surely the
>> correct course of action is to seek out more common file formats, not
>> more obscure ones?
>
> Which raw video format are you using? Those are obscure, if any.
Plain uncompressed AVI is "rare"?!?
[It's the *default option* for Virtual Dub!]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>>> The picture quality of MPEG1 is something horrible.
>>
>> Doesn't that rather depend on what bitrate you select? [Same as any
>> other lossy codec...]
>
> No, AFAIK with MPEG-1 the bitrate only defines *how* horrible the
> picture quality is.
>
> Go ahead, prove me wrong and throw a link to MPEG-1 -file, which
> actually has good picture quality?
OK, try this:
http://download.orphi.me.uk/Video/Example.mpg
100% flawless picture quality with absolutely no visible artifacts of
any kind - and with a highly intricate and detailed image full of
motion. And it's only 4 MB. [Admittedly it's also only a few seconds...]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://download.orphi.me.uk/Video/Example.mpg
No such server.
--
- Warp
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>> http://download.orphi.me.uk/Video/Example.mpg
>
> No such server.
Au contrare, I think my host's MIME types are configured wrong or
something. Try downloading the file and playing it locally...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> OK, try this:
>
> http://download.orphi.me.uk/Video/Example.mpg
Ok, it's not horrible, I have to admit. It's hard to see the artifacts
'cause the movement is so fast and due to fact that interest of viewer
is drawn to the dancing movement in the middle of the picture (the point
of MPEG and JPEG).
> 100% flawless picture quality with absolutely no visible artifacts of
> any kind - and with a highly intricate and detailed image full of
> motion. And it's only 4 MB. [Admittedly it's also only a few seconds...]
On this I can't agree. There are visible artifacts on gradients. I tried
to shoot some examples on it, but my digicam jpg-messed the fotos even
more (the other one is cropped in Gimp, hence png to avoid more messing up):
http://www.zbxt.net/~aero/AndVid1.png
http://www.zbxt.net/~aero/AndVid2.jpg
On those images the clip has been decoded with hardware decoder (em8300)
and softened while moved via Y/C -signaling. And JPEG'ed after that by
my digicam, so don't assume to find all the same artifacts right away.
But I noticed them also (actually, at first) on my laptop, with software
decoding (and a goddamn TN-panel), without pausing the clip oslt, so
they do exist. Easiest way to start finding them is pausing the image
(eg on 0.4 sec is a good place) and check the gradients of the noise at
the background.
OTOH, don't try to learn to notice such things automatically. It's a lot
easier to enjoy the show itself, when you're not scanning backgrounds
etc for artifacts...
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Ok, it's not horrible, I have to admit. It's hard to see the artifacts
> 'cause the movement is so fast and due to fact that interest of viewer
> is drawn to the dancing movement in the middle of the picture (the point
> of MPEG and JPEG).
The file happened to be laying around on my HD. It's actually meant to
be watched at 22 frames/second - but the MPEG headers say 25, which is
why it looks so damned fast. But I tried freeze-framing it in a few
places, and nothing really serious was evident.
Certainly this video looks miles better than anything Mencoder has so
far managed to produce for me. Every time I try with Mencoder, I get
huge blocks of rainbow colours appearing here and there, and sometimes
really ugly DCT artifacts as if the file is actually corrupted somehow...
>> 100% flawless picture quality with absolutely no visible artifacts of
>> any kind - and with a highly intricate and detailed image full of
>> motion. And it's only 4 MB. [Admittedly it's also only a few seconds...]
>
> On this I can't agree. There are visible artifacts on gradients.
Well OK, but you have to look pretty damned hard to find them. Certainly
compered to the chewed up mess Mencoder gives me, these look flawless!
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> Why can't I just say -ovc mpeg1? Why do I have to say -ovc lacv
>> -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video? That seems unecessarily complex.
>
> Warp answered that: Why should mencoder choose for you which library
> you should use?
I was under the impression that Mencoder *is* a library...
> In any case:
>
> mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts
> vcodec=mpeg4
>
> It shouldn't be too hard to go from there to mpeg1.
[Except for the minor detail that you need to say vcodec=mpeg1video, not
just vcodec=mpeg1. And you have to use a different container format.
From a different library.]
> xvid is not exactly rare.
In which population? :-P
[Notice how every time somebody posts an Xvid or DivX or anything else
to the POV-Ray servers, everybody complains they can't play it until
somebody gets it transcoded back to MPEG-1?]
> I'd be curious to see if the same command you're giving will produce
> a working avi file on my side...
mencoder mf://*.png -ovc raw -of avi -o Test.avi
That's from memory anyway... I'll check when I get home.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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