hi,
I have been trying for a few days to find a program that compresses mpeg2 to avi. I tried using avidemux but that program wasn't able to properly read my file. then i tried a similar program with the same result.

I also tried installing iriverter but the installation failed (it told me "Package dependencies cannot be resolved - This error could be caused by required additional software packages which are missing or not installable. Futhermore there could be a conflict between software packages which are not allowed to be installed at the same time.")

i also tried searching this forum but found nothing helpful.
any suggestions?
Thanks

Try http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...files_to_AVI_0
and next time, search these forums...

Does it have to be Xvid compatible ? so it can play on standalone players ?

It sounds like you have a goofy (non standard) mpeg2 file. You can try converting into a "standard" mpeg2 and then use avidemux to convert it to avi.

1)I am new to linux so I don't understand where and how I have to write all those commands. I looked at the help files about MEncoder and Mpalayer but I didn't find anything that helped me.

2)I just want to compress a 1.8GB 45 minute clip into a more manageable size, so it doesn't matter if it's Xvid compatible.

3)how do I convert it into standard mpeg2?

thanks

You can install mplayer and it's own tool mencoder. mencoder can easily convert all types you see.

@ post #5:

Just open a terminal, change to the directory where the file you want to convert is, and enter the command I listed(answer to #1). This will create a copy of the file that is in a "standard" format(answer to #3). Then covert/compress this new file with avidemux(answer to #2).

First, if you have mencoder open a terminal or console and run this:

and post the output here, just so we know what codecs you can use.

1)I did install mplayer and mencoder. the question is how to convert files

2)I converted the file to a non-goofy mpeg2 using "ffmpeg -i input.mpg -sameq output.mpg" but then when I opened the new file (which was twice as large by the way) with avidemux the result was similar - the video was too slow and without sound. (pre-conversion the video was too fast and without sound)

3)typing "mencoder -ovc help -oac help" on the terminal, it said:

MEncoder SVN-r29237-4.4.1 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Available codecs:
copy - frame copy, without re-encoding. Doesn't work with filters.
frameno - special audio-only file for 3-pass encoding, see DOCS.
raw - uncompressed video. Use fourcc option to set format explicitly.
nuv - nuppel video
lavc - libavcodec codecs - best quality!
vfw - VfW DLLs, read DOCS/HTML/en/encoding-guide.html.
qtvideo - QuickTime DLLs, currently only SVQ1/3 are supported.
xvid - XviD encoding
x264 - H.264 encoding


Available codecs:
copy - frame copy, without re-encoding (useful for AC3)
pcm - uncompressed PCM audio
mp3lame - cbr/abr/vbr MP3 using libmp3lame
lavc - FFmpeg audio encoder (MP2, AC3, ...)
faac - FAAC AAC audio encoder

(screen shot attached)

4)thanks

Attached Thumbnails

 

Ok, that's good, now try doing this:

1) Open a terminal and navigate to the file you want to convert or just open a terminal in the directory where the file is you want to convert.

2) Run this command:

Replace input.mpg and output.avi accordingly.

If you want higher quality video you should do a 2 pass encoding so something like:

And if you want possibly better quality sound you can change:
to

thanks - it works!

Great, if you want to further adjust video quality you can use a lower qp= value, but this will generate a larger file.