[SOLVED] I made avi file using gimp. mplayer is OK, Macintosh and others are not.

kaz2100 · 09-09-2010, 08:52 AM

Hya,

I made an animation file (avi file) using gimp. (All default setting for master videoencoder, audio file is either wav or aiff format)

mplayer can play it as expected. (both video and audio)
vlc plays only audio with white noise, no video at all, (black screen)
cinelerra goes wrong (like Mac and windoes)

Macintosh and windoez (application chosen by OS) can play video, but audio plays incomplete (white noise goes every now and then)

As I need to distribute this file to work community (mostly non Linux) I need to trouble shoot.

So far I have not found any significant error message (gimp, mplayer, vlc, cinelerra).

file command gives me

Code:

RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 1032 x 1800, 1.00 fps, video: Motion JPEG, audio: uncompressed PCM (stereo, 22050 Hz)

Original audio file plays flawlessly on any platform.
So far, I have changed video aspect ratio and audio sampling rate. For some reason audio 22.05k sampling rate (gimp audio option) does not work at all.

Where can I start?

My system: Debian squeeze.

David the H. · 09-09-2010, 10:05 AM

Do realize that "avi" is simply a container format. The real concern is with the video and audio streams inside it.

According to the Wikipedia entry on Motion JPEG:

Quote:

Unlike the video formats specified in international standards such as MPEG-2 and the format specified in the JPEG still-picture coding standard, there is no document that defines a single exact format that is universally recognized as a complete specification of “Motion JPEG” for use in all contexts. This raises compatibility concerns about file outputs from different manufacturers.

I don't know if that has anything to do with your problem, but it's a possibility. The very oddball 1 fps framerate and non-standard size may also have something to do with it.

The audio problem is a bigger puzzle though. pcm audio is about as standard as you can get, and most players should handle it just fine, even with the halved sample rate.

The only thing I can suggest is re-encoding the file into something that's a little more standardized. I don't know what the gimp's capable of, but I assume it can output at a faster framerate at least; 24fps being standard movie quality. As for audio, try upping it to a full 44100 sample rate. If nothing else works, you may need to run the file through mplayer or ffmpeg or such to convert it to something that all systems can handle.

kaz2100 · 09-10-2010, 09:02 AM

Hya,

You are a star! David

I made video 25 fps and standard aspect ratio, bingo, everything went well.

Video is something like flipping A B C every 5-7 seconds, so 1 fps is good enough. I just made 24 redundant identical files and encoded in 25 fps. It is against ecology, but it works.

Happy Penguins!