magic words wanted ffmpeg avi to mp4 conversion for youtube

vtbludgeon · 06-22-2010, 08:50 AM

I have been scraping and clawing all over the Web, trying and erring for long enough to give up and ask you:

I want to convert AVI files created on my Canon digital camera to a youtube-friendly format. Youtube says: "you may get the best uploading results from converting your file to MPEG4 video with MP3 audio" and they suggest ffmpeg. Unfortunately I don't understand what I am doing, just trying to slavishly follow the recipe. I am running this version of ffmpeg:

Code:

FFmpeg version SVN-r19352-4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --extra-cflags=-I/build/buildd/ffmpeg-0.5+svn20090706/debian/include --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Apr 23 2010 15:05:49, gcc: 4.4.1

I have tried countless command-line invocations of ffmpeg and gotten various fatal errors. Rather than paste all the clutter in here, I pose the question: what is the command to tell ffmpeg to convert input.avi to an MPEG-4 video with MP3 audio?

PS I know Youtube will accept my AVI and do the processing for me. I also know they recommend give you them your original instead of mucking with it yourself. But a 2-minute AVI is over 200MB and I want something that will upload faster. Of course this has taken me 25 times longer than the AVI upload would have (-:

Gratefully,

smoker · 06-22-2010, 11:00 AM

What format is the avi file ? mpeg4 is a codec, avi is a container for many formats. If fact mpeg4 can be contained by an avi.

But having said that, there is an example in man ffmpeg :

Code:

 
* You can transcode decrypted VOBs

ffmpeg -i snatch_1.vob -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 800 -g 300 -bf 2 -acodec mp3 -ab 128 snatch.avi

Quote:

This is a typical DVD ripping example; the input is a VOB file, the
output an AVI file with MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio. Note that in this
command we use B-frames so the MPEG-4 stream is DivX5 compatible, and
GOP size is 300 which means one intra frame every 10 seconds for
29.97fps input video. Furthermore, the audio stream is MP3-encoded so
you need to enable LAME support by passing "--enable-mp3lame" to con-
figure. The mapping is particularly useful for DVD transcoding to get
the desired audio language.

NOTE: To see the supported input formats, use "ffmpeg -formats".

Try using that with the relevant modifications.

vtbludgeon · 06-22-2010, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoker

What format is the avi file ? mpeg4 is a codec, avi is a container for many formats. If fact mpeg4 can be contained by an avi.

Ah! Thank you, now I am slightly less ignorant than before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoker

But having said that, there is an example in man ffmpeg :[...]

Yes I saw that, but it's going in the opposite direction from what I am trying to do. My input file is AVI, not my output. Truth to tell, as I mentioned before, I don't understand this stuff.

Nevertheless... I tried this:

Code:

  ffmpeg -i cards.avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 cards.mp4

and got this:

Code:

FFmpeg version SVN-r19352-4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --extra-cflags=-I/build/buildd/ffmpeg-0.5+svn20090706/debian/include --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Apr 23 2010 15:05:49, gcc: 4.4.1
Input #0, avi, from 'cards.avi':
  Duration: 00:01:55.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 15721 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj422p, 640x480, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 44100 Hz, mono, s16, 705 kb/s
Unknown encoder 'mp3'

It looks like I got some information about the input file there, right?

I hypothesize that my ffmpeg was not compiled with support for whatever. I got it by way of 'apt-get install.' Or is there something else I could apt-get that would resolve some dependency? Or is there something else I'm not doing right?

smoker · 06-22-2010, 11:52 AM

You need lame support to use mp3.

Quote:

Furthermore, the audio stream is MP3-encoded so
you need to enable LAME support by passing "--enable-mp3lame" to con-
figure.

I don't know how you achieve that other than recompiling ffmpeg (which isn't a bad idea really) Get it from svn and build it yourself, there are plenty of howtos for just about all distros.

The process as described is not going in reverse. Remember I said avi is a container format ?

Quote:

This is a typical DVD ripping example; the input is a VOB file, the
output an AVI file with MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio.

Also, your output file extension is mp4. This can get confusing. mp4 files can be created using the h264 codec, but mp4 is a container just like avi. mpeg4 is more extensive than that. xvid and divx are mpeg4 codecs but can output files as avi !
http://www.xvid.org/Project-Info.46.0.html
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/techn.../h264/faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_14

fruttenboel · 06-22-2010, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vtbludgeon

I have been scraping and clawing all over the Web, trying and erring for long enough to give up and ask you:

I want to convert AVI files created on my Canon digital camera to a youtube-friendly format. Youtube says: "you may get the best uploading results from converting your file to MPEG4 video with MP3 audio" and they suggest ffmpeg. Unfortunately I don't understand what I am doing, just trying to slavishly follow the recipe.

Just upload the AVI. YouTube will do the converting for you.

If I want to save a flash move to avi I do:

Code:

ffmpeg -i /tmp/Flash12sew MyFilm.avi

and that works fine all the time.

vtbludgeon · 06-22-2010, 02:39 PM

I think that's a good idea. I will compile my own ffmpeg binary from source if and when I have time for that.

Thanks.

vtbludgeon · 06-23-2010, 11:13 AM

OK, Youtube thought about it for over 24 hours before deciding it won't accept my AVI from my little Canon Powershot, so... I manned up and compiled my own ffmpeg from source checked out from svn.

For ./configure I simply said --enable-libmp3lame. And now...

ffmpeg -i cards.avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 cards.mpg

Code:

FFmpeg version SVN-r23738, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jun 23 2010 11:54:46 with gcc 4.4.1
  configuration: --enable-libmp3lame
  libavutil     50.19. 0 / 50.19. 0
  libavcodec    52.78. 0 / 52.78. 0
  libavformat   52.71. 0 / 52.71. 0
  libavdevice   52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libavfilter    1.20. 0 /  1.20. 0
  libswscale     0.11. 0 /  0.11. 0
Input #0, avi, from 'cards.avi':
  Metadata:
    ISFT            : CanonMVI06
  Duration: 00:01:54.99, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 15721 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj422p, 640x480, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 44100 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 705 kb/s
Unknown encoder 'mp3'

So you see -- compiled from source with libmp3lame support, and still "unknown encoder mp3." Any advice? Some magic words missing from my configure command, perhaps?

Thanks.

smoker · 06-23-2010, 11:47 AM

I guess you didn't install libmp3lame first then.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ffmpeg

vtbludgeon · 06-23-2010, 11:56 AM

I believe I did:

apt-get install lame

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
lame is already the newest version.

apt-get install libmp3lame-dev

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libmp3lame-dev is already the newest version

But... let me read your URL (been there before) and give it a shot. Am I gonna shoot myself in the foot if I run those commands even though it doesn't explicitly say they're for my distro (9.10)?

smoker · 06-23-2010, 12:07 PM

I don't think you can hurt things too much, as long as a package is available for your version, it shouldn't matter. If you already have it, it won't install or it will complain.