I am going crazy trying to get ffmpeg to convert an avi file to mpeg-2 format. Here is the command line I am using:

ffmpeg -target ntsc-dvd -i csi.807.hdtv-lol.[VTV].avi CSI_Season_8_Episode_7.mpg

and the output from ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -target ntsc-dvd -i csi.807.hdtv-lol.[VTV].avi CSI_Season_8_Episode_7.mpg
FFmpeg version SVN-r10937, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: --shlibdir=/usr/lib --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --libdir=/usr/lib --enable-shared --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libogg --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libfaad --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-liba52 --enable-swscaler --enable-pp --enable-gpl --enable-vhook --enable-x11grab --enable-libgsm --enable-libx264 --enable-libamr-nb --enable-libamr-wb
libavutil version: 49.5.0
libavcodec version: 51.47.2
libavformat version: 51.17.1
built on Nov 7 2007 00:38:44, gcc: 4.2.1 (SUSE Linux)
Unknown decoder 'ac3'

This is so frustrating. I tried compiling ffmpeg from source as well, and this was no better. You can see in the ffmpeg output that the RPM installation was configured with the "-enable-liba52' option, which is supposed to enable AC3 audio.

If I type 'whereis liba52' I get:
liba52: /usr/lib/liba52.a /usr/lib/liba52.so /usr/lib/liba52.la

I've also tried to force the audio type using the -acodec ac3 option in ffmpeg but that doesn't work either.

The strangest part is that I suddenly get the same error on .avi files which I have previously converted to MPG.

This is on OpenSuse 10.3. To make it even a bit wierder, I get the same error if I use a binary version of ffmpeg in Windows.

I can play the file in Totem without any trouble. Both the sound and video are fine.

Would there be DRM on that file? Try another file, preferably one you haven't attempted to convert before.

No DRM. I have other files that I've successfully converted with ffmpeg on my Ubuntu 7.04 installation and I get the same result.

I recently set up that Ubuntu system as a firewall+server, so last night I used ssh to login to that computer and I converted the same file on that PC using ffmpeg and it worked fine.

This is less-than-ideal since my new PC could do the conversion in minutes while the old firewall PC takes about 1/2 an hour.

So now I am wondering what is special about ffmpeg on Suse 10.3?

Possibly the difference is that you compiled it from source. I take it ffmpeg from YaST is no good? I'd go through that compile carefully - will openSUSE ffmpeg convert other formats?