How to convert Real / Realvideo files to mpeg or avi

jefm · 12-09-2009, 12:04 PM

I'm a total lackey with all the video codecs but have been asked if there's some way to do this. We need to get .rm videos converted into something, you know, "more mainstream" instead of the proprietary Real format so that I can edit them with an NLE. Thanks for any and all help.

H_TeXMeX_H · 12-09-2009, 12:44 PM

I think you would have to use mencoder. ffmpeg won't work, because AFAIK it doesn't have the proprietary codec needed for this.

Anyway, here's an example conversion to say x264 using 2 pass:

Code:

mencoder input.avi -oac faac -faacopts quality=50 -ovc x264 -x264encopts qp=25:subq=6:frameref=5:bframes=3:8x8dct:b_pyramid:weight_b:keyint=240:direct_pred=auto:mixed_refs:trellis=1:threads=auto:pass=1 -nosound -o /dev/null; mencoder input.avi -oac faac -faacopts quality=50 -ovc x264 -x264encopts qp=25:subq=6:frameref=5:bframes=3:8x8dct:b_pyramid:weight_b:keyint=240:direct_pred=auto:mixed_refs:trellis=1:threads=auto:pass=2 -o output.avi

Depending on the input audio, you can also change '-oac faac -faacopts quality=50' to either '-oac mp3lame -lameopts q=2' for mp3 audio, or to '-oac copy' to copy the original audio (if possible).

If you run into a/v desync, one thing that you might have to do is encode only the video with mencoder and then mux the audio back in with ffmpeg ... which is more complicated.

If you want a GUI try avidemux, but I've had problems with it and prefer just the command line.

jefm · 12-10-2009, 11:00 AM

Thanks for the help TexMex. I had a problem installing mplayer though, this probably deserves another thread, but thought I'd post here before making a big deal out of it.
Right now, I get:

Code:

jeffm@jeffm-wks1:~/down/x264$ mplayer
mplayer: error while loading shared libraries: libx264.so.65: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
jeffm@jeffm-wks1:~/down/x264$ ldd /usr/bin/mplayer |grep 264
        libx264.so.65 => not found

I got the x264 thing from Videolan and compiled it. They had a .deb (I'm on Debian Lenny) but it was libx264.so.60 and that might not count. There is a command to re-link libraries (name of command forgotten) which I ran, it did not make a difference. Thanks for any help.

H_TeXMeX_H · 12-10-2009, 11:14 AM

You can't relink it, you should instead either recompile mplayer or install version 65 of libx264.

jefm · 12-10-2009, 12:15 PM

Thanks again TexMex, I uninstalled the .deb then compiled from scratch. But I think I started peeling an onion, I can hear audio from the show but no video is displayed. I had to do a mknod for the framebuffer device.

Code:

MPlayer SVN-r29982-snapshot-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Playing 306 - Sexual Harassment Panda.rm.
REAL file format detected.
Stream description: RealVideoPremierePlugIn-VIDEO
Stream mimetype: video/x-pn-realvideo
[real] Video stream found, -vid 0
Stream description: RealVideoPremierePlugIn-AUDIO
Stream mimetype: audio/x-pn-realaudio
[real] Audio stream found, -aid 1
VIDEO:  [RV13]  320x240  24bpp  15.000 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
 title: Episode 306 - Sexual Harrassment Panda
 author: Captured and encoded by BernieC
 copyright: No no, MY name is Kid Rock.
Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device
[fbdev2] Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device
VO: [v4l2] No such file or directory
vo_cvidix: No vidix driver name provided, probing available ones (-v option for details)!
[mga] Found MGA G400/G450
Matrox MGA G200/G400/G450 YUV Video interface v2.01 (c) Aaron Holtzman & A'rpi
[mga] detected RAMSIZE is 16 MB
[mga] Set write-combining type of video memory
syncfb (mga): IRQ disabled in mga_vid.c
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffrv10] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg RV10)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
Using SSE optimized IMDCT transform
Using MMX optimized resampler
AUDIO: 16000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 40.0 kbit/7.81% (ratio: 5000->64000)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm: liba52 (AC3-liba52)
==========================================================================
AO: [oss] 16000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [cvidix] 320x240 => 320x240 Planar YV12 
vo_cvidix: Screen width not set (see -screenw), assuming 640 pixels.
vo_cvidix: Screen height not set (see -screenh), assuming 480 pixels.
A:   6.3 V:   6.3 A-V: -0.004 ct: -0.275  72/ 72  0%  0%  0.2% 0 0                                                                        

MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: sleep_timer
A:   6.5 V:   6.5 A-V: -0.004 ct: -0.276  73/ 73  0%  0%  0.2% 0 0                                                                        
Exiting... (Quit)
jeffm@jeffm-wks1:~$ ls /dev/fb0
/dev/fb0
jeffm@jeffm-wks1:~$

H_TeXMeX_H · 12-10-2009, 01:59 PM

Ok, how did you compile it ? I mean what did you run ? I notice that it's using the vidix driver, try using 'xv' instead if you can.

Now, there are multiple solutions to this, you can use the .deb mplayer, but must find the right .deb package of x264 to go with it ... otherwise you'll have to compile it, in which case make sure to have all the libraries installed before compiling mplayer, otherwise it won't find them.

mark_alfred · 12-10-2009, 03:29 PM

Tovid might work. Add the following to your sources.list:

Code:

# tovid
deb http://tovid.sourceforge.net/download/debian stable contrib

and then, using your whatever your preferred installation method is (IE, "aptitude install tovid-gui"), install tovid-gui. Afterward, run "tovidgui" (for some reason, the package is named "tovid-gui" with a hyphen, but the actual program is named "tovidgui"). Anyway, this program might help convert your realplayer video into mpg. It can use either ffmpeg (which I have more luck with) or mpeg2enc (see the encoding drop-down arrow option when the video to be converted is selected.)

For further information, see Tovid site.

Note: I wasn't sure which version of Debian you were using, so for the repository above I just made it "stable". If you're using something else (testing or unstable), then use that instead.