In a previous message, Marshall Heartley wrote:

On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 10:47, John Pettigrew wrote:

...

I downloaded and installed gmencoder, which is a front end onto mencoder. However, this won't read the quicktime file I want to convert (complains that the file format is invalid when I click "analyze file").

Mplayer should be able to do it

Yes, I thought it should (after all, it can play it!). However, there are far too many command-line options to work out for a video novice like me so I'd far prefer a GUI. Trying a naive command line ('mencoder Return\ Of\ The\ King\ Trailer.mov -of mpeg -ovc lavc -oac pcm') gave a huge list of errors ('Unknown block type, possible non-MPEG stream!') and an output file (test.mpeg) that was not playable (among other problems, it apparently had no audio, an aspect ration of 0 and no defined fps). Is it actually possible to convert a quicktime file to mpeg, and how should I go about it? John -- John Pettigrew Headstrong Games john@headstrong-games.co.uk Fun : Strategy : Price http://www.headstrong-games.co.uk/ Board games that won't break the bank Fields of Valour: 2 Norse clans battle on one of 3 different boards

In a previous message, Marshall Heartley wrote:

mencoder <name of file> -oac pcm -ovc lavc -o

Aha - that worked! My problem was probably thus that I used the -of option to specify encoding to MPEG (this being the only difference between what I did and what you suggested!). My own silly fault, I guess, because man does say that this is a beta option, but I didn't realise it would take the output type just from the output filename. Thanks John -- John Pettigrew Headstrong Games john@headstrong-games.co.uk Fun : Strategy : Price http://www.headstrong-games.co.uk/ Board games that won't break the bank Valley of the Kings: ransack an ancient Egyptian tomb but beware of mummies!

On Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:44:01 +0100 John Pettigrew wrote:

Spoke too soon - although that produced a file that could be played using mplayer/xine, k3b didn't recognise it as a valid mpeg 1 or 2 file :-(

The "-of mpeg" option in mencoder is horribly broken at this point.

So, how do I get an mpeg file that k3b can turn into a VCD?

Your only option is really transcode: http://zebra.fh-weingarten.de/~transcode/ you might need to encode the file with mencoder to avi first because the QT support in transcode is somewhat dicey. I suggest using something like "-oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4". Charles -- Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux (Unknown source)

<previous stuff snipped> John, I think that I figured it out. You will need to test it on your movie to see if this is successful. Try this. mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:vhq:keyint=132 -of mpeg -o All on one line of course with a space between the -lavopts and vcodec options. I did this to a movie and it converted the test .mov file to a .mpeg file that K3b liked. Let us know if this did the trick (finally) -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, we just do not have all the anwsers to make the impossible, possible."

<snip>

Well, that kind of worked - k3b accepted the file but it wouldn't burn the VCD (the command-line tool - vcdx...something - didn't like it). Investigating further and with more options, I couldn't get a decent mpeg movie with sound out of mencoder - it reports that it cannot find a codec, even though mplayer plays it OK. As for transcode, I couldn't locate the quicktime support library - "page not built yet"!

Well after reading your response here, I looked at my converted movie an I have a mpeg without sound too! I guess that I will have to look a little deeper to the reason why on this. It is weird because up to this point, the movies have sound until you try and get it to a strict mpeg. The ones that was created before was not a mpeg1, they were (on my machine) encoded in Divx format. This is why K3B didn't like the first ones I think. On the very first converted movies, I have sound but on the latest ones I do not. I will keep looking and maybe some soul on the list will give us a new direction to look.

So, I've failed :-(

No, We have failed or suffered a setback. Depends on your level of optimism.

Has anyone else grabbed the Return of the King trailer, and tried to change format on it?

I guess that I can try and download it and see. I have dial up so it may take me a while to get back to you. We will eventually get it. Don't quit now! -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, we just do not have all the answers to make the impossible, possible."

I'm wondering if perhaps the mpeg sound is there but in a format your player won't play by default. If you have a dual boot or windows pc handy, try a program called virtualDub. Go to the file menu, open the file and select info. It should tell you everything about the file. If there is sound, you can use tmpgenc to convert it. Sorry to recommend windows software but whatever works right?

Well after digging into this, I found out that MPlayer will not encode audio when you convert something into a mpeg file. So I am looking into some other software that can possibly do what we want. Charles suggested for John ( the original poster ) to use transcode. I am in the process of trying to compile it mow and test to see if this will do what John wants. If he (John) had windows available, there was programs that will convert from Qt to mpeg but I think that he was wanting a linux solution.

Anyway, if the sound is actually not there, reconvert as you originally did to get the non=standard mpeg file with sound. You can probably then use tmpgenc to convert format between whatever mpeg standard you want. Otherwise you can extract the sound with tmpgenc and then splice it with the standard format later. These programs might work with wine since the ui is somewhat simple.

I'm not familiar with tmpgenc, is it a linux program or windows? Well I need to see about getting the beast called transcode to compile. I say that because of all the options that I will have to set to get a fully functional program. But I will get it. :) Thanks for the info! -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, we just do not have all the answers to make the impossible, possible."

<snip>

That was all windows software I mentioned. As for transcode, forget compiling it. You can download everything you need from pacman:

http://packman.links2linux.org/

Thanks John! *hits head against wall* I should have looked at Pacman's site first. Been awake too long! Can't even see the obvious. I will get the packages from there and see where this odyssey takes us. -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, we just do not have all the answers to make the impossible, possible."

<snip>

I just recently got a program that might be of interest to you guys as well for putting everything together. I have only played with it for a short time, so don't know how well it works for some things. I know it won't read a Quicktime file, but it does mpeg and will let you many nice things with the video.

It's Avidemux and I think I found it on Pacmans site as well. Actually don't remember now.

I will give it a look! Thanks! -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, we just do not have all the answers to make the impossible, possible."