I have been lent one of these USB portable devices that play video, music etc;
It needs video in an .avi format; at a setting of 160x128;
I believe what comes out of the video camera is 768x576; ( as avi)
I suspect mencoder would do this in a command line;
would anyone be able to help me in what a sample script might look like; I have started to wade through mencoder documentation, but it is not easy for a beginner I feel
actually, the resolution is prolly 720x576, not 768x578.
try using avidemux, it is a simple to use yet has many useful features.
thanks; I used Smart to install avidemux (and avidemux gtk) yesterday evening; on the Gnome applications screen, it now shows avidemux-gtk and when I click on that icon, I get an avidemux screen; (we seem to have 2.4.3-0.pm.1 which is the packman version)
If I go to File, open; (or the open icon below) and then click on an avi file, I get the message: Attempt to open … failed!
I re-read the wiki; this should work; I installed avidemux-qt on our 11.0; and it too gives me the same message with any avi file;
I have subscribed to the avidemux forum just now, and see what advice I can glean there
It may help if you can provide more information as to the detailed codec that is in the video that comes out of your camera.
If the file is called (for example) myfile.avi, then please open a gnome-terminal / konsole and type:
file myfile.avi
and paste here the output
thanks very much for this very helpful post:
an avi file that avidemux cannot load gives:
file karen000.avi
karen000.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 720 x 576, 25.00 fps,
this came out of MainActor, and they term it a type 1 avi file;
and one that will load gives:
file capture001.avi
capture001.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 720 x 576, 25.00 fps, video:, audio: uncompressed PCM (stereo, 32000 Hz)
this comes out of kdenlive
The MainActor output appears to apply a custom creation using RIFF codec? Other than RIFF (little-endian) it gives not much to go on.
When dealing with custom produced avi files, one has to be careful that one produces a file that is readable. … Can any of your players play the file that comes out of mainactor? Its it possible to tune the mainactor output to create a file that is more readable?
Its possible, although I do recommend you take a hard look at your main actor output video settings. (I don’t use main actor so I can not provide guidance on that).
Can you play the avi file produced by mainactor with a player such as smplayer or xine-ui ? You could also try to modify the format of the file with a script program such as “xvidenc” (to xvid format), or “h264enc” (to h264 format) or “divxenc” (to divx format) or “tovid” (to dvd compatible mpeg format). I notice a new application packaged by packman called burn360 (front end to ffmpeg) but I have not tried it.
xvidenc: xvidenc - the interactive shell script ripper
divxenc: divxenc - the interactive shell script ripper
h264enc: h264enc - The interactive shell script ripper
tovid: Tovid Wiki
burn360: SourceForge.net: Burn 360
In addition to burn360, xvidenc and tovid are also packaged by Packman packager.
There are also many front ends to mencoder (I don’t use any of them) packaged by packman packagers:
jmencode: SourceForge.net: jMencode: a Java GUI for mencoder
kmenc15: Kmenc15 Home Page
KVideoEncoder: KVideoEncoder KDE-Apps.org
YaMeG (Yet another Mencoder Gui): SourceForge.net: YaMeG - Yet another Mencoder Gui
The advantage of using an encoder packaged by packman, is all one need do is ensure they have their repositories setup with OSS, NON-OSS, Update and Packman (and no others, NONE! ), and then one can install the application via one’s software package manager (yast, or zypper, or smart, or what ever) and the dependencies are often automatically sorted.
Good luck, and let us know what works out.
thank you very much for this very helpful post; it will be a day or so before I can get the time to work on all this, but much appreciated and I will report back