linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] how to learn to convert a video HELP from Scott inside Videofiles

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] how to learn to convert a video HELP from Scott inside Videofiles

On Sat, Jan 09, 2016 at 12:56:50PM +0100, 'highskywhy@yahoo.de' highskywhy@yahoo.de [LINUX_Newbies] wrote:
> hello group hello scott
> THANK You for help.
> >

>
> We play theatre.
> So my file made here in Germany should run by www to our friends in
> America and Asia and Africa.
> So they not can use Linux or Win10
> some use win 98 or older.
> So the thing is
> files should not be good by quality
> because the file is a log not a vidoe.
> Like a storyboard.

Ok, that can make things easier.

> >
> > However, I tried encoding it with libx264.
> >
> > You can download it at http://srobb.net/sophie.wmv.
> I ll send that to Lima
> and then I ll ask Sarah,
> she can read the video
> and then I ll tell You.
>
> Can You see
> our origin is much bigger than the aim.
> quality is worse but good enough for us.

It was hard to tell quality, as it was a three second file of a background.
:) Your origin file is 2.2M. Your aim file is 56K. The file I created
was 876K, bigger.

>
> We dont need wmv but
> a codec for also old computers.
>
>
> >
> > If that works for you, then you can encode any of these with
> >
> > ffmpeg -i myfile.mpg -c:v libx264 a:wmav2 myfile.wmv
> THANK YOU!!!!
>
> I am sure
> reading the manual of ffmpeg I ll can find the meaning of the -i or c:v.
>
The ffmpeg man pages aren't that good, often leaving things out or giving
explanations that aren't that clear. ffmpeg -i (the -i is for input file,
meaning the file you are re-encoding. I also made a typo in the command
above. The -c:v means video codec, you can also use -vcodec and the a that
I have afterwards is my typing mistake. It should either be -c:a wmav2 or
-acodec wmav2, either one should work.

So, where I wrote:

> > ffmpeg -i myfile.mpg -c:v libx264 a:wmav2 myfile.wmv

It should be
ffmpeg -i myfile.mpg -c:v libx264 -c:a wmav2 myfile.wmv

Or to make it easier to understand

ffmpeg -i myfile.mpg -vcodec libx264 -acodec wmav2 myfile.wmv
>

> Please dont hurry.

No problem, it's pretty easy, as I used to work with it a lot.

To get bit rate and such, you can run the command

ffmprobe -hide_banner myfile.wmv, which gives a lot of information

ffprobe -hide_banner sophie.wmv
Input #0, asf, from 'sophie.wmv':
Metadata:
encoder : Lavf57.20.100
Duration: 00:00:03.92, start: 0.037000, bitrate: 1823 kb/s
Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p, 720x576
[SAR 16:15 DAR 4:3], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0:1: Audio: wmav2 (a[1][0][0] / 0x0161), 48000 Hz, 2 channels,
fltp, 128 kb/s

> >
> > D.V.L. wmv3 Windows Media Video 9
> >
> > D meaning that it can decode, but as there is no E, it means it can't
> > encode it.
> >
> > That is a deprecated video format, and I think there may have been an
> > ffmpeg patch for it years ago, but I can't find it.
> >
> > --
> YES
> thats it.
> Our wmv is deprecated.

Even so, it seems that at least some versions of ffmpeg can encode it
something else.

--
Scott Robbins
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