{"id":1603,"date":"2015-08-03T15:28:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T14:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevepedwards.today\/DebianAdmin\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2015-08-03T15:28:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T14:28:31","slug":"a-quick-video-format-conversion-command-line-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevepedwards.today\/DebianAdmin\/a-quick-video-format-conversion-command-line-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"AVCONV Video Format Conversion Command Line Structure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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avconv \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0-i \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\/xxx.mov \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0-c:v \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0copy \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0-c:a \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0copy \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\/xxx.avi<\/span><\/p>\n

I am just scratching the surface of this in Mint, but want to document a working procedure for a handful of video file formats that worked for me to convert a .mov (Apple iPlayer\/Quick Time et al) to some different others, that played in both Mint and Windows.<\/p>\n

I ran through this list of common types to see what worked - only 4 of the 15 converted and ran, with the Real Media format looking ok, but I don't have the codecs on Mint or Windows to check it, but its file size indicates its ok - any failures produce red text, and a very small file - 0-28kB in size:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Video Files<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.3g2<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n3GPP2 Multimedia File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.3gp<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\n3GPP Multimedia File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.asf<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nAdvanced Systems Format File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.asx<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nMicrosoft ASF Redirector File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.avi<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nAudio Video Interleave File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.flv<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nFlash Video File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.m4v<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\niTunes Video File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.mov<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nApple QuickTime Movie<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.mp4<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nMPEG-4 Video File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.mpg<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nMPEG Video File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.rm<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nReal Media File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.srt<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nSubRip Subtitle File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.swf<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nShockwave Flash Movie<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.vob<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nDVD Video Object File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.wmv<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/td>\nWindows Media Video File<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

I had an old college Production course media file I did in Apple Logic that was produced in a .mov format that I tested with this line:<\/p>\n

avconv -i \/home\/stevee\/Downloads\/Pandorum_Trailer_StevesVersion.mov -c:v copy -c:a copy \/home\/stevee\/Downloads\/Pandorum_Trailer_StevesVersion.asf
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This produced 6 files of similar size to the original, 5 test as working with correctly sync'd sound and video in Mint's Video app, and Windows Media Player:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The original video I did - if you're interested - was an old college project to produce a trailer from a film, with a different sound track, of which I chose the Pandorum film (quite good film actually - if into Sci Fi like me): you can view it here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/2slTfr1QST4<\/a><\/p>\n

As you see above, some of the file sizes are greater than the original, and no doubt there are many options for compression in avconv - which I believe replaces ffmpeg now? - if you look in the man page:<\/p>\n

DESCRIPTION
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

avconv is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio\/video
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

high quality polyphase filter...
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It is incredibly fast - that 32MB .mov file takes less than 2 seconds to convert to the other types!<\/p>\n

Later, researching Pi Cam surveillance stuff, I tried another conversion to .H264, which is a binary format, so has to be wrapped in a Divx codec to be viewable as I understood it (but since found out it is raw viewable by VLC\/others), and on the Divx site, it states the compression of H264 is about half of mpg for the same quality, and my\u00a0converted file shows a size of only 10MB from the 32MB original movie, so probably worked.<\/p>\n

\"h264.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I'm getting Divx 10 now to try viewing it in Win8, whilst installing;<\/p>\n

apt-get install mplayer divxenc<\/span><\/p>\n

to see if it becomes viewable in Mint also.<\/p>\n

The divx.com site DL of Divx10 gives a worrying Immunet quarantine on install of this App though, and it's not worth it anyway, as it does not convert or view h264 files directly, and is a 15 day trail only - pile of corporate shite...can't even keep their own files clean...:<\/p>\n

\"DivxThreat.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Unfortunately mplayer can't view raw h264 either, so I need an App to codec wrap it in.<\/p>\n

I already tried copying h264 files to the Pi, to try to use its own binary that it shows its \"hello..\" range of vids with - but of course, they're compiled for an ARM7 platform, not an Intel\/AMD OS so I assume, won't work after copying across.<\/p>\n

The original video conversion would have to be done on the Pi first I guess, but avconv is not available to get in Debian Apt, only ffmpeg, which uses the same command mostly it seems, so worth a try, but you need to read the man page as the options are more involved - but didn't work for me anyway.<\/p>\n

-target type<\/span>
\n Specify target file type (\"vcd\", \"svcd\", \"dvd\", \"dv\", \"dv50\", \"pal-<\/span>
\n vcd\", \"ntsc-svcd\", ... ). All the format options (bitrate, codecs,<\/span>
\n buffer sizes) are then set automatically. You can just type:<\/span><\/p>\n

ffmpeg -i myfile.avi -target vcd \/tmp\/vcd.mpg<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless you can specify additional options as long as you know<\/span>
\n they do not conflict with the standard, as in:<\/span><\/p>\n

ffmpeg -i myfile.avi -target vcd -bf 2 \/tmp\/vcd.mpg<\/span><\/p>\n

That's not working for me, but at least the h.264 test video I made and ran for the Pi camera test is working using the Pi binary:<\/span><\/p>\n

raspivid -o \/Share\/PiTestVid.h264<\/span><\/p>\n

root@pi:\/opt\/vc\/src\/hello_pi\/hello_video# .\/hello_video.bin PiTestVid.h264\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The quality of the Pi cam is excellent - HD.<\/p>\n