Showing posts with label vlc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vlc. Show all posts

Sunday, November 23, 2008

minor problems from new Fedora 9

I'm glad I took the time to rerun my main encoding script, as it showed a number of errors due to changes between Fedora 7 and Fedora 9. The first four I've encountered are specific to VLC; the last couple are problems with the latest FFMPEG install.

VLC Problems
1) permissions issue
This is not necessarily a problem with a change in Fedora, just a problem with how I've reorganized some of my videos to be owned by a different user. When I ran VLC to convert one of the files, I got this error:
[00000436] access_output_file access out error: cannot open `20081123.m2t' (Permission denied)
[00000434] stream_out_standard stream out error: no suitable sout access module for `file/ts://20081123.m2t'


At least the text of the error was not ambiguous..Permission Denied! :) Once I identified the permissions problem and granted appropriate privileges to the file, this message went away. A good option when running VLC is to run it with the -vvv verbose switch in order to get full debug stream on what is going on.

2) command line VLC doesn't accept quit anymore
VLC used to quit properly when my old script used to look like this:
vlc input.ps --sout '#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="output.m2t"}}' vlc:quit

VLC's authors must now be enforcing command line syntax, as there now needs to be two slashes after the colon in the quit directive. So the following works again:
vlc input.ps --sout '#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="output.m2t"}}' vlc://quit

Update 12/13/2008
3) Can't run VLC as root anymore
When I tried to run VLC from a script as root, I got this error:
VLC is not supposed to be run as root. Sorry.
If you need to use real-time priorities and/or privileged TCP ports
you can use vlc-wrapper (make sure it is Set-UID root first and
cannot be run by non-trusted users first).


For security reasons, it is probably better that VLC enforces this. I addressed the issue in two ways:
1) login as a non-privileged user to run VLC
2) if I need to run VLC as root, I will use the "su" command to run the command using a different user's privileges. Using my non-privileged "mule" user, the syntax of the command is something like the below. I am using command line VLC, which is started by "cvlc":
su mule -c "cvlc input.ps --sout '#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst=output.mp4}}' vlc://quit"

In either case, I made sure that all my files are owned by or at least accessible by the user that runs VLC.
end update

4) Some obscure dbus error
[00000415] inhibit interface error: Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

Looking up this error in Google points to a number of threads regarding the reinstall of dbus message bus. However, this error doesn't inhibit my ability to convert video, so I'm not going to do anything about this error right now.

5) a bunch of other GUI related errors
[00000415] main interface error: no suitable interface module [00000001] main libvlc error: interface "inhibit,none" initialization failed
[00000001] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
No protocol specified
[00000421] qt4 interface error: Could not connect to X server
No protocol specified
[00000421] skins2 interface error: Cannot open display
[00000421] skins2 interface error: cannot initialize OSFactory


Even with these errors, VLC does start, though in remote control mode only. You can quit out of this mode by typing "quit" after the line that reads:
Remote control interface initialized. Type `help' for help.

Since I am running VLC as part of a command script, I changed the script to use the command-line version of VLC, CVLC as below:
cvlc input.ps --sout '#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="output.m2t"}}' vlc://quit

Note that the quit directive is still "vlc://quit". Eventually, I do want to run VLC's GUI mode, so I will have to return to fixing this error.

FFMPEG Problems: library naming
Running this FFMPEG command on my shiny new Fedora 9 system:
ffmpeg -i input.mpg -threads 8 -f mov -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 3 -s 320x180 -r 29.97 -aspect 16:9 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ar 48000 -ab 448k output.mov

Gave me this error:
Unknown encoder 'aac'

Researching on Google led me to this thread, which stated that the proper syntax is to now using the name of the library, libfaac:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=46958.

The version of FFMPEG that I had been using with Fedora 7 was SVN version 9975. With Fedora 9, that is revised to SVN version 12135. During the interim between the two versions, command syntax now requires full library names.

So using the proper library name 'libfaac' fixed the issue and allowed ffmpeg to continue:
ffmpeg -i input.mpg -threads 8 -f mov -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 3 -s 320x180 -r 29.97 -aspect 16:9 -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -ar 48000 -ab 448k output.mov

The same error occurred with my command to encode a file to h264 format:
ffmpeg -y -i input.mpg -v 1 -threads 8 -vcodec h264 -b 250k -bt 175k -refs 1 -loop 1 -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -parti4x4 1 -partp8x8 1 -me full -subq 6 -me_range 21 -chroma 1 -slice 2 -bf 0 -level 30 -g 300 -keyint_min 30 -sc_threshold 40 -rc_eq 'blurCplx^(1-qComp)' -qcomp 0.7 -qmax 51 -qdiff 4 -i_qfactor 0.71428572 -maxrate 450k -bufsize 2M -cmp 1 -s 720x480 -acodec libfaac -ab 160k -ar 48000 -ac 2 -f mp4 -pass 2 -threads 8 output.mp4

I received this error:
Unknown encoder 'h264'

The solution was to simply replace 'h264' with 'libx264' in the command line:

Silliness!
the mule

Saturday, February 10, 2007

scripted rendering!

I am very happy to say that I've been able to script a couple pieces of the rendering process. Once I've edited my HDV masterpiece, I export out an .m2v file and an mp3, layer 2 file, according to my previous post:
http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2006/11/cam-compatible-hdv-edit-chain-part-ii.html

I then use the following script to:
1) combine the .m2v and .m2a as a program stream (using mplex)
2) convert the program stream to a transport stream, MPEG-TS file (using VLC)
3) convert the MPEG-TS to a DVD compatible mpg (using ffmpeg)
4) lastly, convert the DVD to an iTunes compatible format (again, using ffmpeg)

Obviously, their is inherent quality loss in each step. I tried to eliminate one conversion step by rendering to the iTunes format direct from the HDV source, but for some reason, ffmpeg gave me errors. So, I saved time and just converted from the DVD source. I will revisit this problem in a later post.

I can say that scripting VLC kicks ass! No more GUI!! Yay!

Here is the script. Don't forget to "chmod a+x " in order to run it.

Note that when run, the script will ask for a filename. That filename must be common to the .m2v and .m2a files. For example, start with two files called test.m2v and test.m2a. The script will prompt you for the filename, at which point you will enter "test" and hit enter. After that, the script will chug away and render each of the files to the filename test., where format will vary by the destination type (.ps/.m2t/.mpg/.mov).

Good luck!

#!/bin/bash -v
#
# This script converts HDV content
echo "Type in the name of the m2a/m2v files for mplex'ing"
read NAME
echo "Mplex'ing $NAME"
mplex -f 3 -b 2000 ${NAME}.m2a ${NAME}.m2v -o ${NAME}.ps

echo "VLC'ing $NAME"
vlc $NAME.ps --sout '#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="'$NAME'.m2t"}}' vlc:quit

echo "FFMPEG convert to DVD"
ffmpeg -i ${NAME}.m2t -target dvd ${NAME}.mpg

echo "FFMPEG convert to MOV"
ffmpeg -i ${NAME}.m2t -f mov -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 7 -s 320x180 -r 29.97 -aspect 16:9 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 128 ${NAME}.mov
echo "Done"

Friday, November 10, 2006

cam compatible HDV edit chain, part II (short)

I posted a more detailed version of this two posts ago (http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html), but I thought I'd reiterate it in a shorter format:
1) from Cinelerra, export video using YUV4MPEG using mpeg2enc (.m2v) compression scheme with special params:
mpeg2enc --verbose 0 --aspect 3 --format 3 --frame-rate 4 --video-bitrate 18300 --nonvideo-bitrate 384 --interlace-mode 0 --force-b-b-p --video-buffer 448 --video-norm n --keep-hf --no-constraints --sequence-header-every-gop --min-gop-size 6 --max-gop-size 6 -o %
2) from Cinelerra, export audio using mpeg audio, layer II (384Kbps)
3) multiplex audio and video streams to MPEGPS (Program Stream) format using mplex:
mplex -f 3 -b 2000 video.m2v audio.m2a -o output.ps
4) convert .ps to .ts, MPEGTS (Transport Stream) format using VLC
5) export to cam, consider using 10sec blank leader

Update 5/17/2009
Note that if you bring the video into Cinelerra and the thumbnail is green, this means that the first frame of the video is not a keyframe. This is a problem with VLC. You can avoid this problem by using this ffmpeg command in place of Step 4 above:
ffmpeg -y -i OUTPUT.ps -acodec copy -f mpegts -qscale 1 OUTPUT.m2t
*** end update ***

Update 3/14/2008
Once the video is converted, you may then output to the camera using test-mpeg2 from libiec61883:
/2006/10/success-and-failure-in-land-of-dvhdv.html

Also, take note of a possible 2GB limit in libiec61883 uploading your content to the cam:
/2006/10/libiec61883-now-exports-files-greater.html
*** end update ***

Update 11/17/06
Last night, I found that doing performing other operations on your system like surfing the web or playing audio while running mplex or VLC convert may cause problems with the video as it uploads to the camera. So don't do anything while you convert your videos.

In my case, I was 28 minutes into an hour long video uploading to the cam when the import stopped. I no longer had uploading video displayed on the LCD screen of the cam. I only saw blue, the upload seemed to continue, but I got no final output. The solution was to remux the original streams using mplex and rebuild the MPEGTS using VLC. The important point being that one of these two processes is very sensitive to fluctuations in CPU or hard drive performance. So leave your PC alone while these processes are active.
*** end update ***

That's all she wrote for today. Enjoy!
the mule

Sunday, October 29, 2006

rendering cam-compatible HDV MPEGTS files

I have been successful in exporting HDV back out to my cam. I haven't posted detailed output from the individual steps before, so here it is:

General Steps
1) export video from Cinelerra as mpeg2 using mpeg2enc
2) export audio from Cinelerra as mp3
3) mux in mplex
4) open MPEGPS in VLC and convert to TS.

Detail
1) export video from Cinelerra as mpeg2 using mpeg2enc:
mpeg2enc --verbose 0 --aspect 3 --format 3 --frame-rate 4 --video-bitrate 18300 --nonvideo-bitrate 384 --interlace-mode 0 --force-b-b-p --video-buffer 448 --video-norm n --keep-hf --no-constraints --sequence-header-every-gop --min-gop-size 6 --max-gop-size 6 -o /mnt/videos/20050721/20050721.m2v

2) export audio from Cinelerra as mp3:
--------------------------------------------
Input File : 'stdin' 48.0 kHz
Output File: '/mnt/videos/20050721/test.mp3'
384 kbps MPEG-1 Layer II j-stereo Psy model 1
[De-emph:Off Copyright:No Original:No CRC:Off]
[Padding:Normal Byte-swap:Off Chanswap:Off DAB:Off]
ATH adjustment 0.000000
--------------------------------------------
encode_init: using tablenum 0 with sblimit 27
Hit end of audio data
Avg slots/frame = 1152.000; b/smp = 8.00; bitrate = 384.000 kbps


3) mux in mplex
[root@computer 20050721]# mplex -f 3 -b 2000 -o test.ps test.mp3 20050721.m2v
INFO: [mplex] mplex version 1.8.0 (2.2.4 $Date: 2005/08/28 17:50:54 $)
INFO: [mplex] File test.mp3 looks like an MPEG Audio stream.
INFO: [mplex] File 20050721.m2v looks like an MPEG Video stream.
INFO: [mplex] Found 1 audio streams and 1 video streams
INFO: [mplex] Selecting generic MPEG2 output profile
INFO: [mplex] Multiplexing video program stream!
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Audio stream c0 (test.mp3)
INFO: [mplex] MPEG AUDIO STREAM: c0
INFO: [mplex] Audio version : 1.0
INFO: [mplex] Layer : 2
INFO: [mplex] CRC checksums : no
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 49152 bytes/sec (384 kbit/sec)
INFO: [mplex] Frequency : 48000 Hz
INFO: [mplex] Mode : 0 stereo
INFO: [mplex] Mode extension : 0
INFO: [mplex] Copyright bit : 0 no copyright
INFO: [mplex] Original/Copy : 0 copy
INFO: [mplex] Emphasis : 0 none
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Video stream e0 (20050721.m2v)
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO STREAM: e0
INFO: [mplex] Frame width : 1280
INFO: [mplex] Frame height : 720
INFO: [mplex] Aspect ratio : 16:9 display
INFO: [mplex] Picture rate : 29.970 frames/sec
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 18300000 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Vbv buffer size : 229376 bytes
INFO: [mplex] CSPF : 0
INFO: [mplex] SYSTEMS/PROGRAM stream:
INFO: [mplex] rough-guess multiplexed stream data rate : 19077648
INFO: [mplex] Setting best-guess data rate.
INFO: [mplex] Run-in Sectors = 752 Video delay = 58123 Audio delay = 61126
INFO: [mplex] New sequence commences...
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 0 frame=000000 sector=00000000
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 0 frame=000000 sector=00000000
INFO: [mplex] Scanned to end AU 39469
INFO: [mplex] STREAM e0 completed @ frame 39469.
INFO: [mplex] STREAM c0 completed @ frame 54874.
INFO: [mplex] Multiplex completion at SCR=118584775.
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 2304 frame=054874 sector=00031342
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 0 frame=054843 sector=00509538
INFO: [mplex] AUDIO_STATISTICS: c0
INFO: [mplex] Audio stream length 63216000 bytes.
INFO: [mplex] Syncwords : 54875
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 54875 padded
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 0 unpadded
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 18 Buf max 1169
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO_STATISTICS: e0
INFO: [mplex] Video Stream length: 1031417371 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Sequence headers: 6579
INFO: [mplex] Sequence ends : 1
INFO: [mplex] No. Pictures : 39470
INFO: [mplex] No. Groups : 6579
INFO: [mplex] No. I Frames : 6579 avg. size 58215 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. P Frames : 32891 avg. size 19714 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. B Frames : 0 avg. size 0 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Average bit-rate : 6264800 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Peak bit-rate : 9203600 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 943996 Buf max 1944874
INFO: [mplex] MUX STATUS: no under-runs detected.
[root@computer 20050721]#



4) open MPEGPS in VLC and convert to MPEGTS.

Update 3/14/2008
Once the video is converted, you may then output to the camera using test-mpeg2 from libiec61883:

/2006/10/success-and-failure-in-land-of-dvhdv.html

Also, take note of a possible 2GB limit in libiec61883 uploading your content to the cam:
/2006/10/libiec61883-now-exports-files-greater.html

Thursday, October 19, 2006

HDV MPEG2 transport stream file sizes/render rates

The data rate of the 720P MPEG2-TS files output from my cam is about 108.95MB/min or 1.82MB/s. Here is a table of video length-to-size conversions.

duration size

12m 1.32GB
15m 1.65GB
18m35s 2.07GB
19m12s 2.12GB
20m01s 2.18GB
34m 3.70GB
Exporting 720P HDV from Cinelerra takes two processes:
1) render the video
2) render the audio

Here are some rendering times using mpeg2enc and mpeg layer 2 audio compression:

duration mpeg2enc render rate
63m 310m 4.92min per min of video

duration mp2 render rate
63m 6m 0.09min per min of audio

Mplex takes about 7 minutes to mux about an hour of audio and video.

Monday, October 16, 2006

hard work is paying off / HDV workflow

OK! I've got the latest video up on iTunes and now I just need to edit the XML for it. Editing the damn XML always takes too long. And of course, I want to get the track list right with the correct track times and witty comments. Ufff. OK! So the track list is done and now to send the boys the email for the latest video! Hurrah!

More for my benefit than anyone elses, here is my HDV workflow using Cinelerra:
1) import video
2) edit video
3) for multiple segments, make sure you set "align to frames" and audio and video segments end at the exact same time.
4) for HD output, render using mpeg2enc settings
5) for DVD output, render using ffmpeg -target DVD from Cinelerra, something like this:
ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -y -i /mnt/videos/20050721/20050721.wav -target dvd %
6) for iPod output, render using ffmpeg -target DVD, then output to mpeg4 video/aac audio mov container:
ffmpeg -i inputdvd.mpg -f mov -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 7 -s 320x180 -r 29.97 -aspect 16:9 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 128 output.mov
7) import .mov to XP iTunes
8) upload .mov to website
9) edit RSS XML
10) final test in iTunes

Thursday, October 12, 2006

VLC install

If cinelerra source dependencies are already installed, VLC requires the following files to be compiled:
- ffmpeg-devel
- fribidi
- libdvbpsi
- libiec61883/libraw1394
- libmad
- libtheora
- mpeg2dec
- twolame
- wxGTK (special build: buildgtk)
- gettext-devel

And then of course, VLC itself (special build: ./bootstrap)

Download the 77MB source files from http://www.videolan.org

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

exporting HD content to the cam: IT IS ALIIIIVE!! ALIVE!!

After a month of testing and experimentation with many inter-OS softwares, exporting HD content to my camera is working! YAHOO!! The greatest part is..I am Microsoft FREE!

Most of my work was based off of this original thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-19007.html

But a number of steps (ffmpeg/DVHSCap) did not work for me.

Here are the steps I used to get HD content from Cinelerra back to my cam in full resolution, HD 720P format:

1) install the latest 2.6.18 kernel according to specs on http://www.linux1394.org
2) you'll need the latest libiec61883 and libraw1394 libraries from the same place . I needed to manually tweak the ./configure procedure for libiec61883 with the following environment variable:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkconfig
Another caveat to this step is that I needed to remove libraw1394 first, which was a nightmare because of all its dependencies. I created a yum install script to reinstall everything after this was complete.
3) you'll need to make a change to tsbuffer.c and recompile libiec61883 (don't have it now..email me if you need it).
4) you'll need to recompile mpeg2enc to allow for bitrates larger than 14000. This is referenced in the thread from way back when:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-19007.html
--------------------
A kludgy hack allowed me to get bit rates higher than 15Mbs in mpeg2enc

I removed the following lines from conform.cc
if (bit_rate> 1.0e6 * maxval->bit_rate)
mjpeg_error_exit1("Bit rate is greater than permitted in specified Level");
---------------------
5) here are the mpeg2enc switches that were successful for me:
mpeg2enc --verbose 0 --aspect 3 --format 3 --frame-rate 4 --video-bitrate 18300 --nonvideo-bitrate 384 --interlace-mode 0 --force-b-b-p --video-buffer 448 --video-norm n --keep-hf --no-constraints --sequence-header-every-gop --min-gop-size 6 --max-gop-size 6 -o mpeg2.mpv
6) mplex params:
mplex -f 3 -b 2000 -o programstream.ps audio.mp2 mpeg2.mpv
7) Use VLC to convert the file to a transport stream. By the way, the VLC is a hellish snake pit of install dependencies. Go to http://www.videolan.org to download the latest source.

Here are the instructions for VLC from Paul St. Denis' original steps (http://www.celt.sunysb.edu/paul/mpeg2enc_HDTV.zip):
------------------
Start VLC, from the "file" menu select "open file", click on the "Browse..." button and find "programstream.ps", check on the "advanced output" check box and then click on the "Settings.." button. Make sure the "file" radio button is picked click on the "Browse..." button save the file on your desktop as "transport.ts".

Make sure that the "Encapsulation Method" is MPEG TS, leave everything else blank. Click OK, which brings you back to the other screen click OK again.
------------------

Yes, it's a lot of work. But to be Microsoft free is a great feeling.

Update: as of this writing (10/17), I'm only able to upload less than 2GB of video. For my 720P video cam, this is about 19.7 minutes of video. I am working with the linux1394 community to resolve this.