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Old Video .MOV files with JPEG or MJPEG compression: needs WMP codec


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Of course your video isn't really one : it is a picture sequence hence the codec is JPEG.

The proper way to work on it would be to convert it first uncompressed avi or using a lossless compression codec (like huffyuv or FFV1) then you should be able to play it anywhere with wmp as long as the size isn't too big (that won't work because the hard drive won't read the data fast enough) and you have the right codec (huffyuv or FFV1 if you choose one of them). The file will be biger of course (i got 32MB uncompressed and 19MB with huffyuv).

You might also try tweaking the ffmpeg parameters as you said you lost quality when converted to h264. Some command line examples are available there.

Edited by allen2
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This is not running smooth here. Spent a lot of time googling around, but no solution found yet.

I've converted the MOV file to uncompressed video into an AVI container and just plain-copied the PCM audio.

With MediaInfo I got the following info for the uncompressed video:

Video

ID : 0

Format : YUV

Codec ID : Y42B

Codec ID/Info : YUV 4:2:2 Planar

Duration : 3s 267ms

Bit rate : 18.4 Mbps

Width : 320 pixels

Height : 240 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 4:3

Frame rate : 15.000 fps

Color space : YUV

However, in WMP12 the AVI file does NOT at all play the video, only the audio is played. So again a problem with the video. The commands I used in ffmpeg were:

ffmpeg -i E:\PB250024.mov -c:v rawvideo -c:a copy E:\PB250024ffmpegvrawvideoacopy.avi

ffmpeg -i E:\PB250024.mov -c:v huffyuv -c:a copy E:\PB250024ffmpegvhuffyuvacopy.avi

So, any idea why the rawvideo decompression does not work in WMP12?

I was just wondering, are there any options to -c:v rawvideo , like -c:v rawvideo/UYVY (UYVY is from MicroSoft), or any other options that create a YUV which is really an international standard that can be interpreted/played by all Media Players?

BTW, also the huffyuv did not work for the video in WMP12, but most like the codec is missing for huffyuv, I'm not sure though.

Still working on finding out how to get high quality video (low compression) when converting to H264.

Thanks in advance,

j

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Once converted to huyuv, you'll need either the codec huffyuv to play the video in wmp12 or ffdshow filter (just like ffmpeg it can handle almost any format).

For uncompressed, i used virtualdub then loaded the huffyuv video and saved it uncompressed. Ffmpeg can do a lot of uncompressed formats that might be used if you don't need them to play in wmp but if you need them as a step before working on the video and encoding at the final format (using avisynth for example) then they are really usefull. Of course avisynth is a lot more complex and could process the video without intermediate steps with the right settings and directshow filters.

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Here is the video file:

With MP4Cam2AVI repacked the MOV to a AVI, no conversion.

Equal Video data: MJPEG data still

GraphEdit renders the avi media file.

A default Windows 7 x64 WMP12 plays the AVI file.

CLSID: {301056D0-6DFF-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37}

FriendlyName: [MJPEG Decompressor]

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\quartz.dll

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Here is the video file:

With MP4Cam2AVI repacked the MOV to a AVI, no conversion.

Equal Video data: MJPEG data still

GraphEdit renders the avi media file.

A default Windows 7 x64 WMP12 plays the AVI file.

CLSID: {301056D0-6DFF-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37}

FriendlyName: [MJPEG Decompressor]

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\quartz.dll

I've already done a conversion from MOV to AVI while preserving the video (JPEG) and audio (PCM), but the resulting AVI file does not show video in WMP12 while audio is not a problem. The main problem is that WMP12 probably cannot play JPEG movies, only MJPEG (MJPG codec) movies are OK for WMP12.

j

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Once converted to huyuv, you'll need either the codec huffyuv to play the video in wmp12 or ffdshow filter (just like ffmpeg it can handle almost any format).

For uncompressed, i used virtualdub then loaded the huffyuv video and saved it uncompressed. Ffmpeg can do a lot of uncompressed formats that might be used if you don't need them to play in wmp but if you need them as a step before working on the video and encoding at the final format (using avisynth for example) then they are really usefull. Of course avisynth is a lot more complex and could process the video without intermediate steps with the right settings and directshow filters.

With "uncompressed formats", I assume you mean some YUV or a derivative like UYVY or IYUV format? Or are there any other/more 'uncompressed' formats out there?

I was under the impression that after decompression, one was left with some kind of a 2-D Bit Map for each video frame, where every pixel is represented by a 24 or 32 bit word covering luminance (luma) and color, I think it is called RAW. But that doesn't seem to be the case, does it?

j

Edited by DiracDeBroglie
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As for my JPEG/MOV videofiles, I will now focus on the conversion to H264/MP4. I have great difficulties in finding out in ffmpeg how to H264 compress a video using LOW compression (so high quality video with lots of detail; the drawback would be large video files but that I can live with).

If anyone knows the switches or options to be added to .... -c:v libx264 ... in the ffmpeg command, then please drop it here.

j

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Oh yes, I almost forgot. Isn't there any way to stitch a series of JPEG frames together into a MJPEG (MJPG) video string, without having to decompress and re-compress the video?

j

I looked for that solution and didn't found away that wouldn't loose quality in the process.

With "uncompressed formats", I assume you mean some YUV or a derivative like UYVY or IYUV format? Or are there any other/more 'uncompressed' formats out there?

I was under the impression that after decompression, one was left with some kind of a 2-D Bit Map for each video frame, where every pixel is represented by a 24 or 32 bit word covering luminance (luma) and color, I think it is called RAW. But that doesn't seem to be the case, does it?

j

I meant uncompressed native windows format so it is RGB (some kind of BMP) and so it is not an yuv or any of there derivative (i tried all available uncompressed format in ffmpeg but all require a codec).

As for my JPEG/MOV videofiles, I will now focus on the conversion to H264/MP4. I have great difficulties in finding out in ffmpeg how to H264 compress a video using LOW compression (so high quality video with lots of detail; the drawback would be large video files but that I can live with).

If anyone knows the switches or options to be added to .... -c:v libx264 ... in the ffmpeg command, then please drop it here.

j

"Loseless h264" might be the solution you need but will increase the size of output video but isn't most likely really loseless. If you take the an uncompressed video and encode it loseless h264 then convert it again to uncompressed format the video won't have the same size and if extract a frame as bmp from both a binary comparison will show a lot of differences.

But as you wanted to use a future proof codec, using x264 codec with its best quality will be the best option.

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I'm getting there bit by bit.

Still a few questions. About the fileformat (filename extension), I assume MP4 is the (or one of the) most 'future proof' video file format(s); correct me if you think I'm wrong.

While converting to MP4, I noticed that FFmpeg did not plain-copy the original PCM(u8) audio to the output file; in fact FFmpeg just quited the conversion, leaving a MP4 file with not even any video in the MP4 file. So I left the decision about the audio conversion to FFmpeg, which it made AAC, profile LC.

For mono audio (and also stereo audio), what is in your opinion the most 'future proof' AND compatible (among Players) audio format (codec) under the MP4 file format (or any other more future proof video file format)? Is that really MP3 (as mentioned in post 5), or is there another more future proof and compatible audio format? What about settings and options when converting audio? Are there any audio compatibility issues among Players (like with QuickTime when the video format profile is higher than 'main' in H264, see the "lossless H264" link in previous post)?

Thanks in advance,

j

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Mp4 or Mkv are most likely the best future proof containers : while mp4 is more widely used on most portable device, i would prefer mkv as it offer more features and is more open.

As for audio,i'd stay with mp3 for future proof compatibility but flac is the most widely used loseless audio codec.

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I'm running FFmpeg on Windows 7, and tried to use libfdk_aac for high quality audio encoding, but it turned out libfdk_aac is not enabled.

So how can one enable libfdk_aac under windows? I've found some instructions for doing that under Linux/Unix (--enable-libfdk_aac), but I could not find anything for Windows.

Thanks in advance,

j

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In FFmpeg I would like to know what all the available profiles are for h264, using the FFmpeg help in the command line. I tried

ffmpeg -h -codecs

which just list me a collection of codec, but the cmd

ffmpeg -h -codecs -h264 -profiles, or any similar syntax without the dashes '-' or with -fullhelp, does not give me a list of available profiles for that video encoder.

Any suggestions how to get deeper in the ffmpeg help funtion?

Thanks,

j

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