On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:
> On 05/01/2012 11:52 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> I'm looking around on the web for ways to convert wmv files to mp4. So
>> far the most common solution seems to be ffmpeg but when I try that it
>> doesn't seem to understand the video files. The most common type of
>> comment people give is that this should be straight forward if 32-bit
>> codecs are installed. I'm running 64-bit and don't see what flags I
>> might need to set to get that?
>>
>
> Can you play the WMV?
>
> The "wmv" extension usually indicates an ASF container, and the ASF
> container can have DRM. I see them every once in a while, and
> ffmpeg/mplayer have no idea what to do with them.
>
I Cannot play the files on my Gentoo box using Linux. No player that
I've tried so far - xine, mplayer, dragon player in KDE - none of them
play these files. However I can play the files within a Win7 VM on
this machine which is what I've been doing this morning so far. I sort
of doubt the DRM restriction on this stuff. The web site asks
subscribers not to farward these to their friends, etc., and says
subscribers are on the honor system. They appears to be simple
recordings of of his screen and audio coming from an inexpensive mic.
Nothing more.
I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
even know what format they'd be in.
05-01-2012, 06:24 PM
Michael Mol
convert wmv to mp4?
On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:
>> On 05/01/2012 11:52 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>> I'm looking around on the web for ways to convert wmv files to mp4. So
>>> far the most common solution seems to be ffmpeg but when I try that it
>>> doesn't seem to understand the video files. The most common type of
>>> comment people give is that this should be straight forward if 32-bit
>>> codecs are installed. I'm running 64-bit and don't see what flags I
>>> might need to set to get that?
>>>
>>
>> Can you play the WMV?
>>
>> The "wmv" extension usually indicates an ASF container, and the ASF
>> container can have DRM. I see them every once in a while, and
>> ffmpeg/mplayer have no idea what to do with them.
>>
>
> I Cannot play the files on my Gentoo box using Linux. No player that
> I've tried so far - xine, mplayer, dragon player in KDE - none of them
> play these files. However I can play the files within a Win7 VM on
> this machine which is what I've been doing this morning so far. I sort
> of doubt the DRM restriction on this stuff. The web site asks
> subscribers not to farward these to their friends, etc., and says
> subscribers are on the honor system. They appears to be simple
> recordings of of his screen and audio coming from an inexpensive mic.
> Nothing more.
>
> I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
> even know what format they'd be in.
What do you get if you try 'midentify' (from mplayer) or 'midentify2'
(from mplayer2)?
--
:wq
05-01-2012, 06:31 PM
Stroller
convert wmv to mp4?
On 1 May 2012, at 18:51, Michael Mol wrote:
>> …
>> I am certainly able to play back .wmv files here without win32codecs installed. Admittedly, I'm using xbmc to do that, and haven't recently tested using VLC or mplayer, but I would avoid installing that package unless I was sure I needed it.
>
> …
> WMV, mp4, WAV, etc. are all names given to container formats. WMV
> might contain h264 internally, or it might contain one of the
> "Microsoft Video" codecs, …
Actually, WMV appears not to be a container format - but a family of codecs.
Apparently the .wmv files we see distributed on the net are most always WMV codec video contained in a ASF container.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.wmv
I don't believe I've ever encountered a .wmv file containing h264. One probably wouldn't actually notice, in normal use, if one did receive such a file, assuming it worked when one clicked on it.
However I find it extremely unlikely to imagine anyone putting h264 in a .wmv file (or an ASF container). We all commonly put h264 in .mp4 or .mkv containers.
> Sometimes that's because of patent issues, sometimes that's because
> there aren't enough useful samples, and sometimes that's because
> nobody cares about a codec nobody's seriously used since 1997.
I'm pretty sure we're able to play back WMV7, WMV9 / AC-1 videos without these binary decoders. It's probably not very useful to talk about codecs "nobody's seriously used since 1997." I *am* pretty sure that upstream mplayer *do* generally say "don't bother with the win32codecs". The goal here to to get Mark's video playing, and he's given no indication it's some old file he found on a 1998 system.
Stroller.
05-01-2012, 06:31 PM
Michael Hampicke
convert wmv to mp4?
> I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
> even know what format they'd be in.
Can you provide us with a downloadable sample, or are these files private?
05-01-2012, 06:37 PM
Stroller
convert wmv to mp4?
On 1 May 2012, at 19:03, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> …
>> Since .mp4 video most always means h264 encoding, this means slow and dirty transcoding, which will inherently cause loss of video quality. You want to avoid transcoding if you can.
>>
> …
> Hi Stroller,
> I subscribed to a trading service that provides 6 1/2 hour videos
> of the day's market action with audio commentary for each trading day
> of the week. I like this trader who does the commentary so after the
> market closes I'd like to review what he thought about the day's
> action. These files are available only in wmv format. They play fine
> inside of a Windows VM using Windows Media Player on my Gentoo box but
> I'd prefer to be able to review them in Linux using xine or some other
> app.
Ah, so no good alternative, then, and you probably don't care so much about video quality, as long as it's watchable.
>> The "wmv" extension usually indicates an ASF container, and the ASF
>> container can have DRM. I see them every once in a while, and
>> ffmpeg/mplayer have no idea what to do with them.
>
> … I sort
> of doubt the DRM restriction on this stuff. The web site asks
> subscribers not to farward these to their friends, etc., and says
> subscribers are on the honor system. They appears to be simple
> recordings of of his screen and audio coming from an inexpensive mic.
> Nothing more.
It might well be worth trying these win32codecs, then - setting the USE flag in mplayer and re-emerging. I wouldn't hold my breath, but it's worth a go. He's probably using some MS screencast software.
Stroller.
05-01-2012, 06:43 PM
Mark Knecht
convert wmv to mp4?
On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>> Can you play the WMV?
>>
>> The "wmv" extension usually indicates an ASF container, and the ASF
>> container can have DRM. I see them every once in a while, and
>> ffmpeg/mplayer have no idea what to do with them.
>>
>
> I Cannot play the files on my Gentoo box using Linux. No player that
> I've tried so far - xine, mplayer, dragon player in KDE - none of them
> play these files. However I can play the files within a Win7 VM on
> this machine which is what I've been doing this morning so far. I sort
> of doubt the DRM restriction on this stuff. The web site asks
> subscribers not to farward these to their friends, etc., and says
> subscribers are on the honor system. They appears to be simple
> recordings of of his screen and audio coming from an inexpensive mic.
> Nothing more.
>
> I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
> even know what format they'd be in.
Expanding a bit I copied one of the files to a test directory to play
with. It seems smplayer will actually play the audio but won't display
video. midentify gives some data. When I look at the ffmpeg info it
seems to me it's also having trouble with the video portion. At least
it seems to understand the audio portion.
I'm guessing the pivot point here is the video format code:
I have about every plugin/codec installed that I could find. Is this
video publicly available? If it is, I'd be glad to download it and see
what I can come up with. If not, you could email it to me, off list of
course, and let me play with it. I might be able to get something out
of it and let you know what I have installed to make it work, IF it
works here.
Let's not forget that HUGE USE flag line I have. ^_^
Dale
:-) :-)
--
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!
Miss the compile output? Hint:
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build=n"
05-01-2012, 07:01 PM
Mark Knecht
convert wmv to mp4?
On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Michael Hampicke <gentoo-user@hadt.biz> wrote:
>> I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
>> even know what format they'd be in.
>
> Can you provide us with a downloadable sample, or are these files private?
>
Technically they're private but it's not like sharing one file from a
month ago to one person somewhere is going to cause anyone any great
pain. (IMO only...)
Before I'd waste any more time in the Gentoo community, unless someone
_really_ wants to work on this off list, I'll probably look for
possible open source or demo programs I could run in the Win7 VM. It's
not important to me where I do the conversion - just that I get them
converted.
I found a web site that does it here:
http://www.mediaconverter.org
It's been grinding away on the first file for 20 minutes and it's
about 30% of the way done. If that works it looks like it supports
batch conversion and could just let it run unattended. It's slow, but
that's not important to me really.
Thanks,
Mark
05-01-2012, 07:04 PM
Michael Mol
convert wmv to mp4?
On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 1 May 2012, at 18:51, Michael Mol wrote:
>>> …
>>> I am certainly able to play back .wmv files here without win32codecs installed. Admittedly, I'm using xbmc to do that, and haven't recently tested using VLC or mplayer, but I would avoid installing that package unless I was sure I needed it.
>>
>> …
>> WMV, mp4, WAV, etc. are all names given to container formats. WMV
>> might contain h264 internally, or it might contain one of the
>> "Microsoft Video" codecs, …
>
> Actually, WMV appears not to be a container format - but a family of codecs.
>
> Apparently the .wmv files we see distributed on the net are most always WMV codec video contained in a ASF container.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.wmv
Ah, right, my mistake.
>
> I don't believe I've ever encountered a .wmv file containing h264. One probably wouldn't actually notice, in normal use, if one did receive such a file, assuming it worked when one clicked on it.
>
> However I find it extremely unlikely to imagine anyone putting h264 in a .wmv file (or an ASF container). We all commonly put h264 in .mp4 or .mkv containers.
You've never been deep into AMVs, I take it. If a codec can be shoved
into a container, I've probably had a sample of it at one time or
another.
>
>> Sometimes that's because of patent issues, sometimes that's because
>> there aren't enough useful samples, and sometimes that's because
>> nobody cares about a codec nobody's seriously used since 1997.
>
> I'm pretty sure we're able to play back WMV7, WMV9 / AC-1 videos without these binary decoders. It's probably not very useful to talk about codecs "nobody's seriously used since 1997." I *am* pretty sure that upstream mplayer *do* generally say "don't bother with the win32codecs".
Actually, a lot of upstream hacks on stuff for reasons ranging from
completeness to plain and simple fun. Check out multimedia.cx, follow
the blogs.
> The goal here to to get Mark's video playing, and he's given no indication it's some old file he found on a 1998 system.
Sure. But when I give an explanation, I give background. Give a fire,
teach to make a fire...Gentoo tends to be far more about teaching to
make fires than simply providing them. Though sometimes it uses you
for kindling.
--
:wq
05-01-2012, 07:08 PM
Michael Mol
convert wmv to mp4?
On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>>> Can you play the WMV?
>>>
>>> The "wmv" extension usually indicates an ASF container, and the ASF
>>> container can have DRM. I see them every once in a while, and
>>> ffmpeg/mplayer have no idea what to do with them.
>>>
>>
>> I Cannot play the files on my Gentoo box using Linux. No player that
>> I've tried so far - xine, mplayer, dragon player in KDE - none of them
>> play these files. However I can play the files within a Win7 VM on
>> this machine which is what I've been doing this morning so far. I sort
>> of doubt the DRM restriction on this stuff. The web site asks
>> subscribers not to farward these to their friends, etc., and says
>> subscribers are on the honor system. They appears to be simple
>> recordings of of his screen and audio coming from an inexpensive mic.
>> Nothing more.
>>
>> I just got access to these files today so until this morning I didn't
>> even know what format they'd be in.
>
> Expanding a bit I copied one of the files to a test directory to play
> with. It seems smplayer will actually play the audio but won't display
> video. midentify gives some data. When I look at the ffmpeg info it
> seems to me it's also having trouble with the video portion. At least
> it seems to understand the audio portion.
>
> I'm guessing the pivot point here is the video format code:
>
> ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=MSS2
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
> mark@c2stable ~/WMV-Test $ midentify Test1.wmv
> ID_AUDIO_ID=1
> ID_VIDEO_ID=2
> ID_FILENAME=Test1.wmv
> ID_DEMUXER=asf
> ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=MSS2
> ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=4971000
> ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=1366
> ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=740
> ID_VIDEO_FPS=1000.000
> ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000
> ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=353
> ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=0
> ID_AUDIO_RATE=0
> ID_AUDIO_NCH=0
> ID_START_TIME=5.00
> ID_LENGTH=9130.09
> ID_SEEKABLE=1
> ID_CHAPTERS=0
> ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=20008
> ID_AUDIO_RATE=44100
> ID_AUDIO_NCH=1
> ID_AUDIO_CODEC=ffwmav2
> ID_EXIT=EOF
> mark@c2stable ~/WMV-Test $
http://wiki.debian.org/WindowsMediaVideo
Videos with the MSS2 FOURCC should be playable with the w32codecs package.
convert wmv to mp4?
