Help talk:Converting video: Difference between revisions

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Content deleted Content added
ArchiverBot (talk | contribs)
m Bot: Archiving 1 thread (older than 15 days) to Help talk:Converting video/archives 2
 
(143 intermediate revisions by 62 users not shown)
Line 2: Line 2:
<big>'''<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Help talk:Converting video|action=edit&section=new}} Start a new discussion]</span>'''</big>
<big>'''<span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:Help talk:Converting video|action=edit&section=new}} Start a new discussion]</span>'''</big>
</div>
</div>
{{User:MiszaBot/config
|archive = Help talk:Converting video/archives %(counter)d
|algo = old(15d)
|counter = 2
|maxarchivesize = 100K
|minthreadsleft = 4
|minthreadstoarchive = 1
|archiveheader = {{talk archive navigation}}
}}


== APIError: titleblacklist-custom-space ==
== regarding # 1.1 ffmpeg2theora ==


I've just tried to upload a video from YouTube and it throws up an error message including what I've pasted into the header. The full error message is:
*It didn't work for me while using version 0.16 on Windows XP:
"ffmpeg2theora file.avi".
*I needed to type "ffmpeg2theora-0.16.exe file.avi".
(unsigned, by Logictheo)


:An exception occurred: TaskError: b"b'pywikibot.Error: APIError: titleblacklist-custom-space: \\xe2\\xa7\\xbctitleblacklist-custom-space\\xe2\\xa7\\xbd\\n[filekey: 19s4rm3m2fgg.7r0gca.860615.webm;\\n sessionkey: 19s4rm3m2fgg.7r0gca.860615.webm;\\n invalidparameter: filename;\\n help: See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at &lt;https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-api-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/&gt; for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes.]'"
== RAD ==


Could somebody please have a look and advise what's going on? '''[[User:Schwede66|<span style="color:#000000;">Schwede</span>]][[User talk:Schwede66|<span style="color:#FF4500;">66</span>]]''' 04:24, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Does it stand for "Rapid application development"? [[User:Logictheo|Logictheo]] 11:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
:You might be more likey to find an answer to this at the [http://www.radgametools.com/ RAD Game Tools' website]. [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 08:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


== It should be just as easy to upload a video to Commons as it is to YouTube ==
== ffmpeg2theora and MPlayer OS X do not work ==
On 1.1 is mentioned "ffmpeg2theora is probably the most popular converter ...", but I did not have much success with it with my Macintosh computer OS 10.4.10.


You know if Commons installed some of these apps itself, then it could do the conversion "under the hood", and then users could upload videos just as easily as they can currently upload them to YouTube. [[User:Jidanni|Jidanni]] ([[User talk:Jidanni|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 13:43, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
I downloaded the binary of ffmpeg2theora-0,19 for macos x(universal) from the page http://www.v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/download.html
I installed it on my computer, but I could not find anywhere on the disk the installed file. Contact with the writer of the software did not solve this problem but he had an other piece of software where he was working on. Available from http://v2v.cc/~j/Simple%20Theora%20Encoder.dmg
That program did not work with a Quicktime .mov file. For that reason I had to convert the QuickTime file first with QuickTime Pro to a MPEG-4 file and then the Simple Theora Encoder.


:&#128077; [[User:Nick Moyes|Nick Moyes]] ([[User talk:Nick Moyes|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 13:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
The next step was that I wanted to see the .ogg file on my computer.


== Linux using VAAPI on Intel devices: Two passes not necessary anymore? ==
On page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Media_help/Macintosh is mentioned that to play sound files in Ogg Vorbis and video files in Ogg Theora on a Mac computer, you only need to download and install ... MPlayer OS X. I did (version 2.0b9r5). As my own generated .ogg file did not play, I downloaded the file Apollo_15_splashdown.ogg? as mentioned on page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Apollo_15_splashdown.ogg 
In MPlayer I get only the sound and not the video.


The ''Linux and OS X command line'' section gives an example using two ffmpeg passes, which supposedly is recommended for better quality. The ''Linux using VAAPI on Intel devices'' gives an example using hardware acceleration via vaapi, but it's only a single ffmpeg command. I'm comfortable with CLI but have no experience with ffmpeg and encoding/decoding, so I'm not sure, is this single command already doing two passes? Or is it using a completely different algorithm where two passes are not necessary? Is the result the same or better/worse than the above two-pass method without vaapi? I think it would be nice to add a sentence, e.g. that the vaapi encoders make 2 passes not necessary, achieving similar results, or something like that. [[User:Elimik31|Elimik31]] ([[User talk:Elimik31|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) [[User:Elimik31|Elimik31]] ([[User talk:Elimik31|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 21:48, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
In the list of bugs I found that a complaint submitted on 2006-02-18 says This file from Wikipedia plays far too fast:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Universal_declaration_of_human_rights_VN.ogg


:If you try and compare them you should see the difference: the vaapi command is expected to provide larger files for a similar quality video but should do it in much less time and more energy efficiently. Those commands are using different hardware in your computer. The CPU can be instructed to analyse the video file as a whole. Hence, the first pass is used for analysis. The GPU uses one of its hardcoded algorithms and basically treats the video as a stream, so there are less options to configure and it provides less optimized files. Therefore, the two-pass command should be preferred whenever possible. But in some cases you will find that with larger video files it takes too long or fails at all on your specific hardware due to slower CPU or little RAM. Then you can try to take advantage of vaapi. [[User:Роман Рябенко|Роман Рябенко]] ([[User talk:Роман Рябенко|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 07:18, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I tried that file and indeed it still plays too fast one and a half year after the complaint was summitted.


== ffmpeg guidance ==
Further I read from users-forum that the program can affect other programs as far as the sound is concerned.


I think we should probably start recommending AV1 over VP9 at this point, especially because the optimal AV1 command is much much simpler; we can do away with the two-pass and script nonsense. Here's the new guidance I'm thinking:
My conclusion: For Macintosh there is only beta-type software that does not work properly.


<code>ffmpeg -hwaccel auto -i input -c:a libopus -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 35 -preset 10 output.webm</code>
My question: Is there other (commercial or shareware) software that works to convert to .ogg files and that is able to play these files.
I want to see something working before I upload files to Wiki. --[[User:Wouterhagens|Wouter]] 22:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


*"crf" stands for "constant rate factor". The lower the value, the higher the subjective quality of the video, but the larger the file size. It accepts a value from 0 to 63, with 35 as the default; you can raise it a little if the video is too large, or lower it a little if the video looks bad.
:Yes, the installer of ffmpeg2theora for Macintosh is overly complicated and incompetent. I had manually install the thing. I will post instructions. There is easier software with a GUI now. Although it is easier to use than ffmpeg2theora and more compatible, it has much fewer options, and the files it is more compatible with look horible once converted to OGG. As long as your input is ecoded with MPEG, it will be fine, though. Here's a link for the GUI software [[Help:Converting_video#SimpleTheoraEncoder]]. [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 10:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
*The preset dictates the compression speed/efficiency trade off. The higher the value, the faster the encode, but the larger the file size. It accepts value from 0 to 12, with 10 as the default; set this to the lowest value you have the patience for.


I think we can even get rid of the part about audio bitrate. Just let Opus's VBR magic sort it out. [[User:Snowmanonahoe|Snowmanonahoe]] ([[User talk:Snowmanonahoe|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 03:43, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
:Oh, yes there is commercial software, You can try QuickTime Pro with the [http://xiph.org/quicktime/ Theora QuickTime plug-ins] (I haven't tested this, though, as I am too cheap). You can also use those plug-ins with iMove, but you don't have very many options using the Theora plug-ins with iMovie. You can't choose any audio options. The only video options you get are video quality, data rate, frame rate, key frame rate, sharpness, and optimization. I guess that's quite a bit, but I would trade a few of those for video resolution. It's pretty dumb to convert a 320x240 MPEG into a 720x480 OGG. I agree with you that Theora is beta-quality software. Ogg supporters talk about "freedom" while denying us the freedom to select video codecs ourselves. [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 08:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


:While we're at it, let's get rid of avconv, which is no longer maintained. [[User:Snowmanonahoe|Snowmanonahoe]] ([[User talk:Snowmanonahoe|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 03:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
== Software feature ==

Video conversion should be built into Mediawiki. Upload any format and it will convert to ogg theora internally. — [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 17:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
: Yes, users should be encouraged to convert themselves (to save server resources), but the conversion process is too complicated for many people. [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 10:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

== Looping ==

How do you loop video with the ffmpeg2theora application? [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 11:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

== ffmpeg2theora and audio ==

ffmpeg2theora is converting video just fine, but it is not converting any of the audio channels of the video files that I tell it to convert. Is ffmpeg2theora able to convert the audio channels of video files? If so, what codecs does it support? If not, how is audio added to files converted with ffmprg2theora? [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 07:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
:This blows. I'm sticking with animated GIFs. [[User:Jecowa|Jecowa]] 03:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

== Feedback ==

I had a lot of problems trying to convert videos with VLC. Thanks to this site I've tried ffmpeg2theora and it worked immediately. Thanks! --[[User:Flominator|Flominator]] 18:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

== conversion fail ==

While most of the programs and examples here just don't work for me, a few of them (the newest version of ffmpeg2theora-0.21, and Mux) convert with some sort of audio offset problem. I'm trying to convert this video (http://www.kunsan.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070914-043.wmv); can anybody give me some suggestions? — '''[[User:pd_THOR|<span style="color:#CC0000;">pd_THOR</span>]]''' <sup>|''' [[User_talk:pd_THOR|=/\=]]'''</sup> | 02:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

:I only converted videos once, but I used the [http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html SUPER video converter] without problems. [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] <sup>[[User talk:Waldir|talk]]</sup> 20:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

== Ogg videos should use "ogv" extension instead of "ogg" ==

Xiph (the foundation developing Ogg codecs) has deprecated the use of ".ogg" for videos and recommends ".ogv", see [http://wiki.xiph.org/MIME_Types_and_File_Extensions MIME Types and File Extensions on the Xiph Wiki]. This has also been [http://blog.gingertech.net/2008/09/05/new-ogg-mime-types-ratified/ ratified in an RFC].

So, all the newer videos on Commons should use the "ogv" extension. If no one objects, I will adjust this page (and others) and replace "ogg" with "ogv". [[User:Robin Stocker|Robin Stocker]] ([[User talk:Robin Stocker|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 15:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

==OMG==
Ok, I got MediaCoder to convert a video to ogg... then? Whato do I have to do? Is there "any" help page? I am not very familiar with video convertion, can anybody help? --[[User:Sailko|Sailko]] ([[User talk:Sailko|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 08:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
:If you did the conversion, now you can just upload. See [[Commons:Upload]]. [[User:Superm401|Superm401]] - [[User_talk:Superm401|Talk]] 07:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

== OggConvert ==

what about this tool? i think it's a great one for the normal user. [[User:Hidro|Hidro]] ([[User talk:Hidro|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
:It is a pretty user friendly tool with its graphical user interface. The latest (stable) version as of today I think is 0.3.1. It can't convert to a different video resolution as FireFogg can though. Anyway there are some experimental work for this to be ported to the Windows Operating Systems, although it requires 3 steps to install(not very user friendly install procedure on Windows) [[User:Logictheo|Logictheo]] ([[User talk:Logictheo|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 21:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

== Seeking help using online solutions ==

I'm trying to convert an AVI file to OGG for Commons. The file is eleven seconds long, 7.69 MB on disk, 640 x 424 pixels, and comes from a Nikon D90. It contains both audio and video. I tried the two online solutions

*http://mux.am/
*http://www.media-convert.com/

The first one, mux, uploaded the file and after some minutes produced an ogg file. Unfortunately it had no video, but only audio. (I've already uploaded a sound recording and have no need of this.)

The second one, media-convert, uploaded the file and very quickly produced an ogg file. Unfortunately, the 6 kB ogg file has a length of 0 seconds and contains no video or audio. I also tried using media-convert to make a WAV file (it worked fine) and then convert the WAV to OGG (it was still 6 kB, 0 seconds).

So the two sites I tried because they sounded simple didn't work. Any suggestions?

[[User:Fg2|Fg2]] ([[User talk:Fg2|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 11:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

:The first seems to be dead; I have hidden the link to it. The second one has given me similar problems and needs to be reviewed to see if it is actually capable of producing a decent conversion. If anyone knows of any other sites, please provide a link. [[User:Richard001|Richard001]] ([[User talk:Richard001|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 10:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
::Update: media-convert worked for me just then. Seems that it's just a little inconsistent, as you come to expect from free online file converters and rippers. [[User:Richard001|Richard001]] ([[User talk:Richard001|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 10:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

== Commons video is disaster ==

I have just one word for what I am experiencing - disaster. There needs to be a lot of work done to make uploading and playing videos on Commons usable. Hope the new usability project (usability.wikimedia.org) will address some issues.--[[User:Kozuch|Kozuch]] ([[User talk:Kozuch|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

:This might help: [[:Category:Commons video resources]]. Thanks for the usability link. I did not know of it. --[[User:Timeshifter|Timeshifter]] ([[User talk:Timeshifter|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 05:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
::There are few media-related ideas on the original Meta talk page.--[[User:Kozuch|Kozuch]] ([[User talk:Kozuch|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
:::Do you have a link for that Meta talk page? --[[User:Timeshifter|Timeshifter]] ([[User talk:Timeshifter|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 10:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

== MediaCoder ==

Could we get some instructions for this? I don't find this program very easy to use and the wiki doesn't seem to be very complete. [[User:Richard001|Richard001]] ([[User talk:Richard001|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 10:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia [[w:en:MediaCoder|article]] seems to hint that it is [[w:en:adware|adware]] --[[User:Keith111|Keith111]] ([[User talk:Keith111|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 04:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC).

:I removed the open source claim for MediaCoder. I left a html comment for anyone who knows more to clarify my rewording though. I am not sure why its "open-source"-ness is important though, does it affect the "freeness" of the videos it creates? I have used closed source [[:en:SUPER (software)|SUPER]] without worrying about this. Is it not sufficient that the output format (OGG or Theora) is acceptable to Commons? -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 19:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

== A more general page on video ==

A Commons page about video in general, e.g. [[Help:Video]] (currently a redirect) is needed. I have thrown down some ideas at [[User:Richard001/Commons:Video draft]], but I haven't worked on it for a while. If anyone is able to take up the task please do. [[User:Richard001|Richard001]] ([[User talk:Richard001|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 09:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
:In case anyone is wondering, the draft suggested above became [[Commons:Video]] and part of [[Help:Converting video]], and [[Help:Video]] still redirects to [[Help:Converting video]]. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

== Audio problems ==

Another solution is to first simply rencode audio without modifing video with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i source -vcodec copy -acodec pcm_s16le -ac 2 target

ffmpeg2theora really doesn't like mono u8 pcm audio, which unfortunately is widely used by compact cameras.

[[User:Gonioul|Gonioul]] ([[User talk:Gonioul|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 10:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

== converting animated GIFs to Theora OGG ==

I managed to convert animated GIFs to Theora OGG video files, but I am unsure if this is a good way to do it. Here is how, in case anyone else is trying to do the same. I could not find this mentioned in the help files here.

On Windows Vista I already had IrfanView, SUPER, VirtualDub, ffdshow and VLC version 1.0.1 Goldeneye. However, except for SUPER, none of these could convert GIFs for one reason or another, or else I could not find the right options. SUPER does convert a GIF to an OGV but I could not find how to adjust the frame rate and some ultra-fast pop-up reported that something had crashed.

What gave me more options was to use IrfanView and/or gifsicle ([http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/gifsicle/]) to extract all the frames from a GIF, and then to use ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe to combine the frames into an OGV.

'''Problem'''
Some animated GIFs have frames that are not constant in height and width. Using IrfanView to "extract all frames" is then a mistake, because ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe will either crash or output incorrectly rendered OGV files. You can manually "fix" the sizes by extending the canvas, but that changes the palette, which causes ffmpeg2theora other problems. You can of course import palette to fix this, but for more than a few frames this will be tedious work.

'''Solution'''
Use the gifsicle option --unoptimize to first make all the GIF's frames the same size. Then use gifsicle option --explode to extract all the frames. Now the frames are all the same size and have the same palette.

Now, gifsicle names these frame files as "text.nnn" where nnn is a number. This is a problem on Windows as ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe simply refuses to accept such files as valid. Add ".gif" at the end of each, and ffmpeg2theora is happy. On Linux or Unix such renaming is trivial, but how to do it on Windows without requiring the user to download and install yet more programs? Luckily IrfanView has a batch rename tool that does exactly this.

Finally, here is an example of how I converted a largish GIF to a small OGV:

A0. Use gifsicle to create an unoptimized version of the GIF like this:

gifsicle --unoptimize < PIA07712.gif > unoptimized.gif

A1. explode the unoptimized GIF into frames:

gifsicle --output gifun --explode < unoptimized.gif
A2. use IrfanView's batch conversion/rename tool to give ".GIF" extensions to all the numbered files:

:launch IrfanView, click File / Batch conversion/rename,
:under "Work as" click the circle next to "Batch rename"

:inside "Name pattern" under "Batch rename settings" type (without quotes):
"un###.gif"
:If you have more than 999 frames, type instead "un####.gif".

:Inside "Search in" find the directory with your newly extracted GIFs
:select all that you wish to rename
:click the Add button

:inside "Output directory for result files"
:click the button labeled "Use current ('look in') directory"

:click the Start Batch button
:once the renaming is finished click the Exit button

A3. Use ffmpeg2theora to construct the video file:

ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe --framerate 2 un%03d.gif --output full.ogv

:Conversion is now finished and full.ogv should be a playable video file.
:(change %03d to %04d if you typed "un####.gif" above.)
:Choose a framerate that makes the video play at the best speed;
:25 will be too fast for most animated GIFs, so try 1, 2, and so on.
:Use the videoquality option to choose a different quality:
:"--videoquality 10" is best while "--videoquality 1" is least

A4. I as able to test whether the full.ogv played Ok by dragging it to the Firefox browser, or by opening it with VLC.

-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 06:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
::Do you know how to select multiple files in the CMD window in Windows? I tried doing <code>ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe --framerate 2 *.gif -o output.ogv</code> and ffmpeg2theora displayed an error message.

::[image2 @ 0x1296fc0]Could not find codec parameters (Video: gif, yuv420p) Unable to decode input.

::[[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 18:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The only way I know is with the numbered files syntax, like this:
:<code>ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe --framerate 2 p%04d.gif -o output.ogv</code>
which should take as input, files p0001.gif, p0002.gif and so on in sequence. The sequence does not have to start at 1, but there must be no missing frames.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 21:48, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

== SUPER directly converts Quicktime movie to OGG ==
I just used [[:en:SUPER (software)|SUPER]] on Windows Vista to convert [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08397_full_movie.mov this short movie] from [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/ NASA] to [[:File:Prometheus collides with F ring PIA08397.ogv]]. No audio was present. I just dragged the movie file to SUPER, selected output container ogg, video codec theora and clicked Encode. I have added SUPER to the help page. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 01:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
:It's good to have another alternative. I was unable to convert it using [http://www.firefogg.org firefogg]. mov support has been kinda iffy using it so far. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 01:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Ooops, I did not notice your reply there! I just added my Firefogg experiences below. Although I have created and converted other video types, for conversion to Theora I have only ever (and only in the last 48 hours) tried ffmpeg2theora (mostly good), SUPER (less good but mostly works), and now Firefogg (mostly fails with Quicktime, might be Ok for MPEG). -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 02:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
:Like many of the programs here, Firefogg uses ffmpeg2theora as its backend. It seems ffmpeg2theora has some problems with MOV files, especially when they're 15fps or less. I was able to convert the mov you linked (and another one I was having difficulty with) using [http://www.freewarefiles.com/GFrontend-ffmpegtheora-V-Final_program_33306.html GFrontend ffmpeg2theora 2007.2 Final]. The programs is a couple years old and uses an older version of ffmpeg2theora but it did it's job. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
::Just a quick update. I was not able to convert the video using ffmpeg2theora 0.25. Using [http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/ffmpeg2theora-0.24.exe ffmpeg2theora 0.24], which is about 7 months old, converts the mov file successfully. Looks like it's a bug when the video has variable framerates. A fix is in SVN [http://svn.xiph.org/trunk/ffmpeg2theora/ChangeLog]. I think for mov files, I'd recommend using the older version 0.24. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

== Firefogg performance ==

Here are my test results after installing the Firefogg extension on Firefox 3.5.3 under Windows Vista. Quick summary: it converts MPEG files Ok, but Quicktime poorly.

Test 1. {{NotOK}} how well does it convert Quicktime using default settings?
: download PIA08397_full_movie.mov from http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/animation/PIA08397
: (I chose a Quicktime movie that has been successfully converted by ffmpeg2theora)
: In Firefox browse to http://firefogg.org/make/ and click on select new file
: choose the file PIA08397_full_movie.mov just downloaded
: click Save Ogg
: examine the saved OGG file, and I found:
:: (a) the OGG was far too small (and poor quality)
:: (b) it has the wrong frame rate (25 instead of the original 6)

Test 2. {{NotOK}} how well does it convert Quicktime with best settings?
: download PIA08397_full_movie.mov from http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/animation/PIA08397
: (I chose a movie file that has already been successfully converted using ffmpeg2theora)
: In Firefox browse to http://firefogg.org/make/ and click on select new file
: choose the file PIA08397_full_movie.mov I just downloaded
: click "Preset: Custom settings" and change it to "High Quality Theora Vorbis 1080p max width"
: click "Basic quality and resolution control" and make these changes
:: set quality to the maximum 10
:: leave video width and height at 400
: click Advanced video editing controls and make these changes
:: set Video bit rate to the maximum 2757
:: set the frame rate to the minimum 12
: click Advanced audio encoding controls and click the No Audio checkbox
: click Save Ogg, and I found:
:: (a) the OGG was still too small
:: (b) on some settings ffmpeg2theora crashed
:: (c) Firefogg hangs at "100% - Transcoded"


Test 3. {{Ok}} how well does it convert MPEG with default settings?
: download PIA08397_full_movie.mov from http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/animation/PIA08397
: use the SUPER program to convert it to a 298 kilobyte MPEG: PIA08397_full_movie.mpg
: In Firefox browse to http://firefogg.org/make/ and click on select new file
: choose the file PIA08397_full_movie.mpg
: click Save Ogg, and I found:
:: (a) the OGG was 170 KB
:: (b) the OGG movie played Ok inside Firefox and in VLC
: {{OK}} I repeated this test 3 but I selected "Low bandwidth" and it created a 55 KB OGG movie, also playable
: {{NotOK}} I repeated this test 3 but I selected "High quality" and ffmpeg2theora crashed each time


Test 4. {{NotOK}} how does it handle ffmpeg2theora crashes?
: download a Quicktime movie file known to crash ffmpeg2theora, for example [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08262_full_movie.mov PIA08262_full_movie.mov] from [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/ NASA]
: In Firefox browse to http://firefogg.org/make/ and click on select new file
: choose the file PIA08262_full_movie.mov just downloaded
: click Save Ogg
: when ffmpeg2theora crashes (or hangs), click the "X" in the top right of the Firefogg dialog window
:: click Ok when the dialog asks "Are you sure you want to cancel?"
:: the dialog window then reports "Sorry we do not yet support cancel on windows"
:: this left that page unusable until I reloaded it and started again.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 02:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
:Good testing, 84user. Firefogg has worked well using some video I've taken with my digital camera (.avi files). I did a couple tests using sample files from [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1425 Apple] and it transcoded them successfully. Ideally, with Firefogg soon becoming [http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/new-media-features-gadget/ implemented] on Commons, we should have some testing done on which files work best and which don't. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 19:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

== Tests and thoughts ==

Here are some of my tests and thoughts. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

=== Convert OGV to animated GIF ===
I was asked if I knew how to convert OGV media to animated GIF. Answer: not at first, but here is what happened while trying. Summary: one-step SUPER converts poorly; two-step via sequence of images is better but only for some videos.

I tested these OGV input files (Firefox 3.5+ plays all with no problem):
: 1. [[:File:Something-for-cheese.ogg]], 13 seconds, 320×120 pixels, 10 fps
: 2. [[:File:Mars Phoenix Sol 151 weather.ogv]], an upscaled OGV I created from NASA raw images, 4 seconds, 240×416 pixels, 1 fps, 54kbps
: 3. [[:File:Ap16_rover.ogg]], 15 seconds, 320×240 pixels, 30 fps

Results using program SUPER to convert direct to GIF and to a sequence of images:
: Test file ; direct to GIF? ; to sequence of frames?
: --------- ; --------------; ----------------------
: 1. ...... ; distorted .... ; WORKS but letter-boxed to 128 pixels height
: 2. ...... ; distorted .... ; FAILS: missing key frames
: 3. ...... ; poor quality . ; WORKS

Because SUPER can convert some OGV files to a sequence of images,
I next tried to use gifsicle to create a GIF from those SUPER-converted images.

I first had to use IrfanView's batch function to convert all the PNG files to GIF.

To convert all the images extracted from [[:File:Something-for-cheese.ogg]] I used this command line:

gifsicle.exe --delay 50 s0001.gif s0002.gif s0003.gif s0004.gif s0005.gif s0006.gif s0007.gif s0008.gif s0009.gif s0010.gif s0011.gif s0012.gif s0013.gif s0014.gif s0015.gif s0016.gif s0017.gif s0018.gif s0019.gif s0020.gif s0021.gif s0022.gif s0023.gif s0024.gif s0025.gif s0026.gif s0027.gif s0028.gif s0029.gif s0030.gif s0031.gif s0032.gif s0033.gif s0034.gif s0035.gif s0036.gif s0037.gif s0038.gif s0039.gif s0040.gif s0041.gif s0042.gif s0043.gif s0044.gif s0045.gif s0046.gif s0047.gif s0048.gif s0049.gif s0050.gif s0051.gif s0052.gif s0053.gif s0054.gif s0055.gif s0056.gif s0057.gif s0058.gif s0059.gif s0060.gif s0061.gif s0062.gif s0063.gif s0064.gif s0065.gif s0066.gif s0067.gif s0068.gif s0069.gif s0070.gif s0071.gif s0072.gif s0073.gif s0074.gif s0075.gif s0076.gif s0077.gif s0078.gif s0079.gif s0080.gif s0081.gif s0082.gif s0083.gif s0084.gif s0085.gif s0086.gif s0087.gif s0088.gif s0089.gif s0090.gif s0091.gif s0092.gif s0093.gif s0094.gif s0095.gif s0096.gif s0097.gif s0098.gif s0099.gif s0100.gif s0101.gif s0102.gif s0103.gif s0104.gif s0105.gif s0106.gif s0107.gif s0108.gif s0109.gif s0110.gif s0111.gif s0112.gif s0113.gif s0114.gif s0115.gif s0116.gif s0117.gif s0118.gif s0119.gif s0120.gif s0121.gif s0122.gif s0123.gif > somechee.gif

gifsicle reported this warning:

gifsicle.exe: warning: so many colors that local colormaps were required
gifsicle.exe: (You may want to try '--colors 256'.)

and created a nearly 2 megabyte GIF, which however, both IrfanView and Firefox could play (but colour artifacts were present).

Conclusions (after more tests):
* it seems possible but inadvisable for large numbers of frames.
* SUPER PART-WORKS sometimes: it converts OGV to GIF only with a limited set of scale sizes and aspect ratios
* SUPER FAILS sometimes: it converts some OGV to sequence of diff-images but without key frames
* gifsicle requires the OGV be first split into separate frames
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

=== ffmpeg2theora 0.25+svn16605 ===
I saw [[User:Mahanga]]'s note above about problems with ffmpeg2theora 0.25.

I used both the normal 0.25 and the latest preview Windows binary from http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/download.html that identifies itself as:

ffmpeg2theora 0.25+svn16605 - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)

and it worked just as well as the "non-svn" 0.25 when I converted sequence of PNG files to OGV. I tested AVI conversion but no MOV format videos.

The 0.25 version I was using identifies itself as:

ffmpeg2theora 0.25 - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
:I had thought the 0.25 SVN version was was better than 0.25 when converting MOV files to ogv, but that doesn't appear to be the case. However, ffmpeg2theora 0.24 does work on the mov you mentioned above and other ones. [http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/ffmpeg2theora-0.24.exe direct link here]. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 18:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'''Update''': Thank you for the 0.24 link. I have now tested various ffmpeg2theora versions. The "[http://www.freewarefiles.com/GFrontend-ffmpegtheora-V-Final_program_33306.html GFrontend ffmpeg2theora 2007.2 Final]" version linked above in section "[[Help talk:Converting video#SUPER directly converts Quicktime movie to OGG]]" identified itself as "ffmpeg2theora 0.18". Version 0.18 converts the 2000 kilobyte NASA MOV file well. I did not run the installation program; it was sufficient to extract the command-line executable from the archive file.
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
!Program version !! converts to OGV? !! size q=0 !! size q=5 !! size q=6 !! size q=10
|-
|0.18 || YES || 32 || 67 || 81 || 231
|-
|0.24 || YES || 36 || 78 || 98 || 289
|-
|0.25 || WRONG RATE || 18 || 50 || 61 || 158
|-
|0.25 +fps fudge || YES || 18 || 50 || 61 || 159
|-
|0.25+svn16605 || WRONG RATE || 18 || .. || 61 || 158
|-
|0.25+svn+fudge || YES || 18 || .. || .. || 159
|}
Key: size is of converted OGV file in kilobytes; q=number is the --videoquality value passed to ffmpeg2theora (0 is lowest, 10 is best)<br />
fps fudge is a workaround of '''--inputfps 6 --framerate 6''' to both override the input fps and to force the output frame rate, because ffmpeg2theora 0.25 (both current version and with svn16605) appears to convert some Quick Time MOV files to OGV at the wrong frame rate (far too fast).
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 19:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)<small> (added 2007.2 links -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC))</small>
:Why are you using a 2007 version of SUPER, when there's one released in 2009. Secondly, how did you find the ffmpeg2theora version number in SUPER? I ask b/c I'd like to figure out the version SUPER 2009b36 is using. Thanks. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 01:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
My SUPER version is 2008.build.30 dated Mar 22, 2008. Inertia is why I don't use the 2009 version. I did not intend to claim knowledge of which ffmpeg2theora version SUPER uses, that was just my clumsy grammar. I've just improved the text above. However, inside each OGV file created by SUPER 2008.build.30 I find the text "Xiph.Org libTheora I 20040317 3 2 0" (I use the emacs text editor to open the OGV), while inside OGV created by ffmpef2theora-0.25 I find "Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)" and inside OGV from ffmpef2theora-0.18 I find "Xiph.Org libTheora I 20060526 3 2 0", so I suspect my SUPER uses an even older library. I may upgrade in a week. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

'''Update''': I have now installed SUPER version 2009.build.36, and it has more features and converts MOV files to OGV that play Ok on Firefox and VLC (but not MPC). It makes inconsistent reports on the frame rate - it claims 25 when the original was 6 for example (does this explain why MPC plays some SUPER-generated OGG videos too fast?). Second, it uses green instead of black when padding videos. Third, it still offers too-limited a set of options. Fourth, unlike the 2008 version, SUPER outputs OGV files that do not fully identify the theora library used: they now contain only "based on Xiph.Org's libTheora". I cannot determine what ffmpeg2theora version it uses; the included programs are ff2ogg.exe dated 2008-06-29 which looks like an earlier ffmpeg2theora, and ffmpeg.exe dated 2007-01-16 version 0.5.0-pre1,build 4743 Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Fabrice Bellard. In brief, SUPER looks Ok for standard video conversion, but I prefer the full power that ffmpeg2theora command line gives me. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

=== Thoughts on help ===
My quick thoughts on the content of Wikimedia's help for Converting videos?
: be honest - list the known limitations and workarounds
: be verifiable - detail the source media used, the system environment and the process
: we need a test suite of media files

I feel such Help needs to avoid frustrating users with instructions that may not always work. At the same time, it should give as many different ways as possible as I have not seen one program handle all cases.

Here are some limitations I have experienced:
: VLC misses the first 0.3 seconds of any audio input - a showstopper for short sounds
: VLC plays some Theora OGV media badly
: Media Player Classic with the CCCPack also has problems
: firefogg does not provide the user with all the ffmpeg2theora options
: SUPER has problems with certain OGV media

What works well?
: Firefox 3.5 appears to play all kinds of OGV media correctly, so far.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
::I wasn't aware there were problems with media players badly playing Theora videos. I'll have to do some testing of my own. What version of VLC are you using that's giving you issues? The same with MPC and the CCCPack. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
:::I think most of the frustration comes from the conversion tools. Not all videos can be easily converted. There is one program which should handle most cases and that is ffmpeg2theora. It's what SUPER, FFCoder and others use. If a video isn't being converted, then it's likely a bug or maybe a codec that hasn't been implemented yet. We need to list these videos and note their codec, framerate, etc. Then one should try using an older (or preview) release or notify the developer. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 00:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a paragraph on limitations to the page. The main issue right now appears .mov files. Also, I guess Indeo IV50 encoded files aren't supported. I read their [[w:Indeo|wiki article]] and there's many issues involved. I just realized ffmpeg2theora will only convert files that [[w:ffmpeg]] is able to decode. If you go to that wiki page, you'll see only Indeo 2 and 3 (IV20, IV30) are supported, not Indeo 5 (IV50). I'll add this to the Limitations section. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 00:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

:;::Replying to the 6 November question, I use VLC 1.0.1 Goldeneye, and the Combined-Community-Codec-Pack-2008-09-21.exe I have shows version "2008.09.21.0", last changed {{ISOdate|2009-03-29}}. I have added section [[Help talk:Converting video#Test videos|Test videos]] below which shows a few of the problems I have found.

=== test.avi results ===
[[File:Test avi.ogv|thumb|right|Test.avi converted to Theora]]
There is a small video test file licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike at
[http://www.archive.org/details/EricZimmermanMyTestAVIfile...], and I managed to convert it to OGV format (see right).

Results attempting to play the original test.avi file:
: ffmpeg2theora (both 0.25 and preview binary) FAILS with "swScaler: Unknown format is not supported as input pixel format"
: VLC FAILS: it plays only the audio and reports: "VLC does not support the audio or video format "IV50". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."
: MPC plays it
: ZOOM plays it
: SUPER plays it
: SMPlayer plays it
: WinAmp plays it
: Windows Media Player plays it
: GOM plays it

My attempts at converting test.avi to OGV:
: SUPER WORKED but only when I set Video Scale Size to 320x240 ("No change" gave ERROR)
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'''Update''': After some more tests (see below) I suspect [[:File:test avi.ogv]] may have an inherent audio sync problem (always out of sync on replay in Firefox and always out of sync at first play and replay in Google Chrome). This eight megabyte [[:File:BBC Demonstration (free version).ogg|BBC test video]] played and replayed with good audio sync both in Firefox and Chrome (despite buggy replay in Chrome).

Results trying to play the [[:File:Test avi.ogv]] and a BBC test video in a browser:
{| class="wikitable"
!Browser!!thumb appearance?!!click play result?!!replay?||plays uploaded file?||replay uploaded file?
|-
|Firefox 3.5.5||thumbnail||PASSES: plays Ok||audio slightly out of sync||PASSES||audio slightly out of sync
|-
|Firefox 3.5.5 and BBC test||thumbnail||PASSES: plays Ok||PASSES||PASSES||PASSES
|-
|Opera 9.63||thumbnail||FAILS: disappears||n/a||FAILS:offers to download||n/a
|-
|Opera 9.63 and BBC test||thumbnail||FAILS: disappears||n/a||FAILS:offers to download||n/a
|-
|Opera 10.01||thumbnail||FAILS: disappears||n/a||FAILS:offers to download||n/a
|-
|Opera 10.01 and BBC test||thumbnail||FAILS: disappears||n/a||FAILS:offers to download||n/a
|-
|Google Chrome 3.0.196.2 and test avi.ogv||thumbnail||HALF PASS: video Ok; AUDIO OUT OF SYNC||BUGGY1||AUDIO OUT OF SYNC||BUGGY1
|-
|Google Chrome 3.0.196.2 and BBC test||thumbnail||PASSES: video and audio Ok||BUGGY2||FAILS:offers to download||n/a
|-
|Google Chrome 3.0.195.32 and test avi.ogv||thumbnail||PASSES but BUGGY3||BUGGY3||PASSES!||FREEZES and BUGGY3
|-
|Google Chrome 3.0.195.32 and BBC test||thumbnail||PASSES: video and audio Ok||BUGGY2||PASSES!||AUDIO OUT OF SYNC and BUGGY3
|}

BUGGY1 in Google Chrome means audio always OUT of sync and: the play slider control does not work as expected; play button does not appear when video ends; dragging slider causes pause followed by colour defects followed by incorrect position and out of sync audio with good video; missing volume control - fixed to maximum; slider and context menu controls often contradict

BUGGY2 in Google Chrome means audio always IN sync but: the play slider control does not work as expected; play button does not appear when video ends; dragging slider causes long pause followed by colour defects followed by incorrect position but then correct audio and video; missing volume control - fixed to maximum; slider and context menu controls often contradict

BUGGY3 in Google Chrome 3.0.195.32 means sometimes VIDEO FREEZES on replay and audio is often OUT of sync: the play slider control does not work as expected; play button does not appear when video ends; dragging slider causes pause followed by colour defects followed by incorrect position but then correct video and often incorrect audio; missing volume control - fixed to maximum; slider and context menu controls often contradict

I just tried a fresh download of Google Chrome, but all I got was the same 3.0.196.2 with the same buggy OGG playback. I will now try to upgrade to the latest Opera version 10.01.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 14:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC) <small> just added Opera 10.01 failure results to table</small><small> just added Chrome 3.0.195.32 results to table</small>

Now I just fully deinstalled Google Chrome and retried the Google installer. That gave me version 3.0.195.32 which has subtly different audio sync problems from 3.0.196.2. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:08, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

==Test playback of videos==
[[File:cal_2flip2click8khzvbr_ifps25fr25_q6aq0.ogv|thumb|right|8 seconds of a pattern flipping each second accompanied by a sound click. This is File cal_2flip2click8khzvbr_ifps25fr25_q6aq0.ogv]]
Here are some test media I have uploaded with some test results. See [[:Category:Calibration videos]] and [[:Category:Calibration audio]]. Full details are at [[User:84user/Video tests]]. Results using VLC to convert AVI to OGV appear first, followed by a table of the test media and how a few players handle them. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

===VLC Goldeneye results===
[[:en:VLC media player|VLC media player]] version 1.0.1 Goldeneye - encoding to [[:en:Theora|Theora]] OGG video. How these videos were made is detailed in section "[[User:84user/Video tests#Calibration test videos|Calibration test videos]]" in [[User:84user/Video tests]].

{| class="wikitable"
!Source media!!VLC converts to OGG?!!VLC plays OGG?!!Firefox plays OGG?!!MPC plays OGG?
|-
|cal.avi VLC at 800kbps, noaudio||YES*||YES||YES||YES
|-
|cal.avi VLC at 1600kbps, noaudio||YES*||YES||YES||YES
|-
|cal.avi VLC at 3200kbps, noaudio||YES*||YES||YES||YES
|-
|cal_2flip2_click1in4track8secsmono22khz16bit8khzvbr.avi at 3200kbps||YES*||MISS1||YES||STATIC
|-
|cal_2flip2_click1in4track8secsmono22khz16bit8khzvbr.avi at 800kbps sample rate 11250||YES*||MISS1||YES||STATIC
|-
|cal_2flip2click8khzvbr.avi||YES*||MISS1||YES||YES
|}
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

===Calibration test videos===
This table shows how well or badly various media players performed with some OGV files.
{| class="wikitable"
!test media!!Firefox!!Chrome!!MPlayer!!VLC!!VLC1.0.3!!MPC
|-
|[[:File:cal_ifps25fr25_q10.ogv]]||YES||YES||YES||NO||NO||NO
|-
|[[:File:cal_4frames_ifps25fr25_q10.ogv]]||YES||YES||YES||NO||NO||NO
|-
|[[:File:cal_2flip_ifps25fr25_q10.ogv]]||YES||GLITCH||YES||NO||NO||NO
|-
|[[:File:vdubtestrgbcube4secs_ifps12fr12_q10.ogv]]||YES||YES||YES||YES||YES||NOKEYS?
|-
|[[:File:Audacity click track one per second for eight seconds mono88khz32bitfloat.ogg]]||YES||YES||YES||CLICKS7||CLICKS7||CLICKS3
|-
|[[:File:cal_2flip2click8khzvbr_ifps25fr25_q6aq0.ogv]]||YES||OUT OF SYNC||OUT OF SYNC||OUT OF SYNC*||OUT OF SYNC*||NO
|-
|[[:File:cal_2flip2_click1in4track8secsmono22khz16bit8khzvbr_vlc3.ogv]]||YES||YES||YES||YES*||CLICKS7||STATIC
|-
|[[:File:cal_2flip2click8khzvbr_vlc.ogv]]||YES||FIRSTYES||CLICKS9||CLICKS7||CLICKS7||YES
|-
|[[File:Cal16x16check vdnocnoafr1len2.avi.q10.ogv|left|thumb|32px]] [[:File:Cal16x16check vdnocnoafr1len2.avi.q10.ogv]]||YES2||YES3|| NO || not tested || BLACK || FLAT
|}
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
:YES2 means Firefox plays the file Ok but it plays upscaled videos using a filter that blurs edges, unlike Google Chrome which plays upscaled videos sharply;
:YES3 means Google Chrome always plays the file sharply with no blur regardless of any upscaling, but the video gets cropped when any zoom is used (larger or smaller).
:BLACK means VLC 1.0.3 played 2 seconds of black
:FLAT means MPC displayed a rectangle with aspect ratio 2.66 (??) with a muddy blue green gradient followed by one second of pinkish grey blurry rectangles (abstract art?)
:Firefox is version 3.5.5
:Google Chrome is version 3.0.195.32;
:MPC is Media Player Classic build 1.3.1249.0, complier VS 2008, FFmpeg compiler GCC 4.3.3
:VLC is 1.0.1 Goldeneye;
:VLC 1.0.3 was downloaded from http://www.videolan.org/mirror-geo.php?file=vlc/1.0.3/win32/vlc-1.0.3-win32.exe - the Windows self-extracting package
:mplayer.exe dated 2006-10-28 is from SUPER 2009.build.36 and identifies itself with:
MPlayer 1.0rc1-3.4.2 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team.
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ (Family: 15, Model: 67, Stepping: 2)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
<small>(added VLC 1.0.3 results and program versions -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC))</small><small>(added results for [[:File:Cal16x16check vdnocnoafr1len2.avi.q10.ogv]] -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 03:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC))</small>

:A lot of this data would probably be very useful to the Theora developers, ffmpeg2theora project, and the Firefox, Chrome, VLC developers. I'll make a comment on the xiph mailing list. Could you provide version numbers on the applications (Firefox 3.5, Chrome, MPC)? Secondly, does VLC encode properly, compared to ffmpeg2theora? ffmpeg2theora seems to be the standard for encoding so we should try using that whenever we can. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
::Sorry for the delay before replying; I wanted to test VLC 1.0.3 first before adding more to this page. I have added version numbers above, they were listed in [[User:84user/Video tests]].
::''Does VLC encode properly, compared to ffmpeg2theora?'' Sometimes. I remember VLC producing OGV output with wrongly coloured initial frames, and when I now use VLC 1.0.3 to convert the large NASA movie [http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA11144.mov here] the output again has the first two or three seconds wrong. Other programs converted that movie correctly (SUPER and ffmpeg2theora for example). See [[:File:Saturn ring spokes (captured by Cassini).ogv]] for a selection of ffmpeg2theora conversions. But VLC also converts some correctly: I have just now tested it converting low frame rate test AVI videos generated by VirtualDub 1.93 and the outputs are Ok. It still cannot handle the video codec used in the test.avi file that both SUPER and ffmpeg2theora can, see [[:File:Test avi 64kbps video 32kbps audio.ogv]]. If there was a freely licensed suite of test videos (I found a very large Microsoft suite but with a restricted license) we could do more tests. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
:::The quality of the encoded vorbis audio produced by VLC is inferior to ffmpeg2theora even at really high bitrates. ''I suspect that VLC player uses the internal Vorbis encoder present in libavcodec rather than libVorbis.'' Please avoid using VLC when encoding audio to Vorbis. {{unsigned|196.211.25.193|12:59, 15 March 2010}}
::::Apologies, I installed the latest VLC Player today and the Vorbis encoded output sounds great. It is using libVorbis.

== having trouble converting mp4 to ogg ==

I'm using XP and the video file is encoded with h264 as an mp4. ffmpeg2theora is the only one that comes close to working but it I have 2 issues:
#It clips the first few seconds of animation (but not audio)
#I want to resize it from 720x480 (4:3) to 1/2 size as this would be uploaded to wikipedia under fair use.[[Special:Contributions/71.14.177.121|71.14.177.121]] 02:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
:Well, you won't be able to upload it on Commons if it's fair use. I don't know about Wikipedia's policy, but I've not seen any fair-use videos on there. Can you link to the video you want to upload? As to your converting problem,
:#I would suggest using an [http://tempvariable.blogspot.com/2009/11/ffmpeg2theora-024-windows-binary.html older version] or a [http://firefogg.org/nightly/ beta version] of ffmpeg2theora.
:#use the ffmpeg2theora parameter -x and -y to scale the video to the dimensions that you want. example:

: <code>ffmpeg2theora inputVideo.mp4 -x 360 -y 240 --output outputVideo.ogv</code>
: [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 02:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
::Thanks. I'll try those. As for linking I'm not sure if commons allows linking to copyrighted material or not on their talk pages. Wikipedia does have a few video files on it though, but they are rare because the criteria must be that neither audio or a screenshot nor text could adequetly convey the meaning.[[Special:Contributions/71.14.177.121|71.14.177.121]] 04:23, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
:::Beta didn't work (got screwed up video), but .24 did except the parameters to shrink it don't seem to be enforced...or at least MPC isn't enforcing it.[[Special:Contributions/71.14.177.121|71.14.177.121]] 04:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
::::I know of no policy that prohibits just linking to a copyrighted video on a discussion page. If you managed to convert it to Theora (.ogv), you can try using [http://dev.streamnik.de/73.html oggResize]. Alternatively, you can email me a link to the video so I can try a few things. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 05:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
:::::Thanks, but I managed to shrink it. Although if its needs to be shrunk more or the audio quality lowered it may have issues. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Rumble School Rumble] you can see the coveted video there.[[Special:Contributions/71.14.177.121|71.14.177.121]] 19:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

== Handbrake 0.9.4 can convert to Theora and Vorbis inside MKV ==

I have just quickly tested the media converter [[:w:en:Handbrake|Handbrake]] version 0.9.4, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it converts M4V to MKV with video codec set to VP3 (Theora) and audio codec set to Vorbis with no errors. For details see [[User:84user/Video tests#Handbrake 0.9.4 tests]].

If others can repeat these tests on other source videos, does this mean we could add the MKV (Matroska) container format to the file types allowed by Commons? -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 15:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
:That's a good question. A [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search=matroska&fulltext=Search&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns8=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext=Advanced+search search] shows this has been asked a few times, but with no definite answer. One thing to check with mkv is if it is actually using a free codec such as Theora, as opposed to x264 or something else. I suggest making a post on the Village Pump linking here for more feedback. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 01:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

== ffmpeg2theora and audio sync ==

I experience audio sync problems with various ffmpeg2theora versions and options, and wonder whether anyone has found a cause? Certain combinations ffmpeg2theora versions and options produce audio sync problems but I cannot nail down a cause. It might be --soft-target, and it seems to happen more when I use --starttime and --endtime and --framerate. It is a problem because it discourages me from using any options other than bitrate ones, which is a shame.

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
!Date!!ffmpeg2theora --help version output
|-
|2007-04-03 || 0.18
|-
| ? || 0.20
|-
| ? || 0.22
|-
| ? || 0.24
|-
|20090822+? || 0.25 - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
|-
|20090822+? || 0.25+svn16605 - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
|-
|2010-01-04 || 0.25+svn16768M - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
|}

Partial results from various programs encoding to [[:File:Making of Elephants Dream.ogv]] from the same 550 MB CC-licensed "making_of_elephants_dream_3160kbps_2chn_48000Hz.mpg" from orange.blender.org:

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
!program!!dates!!options!!results!!writing libraries
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.25 || 20090822+? ||w320 v400kbps s a48kbps2chan st || sync BAD ||Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1.20090822 (Thusnelda) libVorbis 20090709 (UTC 2009-07-09)
|-
|VLC 1.0.3 || ? || w320 v400kbps a48kbps48kHz2chan ||sync Ok || libTheora 3.2.1 (UTC 2008-10-20) libVorbis 1.2 (UTC 2007-06-22)
|-
|SUPER v2010.build.37 || ff2ogg 2008-06-29 ||v240kbps a48kbps48kHz2chan || sync Ok||based on Xiph.Org's libTheora/libVorbis
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.22 || ? ||v240kbps a48kbps || sync Ok||libTheora 3.2.1 (UTC 2007-10-25) aoTUV Beta 5 (UTC 2006-10-24)
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.24 || ? ||v240kbps a48kbps || sync Ok ||libTheora 3.2.1 (UTC 2008-10-20) libVorbis 20081127 (UTC 2008-11-27)
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.25 || 20090822+? ||v240kbps a48kbps || sync Ok || Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1.20090822 (Thusnelda) libVorbis 20090709 (UTC 2009-07-09)
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.25 || 20090822+? ||v400kbps a48kbps || sync Ok || Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1.20090822 (Thusnelda) libVorbis 20090709 (UTC 2009-07-09)
|-
|ffmpeg2theora 0.25 || 20090822+? ||v450kbps a48kbps || sync Ok || Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1.20090822 (Thusnelda) libVorbis 20090709 (UTC 2009-07-09)
|}

Legend
:0.25 = ffmpeg2theora 0.25 - Xiph.Org libtheora 1.1 20090822 (Thusnelda)
:a48kbps = --audiobitrate 48
:a48kbps2chan = --audiobitrate 48 --channels 2
:s = --sync
:st = --soft-target
:v240kbps = --videobitrate 240
:v400kbps = --videobitrate 400
:w320 = --width 320
:sync BAD = The generated OGV's audio track goes very slowly out of sync, such that it is about one second off after 25 minutes. It starts perfect but after 10 minutes the sync error is just about noticeable.

I also tried various options, such as --sync (or --nosync in some builds) which sometimes fixed the audio sync but at the cost of dropping every other video frame.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 21:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

== TinyOgg ==

I just found [http://www.tinyogg.com/ TinyOgg]. I haven't tested it yet, but it might be a usefull resource. // [[User:Liftarn|Liftarn]] ([[User talk:Liftarn|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]])
:Only seems to work with YouTube, which unfortunately contains mostly copyrighted works. Works fairly well with a video I tried from [http://www.youtube.com/user/igf IGF] on YouTube. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

== Using GraphEdit to convert Windows Media Video ==

I used Graphedit to convert a "Windows Media Video 9 Screen" coded video to Theora OGG video. If anyone knows a good tutorial on GraphEdit muxing to Matroska or Ogg containers I would be grateful, especially if it is possible to mux Lagarith Lossless (or even mpeg4) and FLAC together to MKV. I had used Windows Media Encoder to record my mouse movements on the PC screen and produce a WMV file containing the WMV-9 stream. Nothing would convert it (even the online Total Video Convertor failed) until I randomly tried Graphedit.

I first dragged the input.wmv to Graphedit, replaced the default renderer with a Theora encoder followed by an OGG mux filter. I clicked play, and after some time the OGG mux's output file held a playable theora stream in an OGG container. However, GraphEdit crashed often while I was experimenting. Here is what worked in case anyone is also trying to work with Graphedit.

* replace the default renderer filter with a DirectShow Theora Encode Filter followed by an OGG mux filter writing to a file: that created a theora stream in an OGG container
* replace the default renderer filter with a DirectShow ffdshow filter followed by a Haali Matroska muxer writing to a file: that created a mpeg4 stream in an MKV container
* replace the default renderer filter with a DirectShow Lagarith lossless codec followed by a Haali Matroska muxer writing to a file: that created a Lagarith stream in an MKV container, playable with GOM and ZOOM, badly by MPC and refused by VLC
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 08:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
::Would you mind sharing a sample video in that format? [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Not at all, I have uploaded two short WMV videos and one long OGG video here:

[http://84user.webs.com/files/tests/windows%20media%20encoder%20capture.wmv http://84user.webs.com/files/tests/windows media encoder capture.wmv] 655 KB

http://84user.webs.com/files/tests/mpcwmpfraps.wmv 211 KB

[http://84user.webs.com/files/tests/windows%20media%20encoder%20capture.wmv.ogg http://84user.webs.com/files/tests/windows media encoder capture.wmv.ogg] 4025 KB

The first is a windows media encoder capture of me using the English wikipedia pages [[:en:Talk:Windows Media Encoder]] and [[:en:Fraps]] and then [[:en:Windows Media Encoder]], total time one minute 27 seconds.

The second is a shortened windows media encoder capture of me replaying the first inside Media Player Classic, total time 32 seconds.

The third is the first converted to an OGG video file (4.1 MB and the frames are flipped).
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 21:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC) <small>fixed URLs -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 02:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)</small>

=== GraphEdit example walkthrough ===
Here are detailed notes, mostly for my benefit, on how to convert video recorded from a computer screen to Theora using Windows Media Encoder (wmenc) and GraphEdit, both Microsoft products. A Graphedit bug mandates clicking the "New" menu item each time a new conversion is required.

* My wmenc.exe was found in C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder, and has version 9.0.0.2980, size 599 KB, last modified 11/12/2002 20:38 (2002-12-11 in ISO format)
* I forgot where I got graphedt.exe from, but its version is 9.4.78.0 last modified 04/03/2006 08:22 (2006-03-04 in ISO format) It came with a small windows help file which states "It is provided as an executable with the DirectX SDK."
* First, I launched wmenc.exe and set the controls to record the exact region of the screen I wished for, at high quality. I click Start encoding, and then perform mouse and keyboard actions to produce the effects I wish to record and then click Stop encoding. This produces the small file "video.wmv" which Media Player Classic plays back with no problem.
* Next, I launch graphedt.exe and the blank "GraphEdit" window appears
* I drag the saved "video.wmv" file to the "GraphEdit" window and it displays three boxes shown here in Ascii:
_____________ ___________________________ _________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|VMR Input0 |
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Video Renderer |
| | | | | |
--------------- ----------------------------- -------------------

'''Insert Theora Encode Filter'''

* click on menu item Graph / Insert Filters
* scroll down to DirectShow Filters and click the "+" to expand the list
* scroll down to Theora Encode Filter and click the name to select it
* click the Insert Filter button
* click the checkbox "Favorite Filter?" so that a checkmark appears (do this for all filters inserted)
* (optionally you can also click the "+" to expand it and note the filename is something like C:\Program Files\Xiph.Org\Ogg Codecs\dsfTheoraEncoder.dll)
* click the Close button
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ ___________________________ _________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|VMR Input0 |
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Video Renderer |
| | | | | |
--------------- ----------------------------- -------------------
___________________________
| |
|Theora In Theora Out|
| Theora Encode Filter |
| |
-----------------------------
* select the arrow shown as "out0|--->|VMR Input0" and press backspace to delete it
* click the now free output pin "out0" and drag it to the free input pin "Theora In" to connect the two boxes.
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ ___________________________ ___________________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|Theora In Theora Out|
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Theora Encode Filter |
| | | | | |
--------------- ----------------------------- -----------------------------

'''Insert Ogg Mux Filter'''

* click on menu item Graph / Insert Filters
* scroll down to DirectShow Filters and click the "+" to expand the list
* scroll down to Ogg Mux Filter and click the name to select it
* a dialog opens titled "Select an output file for this filter to use"
* enter a suitable output filename, such as "videowmv.ogv" and click Open (yes it's misleading); the dialog will close
* (do not forget to also mark this as a "Favorite Filter")
* click the Close button to close the "Which filters do you want to insert?" dialog
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ _________________________ _________________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|Theora In Theora Out|
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Theora Encode Filter |
| | | | | |
--------------- --------------------------- ---------------------------
_________________
| |
|Ogg Packet In |
| videowmv.ogv |
| |
-------------------
* click the free output pin "Theora Out" and drag it to the free input pin "Ogg Packet In" to connect the two boxes.
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ _________________________ ________________________ ________________
| | | | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|Theora In Theora Out|--> |Ogg Packet In |
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Theora Encode Filter | | videowmv.ogv |
| | | | | | |Ogg Packet In |
--------------- --------------------------- -------------------------- ------------------

Press the button icon depicted as a green triangle, with tooltip "Play", and GraphEdit will convert the source video.wmv to videowmv.ogv (an OGV containing a Theora video stream), '''but''' it may be vertically reflected, see [[#Fixing vertical flipping in GraphEdit]] for how to fix this.

-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:03, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

=== Fixing vertical flipping in GraphEdit ===
First, ensure you have made the filters used in the [[#GraphEdit example walkthrough]] as "Favorite Filter", otherwise you will end up repeating a lot of scrolling and searching.

Next, you must start GraphEdit from a blank window by clicking New after each conversion attempt, otherwise GraphEdit simply produces null output with no warnings. So, in short, at each conversion you click "New" and drag the source WMV file to GraphEdit, then insert filters from your Favorites, join them together and press play. There may be an alternative workaround using save as graph, I have not tested this (out of frustration) but that will entail renaming or copying source video files to "video.wmv" and remembering to rename the OGV file produced, each time.

* click "New" in GraphEdit
* drag video.wmv to GraphEdit

'''Insert ffdshow raw video filter'''

* If "ffdshow raw video filter" is in your Favorites then just click on it, otherwise:
** click on menu item Graph / Insert Filters
** scroll down to DirectShow Filters and click the "+" to expand the list
** scroll down to "ffdshow raw video filter" and click the name to select it
** click the Insert Filter button
** click the checkbox "Favorite Filter?" so that a checkmark appears
** click the Close button
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ ___________________________ _________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|VMR Input0 |
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | Video Renderer |
| | | | | |
--------------- ----------------------------- -------------------
_______________________________
| |
|In Out|
| ffdshow raw video filter |
|In Text |
---------------------------------
* select the arrow shown as "out0|--->|VMR Input0" and press backspace to delete it
* click the now free output pin "out0" and drag it to the free input pin "In" to connect the two boxes.
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ _________________________ _____________________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|In Out|
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | ffdshow raw video filter |
| | | | |In Text |
--------------- --------------------------- -------------------------------
* Right mouse-click over "ffdshow raw video filter" and click on "Filter Properties ...."
* a dialog titled "ffdshow raw video filter properties" appears
* scroll down to "Perspective correction" and click on it
* note the destination rectangle coordinates, the default is: [0,100] [100,100] [0,0] [100,0]
* the correction you want is: [0,0] [100,0] [0,100] [100,100]
* you only do the following once, thereafter the settings are saved:
** manipulate the green rectangle until the coordinates show as [0,0] [100,0] [0,100] [100,100]
** to do this, click and drag the top green line down about a half,
** and click and drag the bottom green line up all the way to the top
** return to the green line now half way down and drag it all the way to the bottom
** hover your mouse over "Perspective correction" and ensure the coordinates are now [0,0] [100,0] [0,100] [100,100]
** ensure the box "Process whole image" is checked and the "Only right half" box is not
** ensure the box "Perspective correction" is checked and the "Source rectangle" box is not
** ensure Interpolation is none
** click Apply and click OK

'''Insert Theora Encode Filter'''

* click on Favorites and click on "Theora Encode Filter"
* the GraphEdit window now shows
_____________ _________________________ _____________________________
| | | | | |
| Raw Video 0|-->|in0 out0|--->|In Out|
| video.wmv | | WMV Screen decoder DMO | | ffdshow raw video filter |
| | | | |In Text |
--------------- --------------------------- -------------------------------
___________________________
| |
|Theora In Theora Out|
| Theora Encode Filter |
| |
-----------------------------
* join the pins "Out" and "Theora In" together

'''Insert Ogg Mux Filter'''

* click on Favorites and click on "Ogg Mux Filter", and type in an output ".ogv" filename, such as "videowmvfixed.ogv"
* join the pins "Theora Out" and "Ogg Packet In" together

Click the play button and GraphEdit should produce a "videowmvfixed.ogv" that plays correctly in Firefox and MPC

-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:03, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

===More WME and GraphEdit notes===
WME is Windows Media Encoder, program name wmenc.exe:
* to configure screen capture: View/Properties Panel/Sources tab/Video configure
* to set output file: View/Properties Panel/Output tab/Encode to file
* to change quality: View/Properties Panel/Compression tab/Destination Custom Edit.../ for codecs, choose "Windows Media Video 9 Screen" and Video Format "Custom" (neither NTSC nor PAL is any good to me) . Next tab for frame rate, bit rates and more
* to change processing: View/Properties Panel/Processing tab/ note "Flip vertically" produced a jumbled mess
* do not forget to click Apply after any changes to properties (sometimes more than once)

'''Using the ffdshow raw video filter in GraphEdit to correct or enhance colours.'''

To get really white whites and black blacks, set Contrast to Full Range:
* ffdshow raw video filter properties/Output/RGB conversion/ from "Standard 16-235 chroma" to "Full range 0-255 chroma 1-255"
* the filter appears to only colour-correct a region of whole multiples of 16 pixels, so ensure your source video has compatible dimensions
* video players might apply their own post-processing that affects the colour and saturation
* test whether video players are changing the colours using IrfanView snapshots of players, Edit/Show Paint dialog/picker tool and examine the RGB numbers

-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:03, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

== Converting an animated GIF ==

[[File:Scm_gif_q10_240p.ogv|frame|right|compact Theora converted from full size animated [[:File:Scm.gif]] ]]
Here is a walkthrough of a conversion from an animated GIF to a Theora OGG video. I chose [[:File:Scm.gif]] because it is so large that certain players and encoders have problems handling it. The resulting Theora OGG video files are [[:File:Scm_gif_fullsize_q10.ogv]] (1944x1296 pixels, 1.3 MB), [[:File:Scm_gif_q9_480p.ogv]] (720x480 pixels, 222 KB) and [[:File:Scm_gif_q10_240p.ogv]] (360x240 pixels, 72 KB). Firefox 3.6.3 plays each of them correctly. MPC and VLC have various problems, probably with the low frame rate.

Programs used:
* mplayer.exe inside latest [[:w:en:SMPlayer]] install (MPlayer Sherpya-SVN-r29355-4.5.0 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team)
* ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe (because version 0.26 ignores the requested frame rate)

Steps:
# download the 7 frame 9 megabyte [[:File:Scm.gif]] to PC
# <code>mplayer Scm.gif -vo yuv4mpeg</code>
# <code>ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe stream.yuv --inputfps 1 --framerate 1 --videoquality 10 --output stream025ifps1fr1vq10.ogv</code>
# upload stream025ifps1fr1vq10.ogv as [[:File:Scm_gif_fullsize_q10.ogv]]
# <code>ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe stream.yuv --inputfps 1 --framerate 1 --height 480 --videoquality 10 --output stream025ifps1fr1vq9h480.ogv</code>
# upload stream025ifps1fr1vq9h480.ogv as [[:File:Scm_gif_q9_480p.ogv]]
# <code>ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe stream.yuv --inputfps 1 --framerate 1 --height 240 --videoquality 10 --output stream025ifps1fr1vq10h240.ogv</code>
# upload stream025ifps1fr1vq10h240.ogv as [[:File:Scm_gif_q10_240p.ogv]]

Writing these steps down helped me, so I hope it helps others. (Abandoned methods: mplayer dumping to PNG frames, using ffmpeg2theora-0.26.exe) -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
:Thanks for this easy to follow tutorial. I was looking for something like this. Now if only the Theora to GIF tutorial was this easy. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

'''Note''' there <s>is</s>was a wikimedia bug, [[bugzilla:23160]] "Theora video thumbnails corrupt", now fixed, that may have prevented the correct display of video thumbnails. <s>If you see a blank or corrupt thumbnail after uploading an OGG video, do not panic, the video file is probably 100% correct. You can confirm the OGG video is correct by (1) clicking the link under the play button and watching the browser play the file, and (2) downloading it to your computer and playing it in Media Player Classic.</s> -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 12:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC) (<small>updated -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)</small>)

== Converting a Theora OGG video to an animated GIF ==
This is a response to the wish that the Theora to GIF tutorial could be easier. If the following works, it should be simpler than that described above in [[Help talk:Converting video#Convert OGV to animated GIF|Convert OGV to animated GIF]].
* Compact but framerate can be wrong: <code>mplayer.exe video.ogv -fps 1 -vo gif89a<code>
* With option to save audio: <code>mplayer.exe video.ogv -fps 1 -vo gif89a -ao pcm<code>
* Without sound: <code>mplayer.exe video.ogv -fps 1 -vo gif89a -nosound<code>

The first command above will convert video.ogv to "out.gif", the second will do the same but also save the audio channel (if any) in file "audiodump.wav". MPlayer has problems with certain input OGG video files.

Use gifsicle to examine the created GIF:
* <code>gifsicle.exe --info out.gif</code>

Use gifsicle to fix the framerate of the GIF that MPlayer creates, for example:
* <code>gifsicle.exe --delay 100 out.gif > out100.gif</code>

One major problem is the colour reduction: the user must choose how the colour palette is to be reduced to GIF's 256 colour limit. If MPlayer's default reduction looks bad (it may look blocky) then the video needs to be converted to a sequence of images so that their colour palettes can be manually changed.
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

{| class="wikitable"
! MPlayer converted this OGV !! ... to this GIF
|-
| [[File:Cal16x16check vdnocnoafr1len2.avi.vlc.ogv|inline]] || [[File:Cal16x16check vdnocnoafr1len2.avi.vlc ogv.gif|inline]]
|----
| [[File:Check64x48bwrg16pal 25fps noaudio.avi.026v10.ogv|inline]] || [[File:Check64x48bwrg16pal 25fps noaudio.avi.026v10 ogv.gif|inline]]
|---
| [[File:Cal 2flip ifps25fr25 q10.ogv|inline]] || [[File:Cal 2flip ifps25fr25 q10_ogv.gif|inline]]
|}
Above are example OGV files and the GIFs that MPlayer converted. Notice the odd colour changes. For the third video I had to choose a strange frame rate and GIF frame delay (details in the file's page description). -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 00:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

== Online solutions review ==

The [[Help:Converting video]] page includes a "Online solutions" with a link to http://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-ogg. Has anyone tested how well this works?

I suggest a caveat be added to warn the user that it may not work for some kinds of input. I think Commons should avoid wasting a user's time uploading a large video only to find the result is unplayable. To that end here is my very short test review.

* [[:File:Changing island.gif]] default -> 20 KB OGG file only had one frame
* [[:File:Changing island.gif]] frame rate 1 -> result was only one frame
* [[:File:LocationNetherlands.gif]] frame rate 2 -> result was only one frame
Now, with ffmpeg2theora.exe (version 0.25, 0.26 or the latest 16 March 2010 version) I also get single frame OGV output, so I wonder if online-convert.com is using the same program. I found the only way to convert these GIFs to OGG was to use "mplayer -vo yuvmpeg" first (see above at [[Help talk:Converting video#Converting an animated GIF|Converting an animated GIF]]). -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 23:38, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
:I left only that link out of ~5 services because it was the only one that uses the latest ffmpeg2theora version (.26). I also experimented with it using a couple video files (avi, mp4, mpeg) and was satisfied with its results. Because it's using ffmpeg2theora, the web service won't work if the application isn't able to do it. I agree that users should use some of the other tools before trying this option, but I know that there are people out there more comfortable with this solution. Secondly, most videos on Commons are less than 15mb so I think it's an acceptable solution to have listed. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 22:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

== Video thumbnail error ==

[[File:Feeding rotifer.ogv|thumb|Video of a feeding rotifer]]

The video I uploaded can be played OK, but does not generate a proper thumbnail. I converted it to OGG using Miro Video Converter, from a .WMV file made in Picasa. Can this problem be fixed? Is it worth trying again with a different encoder? [[User:NotFromUtrecht|NotFromUtrecht]] ([[User talk:NotFromUtrecht|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 17:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
:It is likely a problem related to [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23160 this Wikimedia bug], not the encoder. Hopefully they can fix the issue soon. [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 18:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
::Thanks for the info -- I won't bother re-uploading the video, then. [[User:NotFromUtrecht|NotFromUtrecht]] ([[User talk:NotFromUtrecht|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 14:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

:::ffmpeg2theora version 0.24 is giving good thumbnails for me lately. Versions 0.25, 0.26 and from 2010-03-16 always gives garbled or missing thumbnails. For small examples see [[:File:SDO 10 second youtube 1080 pixels DA8C8E04d01.flv 320x240 br270.ogv]] and [[:File:Solar Dynamics Observatory xo with ffmpeg2theora-0.24 320x240 br270.ogv]]. I will also mention this at [[Commons:Village pump#Theora thumbnails]]. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 20:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::The version of ffmpeg2theora itself isn't relevant. It just happens that your ffmpeg2theora 0.24 binary is linked against a version of libtheora which is not happening to trigger the bug in the software at Wikimedia. --[[User:Gmaxwell|Gmaxwell]] ([[User talk:Gmaxwell|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 00:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

== Changing frame rate with Avidemux ==

The frame rate of a source video may be either too fast or too slow for display. Here is a walkthrough on using Avidemux to losslessly change the frame rate before converting to Theora OGG.

For unknown reasons I find ffmpeg2theora (any version) ignores the framerate options for certain source videos. For this walkthrough the NASA movie at http://www.nasa.gov/mov/445812main_Pesnell_6-AIA-3WavelengthDissolve-H264.mov is used because it has a frame rate of 60000:1001 which is too fast and wastes bitrate for some users (me for example). [[:File:SDO AIA First light prominence 20100330.ogv]] is the result of following this walkthrough using 29.97 frames per second (any garbled thumbnail is due to a wikimedia bug that should hopefully be fixed soon).

Programs used:
* Avidemux version 2.5.2 on Windows Vista
* ffmpeg2theora version 20100316, but 0.25 or 0.26 should be just as good

Steps:
* launch Avidemux and set Video to Copy and Audio to Copy and Format to MP4
* drag the source video to the Avidemux window, ignore the H.264 warning by clicking No and ignore the "Index is out of date" by clicking No
* click the Avidemux Video menu "Frame Rate..."
* the Change Frame Rate window will show 59.942, change this to your desired frame rate, choose 15 for this example, and click Ok (29.97 could be another choice)
* double-check that Video is Copy, and Audio is Copy and Format is MP4
* click File / Save / Save Video
* Type a filename, such as "videoat15fps.mp4" and click Save
* The save will be very fast because there is no re-encoding necessary, and hence no loss of quality
* Check the saved video plays with Media Player Classic and VLC (these may have problems with low frame rates, so also try MPlayer)
* convert the saved video to Theora using ffmpeg2theora as normal (but avoid using the framerate options)
-[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 14:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

== Mencoder help ==

I have started page [[Help:Mencoder]] on how to use [[:w:en:Mencoder|Mencoder]] to convert videos, mainly from a source OGG to another format (for video sharing sites). It starts with actual command lines that worked for me, including some problems found. There is some help for Mencoder on the web but it is difficult for me to follow in practice. I am doing this because I find it very difficult to correctly convert OGG video to any other format using a local Windows-based program, except by trial and error. I know there are online converters that sometimes work, but they are impractical for videos of any size, and they also require tweaking to ensure quality is not lost. -[[User:84user|84user]] ([[User talk:84user|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 19:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
:Which format do you want to convert to? h.264? xvid? [[User:Mahanga|mahanga]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 19:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

== Firefogg dogs? ==

Is there somewhere a documentation to Firefogg? It seems to me, that it doesnt convert from .mov files:-(--[[User:Juan de Vojníkov|Juan de Vojníkov]] ([[User talk:Juan de Vojníkov|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 21:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
:Firefogg, in my experiences, has been able to convert mov files. You can try [http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/ miro converter] or if you'd like, you can host the file somewhere and I can (try to) convert it for you. [[User:Mahanga|<span style="color:darkred">Mahanga</span>]] ([[User talk:Mahanga|<font color="green">Talk</font>]]) 23:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

== Cannot get rid of the duplicate frames in the output .ogv file ==

For the MPEG-4 video file [http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B6tCiQaWS8fGMThmOTk3YjgtZWM0Ny00ODc1LWI0YWMtNjBlOGYwZDc2MDM5 VJSC_1425B-q1.mp4] which has a constant frame rate of 23.98 fps, I can't get an output .ogv file with the same frame rate. The output file frame rate always turns out to be variable, and significantly higher than 24 fps (it's even over 30 fps!). The frame rate is so high because for some reason, the encoder inserts many duplicate frames. The greater the difference between successive frames, the more frequent are these duplicate frames. This is so even if I extract all the frames of the input files as JPEG images and then "assemble" them into an .ogv file (that is, the problem is not in the input file). The constant frame rate is important for this file, because when it is browsed frame by frame (for example to better see some quick events), the duplicate frames are very annoying and disturb the process. I've tried many programmes, but all of them are based on libtheora, even the online converter, and hence the problem persists with all of them. My ffmpeg2theora version is 0.26. Does anybody know a programme that doesn't use libtheora, licavcodec or ffmpeg2theora but does the encoding on its own? If not, the only solution would be to ask for help the Theora developers themselves. Thanks in advance! --[[User:Лъчезар|Лъчезар]] ([[User talk:Лъчезар|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]]) 14:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 07:50, 22 July 2024

Start a new discussion

APIError: titleblacklist-custom-space

[edit]

I've just tried to upload a video from YouTube and it throws up an error message including what I've pasted into the header. The full error message is:

An exception occurred: TaskError: b"b'pywikibot.Error: APIError: titleblacklist-custom-space: \\xe2\\xa7\\xbctitleblacklist-custom-space\\xe2\\xa7\\xbd\\n[filekey: 19s4rm3m2fgg.7r0gca.860615.webm;\\n sessionkey: 19s4rm3m2fgg.7r0gca.860615.webm;\\n invalidparameter: filename;\\n help: See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-api-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/> for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes.]'"

Could somebody please have a look and advise what's going on? Schwede66 04:24, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It should be just as easy to upload a video to Commons as it is to YouTube

[edit]

You know if Commons installed some of these apps itself, then it could do the conversion "under the hood", and then users could upload videos just as easily as they can currently upload them to YouTube. Jidanni (talk) 13:43, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

👍 Nick Moyes (talk) 13:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Linux using VAAPI on Intel devices: Two passes not necessary anymore?

[edit]

The Linux and OS X command line section gives an example using two ffmpeg passes, which supposedly is recommended for better quality. The Linux using VAAPI on Intel devices gives an example using hardware acceleration via vaapi, but it's only a single ffmpeg command. I'm comfortable with CLI but have no experience with ffmpeg and encoding/decoding, so I'm not sure, is this single command already doing two passes? Or is it using a completely different algorithm where two passes are not necessary? Is the result the same or better/worse than the above two-pass method without vaapi? I think it would be nice to add a sentence, e.g. that the vaapi encoders make 2 passes not necessary, achieving similar results, or something like that. Elimik31 (talk) Elimik31 (talk) 21:48, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you try and compare them you should see the difference: the vaapi command is expected to provide larger files for a similar quality video but should do it in much less time and more energy efficiently. Those commands are using different hardware in your computer. The CPU can be instructed to analyse the video file as a whole. Hence, the first pass is used for analysis. The GPU uses one of its hardcoded algorithms and basically treats the video as a stream, so there are less options to configure and it provides less optimized files. Therefore, the two-pass command should be preferred whenever possible. But in some cases you will find that with larger video files it takes too long or fails at all on your specific hardware due to slower CPU or little RAM. Then you can try to take advantage of vaapi. Роман Рябенко (talk) 07:18, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ffmpeg guidance

[edit]

I think we should probably start recommending AV1 over VP9 at this point, especially because the optimal AV1 command is much much simpler; we can do away with the two-pass and script nonsense. Here's the new guidance I'm thinking:

ffmpeg -hwaccel auto -i input -c:a libopus -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 35 -preset 10 output.webm

  • "crf" stands for "constant rate factor". The lower the value, the higher the subjective quality of the video, but the larger the file size. It accepts a value from 0 to 63, with 35 as the default; you can raise it a little if the video is too large, or lower it a little if the video looks bad.
  • The preset dictates the compression speed/efficiency trade off. The higher the value, the faster the encode, but the larger the file size. It accepts value from 0 to 12, with 10 as the default; set this to the lowest value you have the patience for.

I think we can even get rid of the part about audio bitrate. Just let Opus's VBR magic sort it out. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 03:43, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While we're at it, let's get rid of avconv, which is no longer maintained. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]