Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 12:09:12 -0700 (PDT) From: just matt <matt@dqc.org> Cc: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: fxtv - NTSC taps Message-ID: <Pine.BSO.4.21.0004081114040.25990-100000@dqc.org> In-Reply-To: <20000407180658.A1396@ipass.net>
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> |> That's what I'm after also. I found some Windows tools LSX/MPEG converter. > |> Free (30s play time limited) demo. > |> Havn't yet found a commandline tool for that. > | > |fxtv _uses_ a commandline tool for this in the script that it creates, > |though it isn't in the ports collection. > |That is, why I haven't tried any further yet. > > The packages it uses are all in the ports collection. But I've never > gotten anything but noise from the mpeg_musicin build from the FreeBSD > port. Rebuild the mpeg_musicin source without the port and it works great. > See the blurb in Appendix A of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fxtv/README for details. Yes, I can say for sure that the instructions in the fxtv README help in encoding mpeg's. Unfortunately, you will probably run into other problems. I'll list some of the crazy inconsistencies I've experienced. If you experience the same or others, let me know, I might have found a solution. I try and work through these problems as time permits, though each dilema seems to branch into several.. First, mpeg's greater in length than 9 minutes or so become broken. By broken, I mean, 30 seconds or so of good video followed by the video(and audio if using mtv) streams freezing. Shorter videos (less than 9 minutes) don't seem to experience this problem. I've gotten around this by using an mpeg_cat utility and just recording clips 8 minutes or shorter. It works but it's annoying. Second, when using the snd0 device, mpeg streams come out twice as big as when using pcm0. I've never solved this problem, but a vcd quality movie should be about 10 megabytes per minute of video, pcm0 keeps to that size, where as snd0 seems to take 20MB per minute. The video intermediates (before multiplexing) are the same size whichever deivce you use, but the audio streams are wildly different in size, and lead to the bloated mpegs. if you use snd0. 3rd, (This one's a new one), both pcm0 and the newpcm deal under 3.4 and 4.0 respecively, don't seem to be able to record audio via fxtv anymore. If anyone knows why this is please let me know, because I'd lvoe to get pcm0 working again for recording audio. I didn't mess with fxtv/recording audio whether in video or just straight audio for about a month, and when I came back, bang, no more audio, just noise that doesn't even resemble the audio I recorded. Even recording str8 audio in aiff or raw formats gives me the same results. This is the problem I'm working on right now. I wish to god I could figure it out. 4th, I believe the video streams produced during this process are not exactly "up-to-code" as far as the mpeg-1 standard is concerned. Multiple win32 programs designed to edit mpeg-1 video streams scream about the bitrate being negative, and hardware mpeg-1 decoders generally won't play the mpeg's you make with this process. I think it's the video stream that's the problem, although a few months ago I thought it was the mplex program, but after using several multiplexing programs across different platforms, I'm convinced the problem is in the video stream. Sadly, the only home-made mpeg's I've been able to play on my hardware mpeg-1 decoders have been those produced with win32 encoders. I've tried playing/editing the samples on the fxtv page with the same luck as those I've made, so I think this problem is probably pretty universal, and is probably at the heart of the first problem I described, about the streams freezing. Well, those are the big problems I've experienced. If anyone knows how to get around these problems(or wants to donate a copy of the iso/iec mpeg-1 video/audio/system papers to me so I have some point of reference when trying to figure out problems with mpeg-1 streams), let me know. If you've had problems with encoding mpeg's with fxtv/freebsd other than those listed, drop me a line, I might have had the problem before. - Matt p.s. - now that my rant about mpeg encoding is over, how about a short rant about newpcm... when will it let me play mp3's without skipping all the time if the load average rises just a touch? I used to be able to run 3 compile jobs, run netscape, and use mpg123 to play things without any skipping, now I can't even run one compile job without massive skipping. Is there any hope of this being fixed? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-multimedia" in the body of the message
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