flash flv codec

[lilhobo]

isnt sorenson using some vp6 codec in their flash video codec....??

[Sharktooth]

maybe you mean macromedia...
yes, they use VP6 from on2.

[the Mad Duke]

You can get the VP6 plugin for the latest version of Sorenson Squeeze. Some people prefer Squeeze over On2 Flix. I've never tried Squeeze.

http://www.sorensonmedia.com/solutions/prod/vp6_win.php

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Is it possible to convert a .flv file to AVI or MP4 :confused:

[Little_Dragon]

Is it possible to convert a .flv file to AVI or MP4 :confused:

Yes. I'm currently using eRightSoft's transcoder, Super, for such purposes.

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

[Chainmax]

" The download size is 18 MBytes, and comes with all windows compiled versions of ffmpeg, mencoder, mplayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora and the libavcodec library.""

Mmm...does that mean that it installs all those codecs/players? If so, is there more barebones alternative to just convert FLV to HuffYUv avi?

[smok3]

afaik you can do it with mencoder 'simply' from cli.

[Chainmax]

Care to expand on this? I never used mencoder.

[smok3]

something like
mencoder file.flv -o file.avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=500
could just work...

mencoder compiles
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php

[Chainmax]

I'm trying to encode to huffyuv, not xvid, can mencoder do that?

[Chainmax]

Does it?


Little_Dragon: could you please answer my question about Super?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Converting FLV with MEncoder to x264 or XviD is easy to do :)

Unfortunately audio/video get unsynchron in some cases :mad:
But might be a problem with my specific FLV file...

[Chainmax]

I'm trying Super right now and other than registering a bunch of filters (nothing that can't be solved by uninstalling it and reinstalling ffdshow I guess), it seems to be ok. Weird thing: even though I selected huffyuv as video codec and pcm wav as audio codec, I have to select bitrates. I have no idea if it respects them in this case. Also, contrary to video size and aspect ratio, I have to manually select a framerate :confused:.

[hellfred]

I'm trying to encode to huffyuv, not xvid, can mencoder do that?
Yes, mencoder can encode your video to huffyuv, even in the yv12 colour space. See mencoder manpagemencoder ... -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv -oac ...
for yv12mencoder ... -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffvhuff:vstrict=-2 -oac ...More options to set: pred
(for HuffYUV)
0 left prediction
1 plane/gradient prediction
2 median prediction
Add the option to the other lavcopts with a ':' inbetween
mencoder .. -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffvhuff:vsctrict=-2:ped=2 -oac ...

Hellfred

[Little_Dragon]

Little_Dragon: could you please answer my question about Super?

Yes, it installs copies of all that stuff, into subfolders under Super.

[Adz]

Is it possible to convert a .flv file to AVI or MP4 :confused:

ffmpeg

http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC16

[bond]

how is this conversion in ffmpeg and mplayer possible if the .flv contains vp6 video?

[Adz]

you can do it with mencoder using dll's

http://www.hollmen.dk/articles/nsvtoavi.htm#Method_2

[vlada]

Hello,
I have a FLV video which I cannot convert to anything usable. I started a thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=109962) for my problem, but haven't got any answer. Sorry for crossposting, but I haven't found this discussion before.
I tried almost everything there is, but without success. The file plays in standard flash web plugin and also in FLV Player. But if I try it in MPC, I only get sound (MP3). I also registred Gabest's DirectShow splitter and opened the FLV file in Graphedit. But the splitter only has audio output pin, there is no video.
So now I found your advices here and I wanted to try mencoder. I downloaded the VP6VfW.DLL and put it in the same folder as mencoder.exe. Then I tried command line
mencoder input.flv -o output.flv -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv
After some time mencoder crashes, I found in the output this:
VIDEO: 0x0 0bpp 30.333 fps 0.0 kbps
filefmt: 35 fourcc:0x4
Do you have any idea what is mencoder trying to tell me? Do I have to load the VP6 DLL somehow? Please help me, I'm going mad. :scared:

Thanks,
Vlada

[LoRd_MuldeR]

For me MEncoder does the job...

Are you sure you use an up-to-date version of MEncoder ???


BTW: MEnocder won't load any DLLs, excepts the Codec package from "codecs" subfolder

[screw]

I was trying to open FLV as "DirectShowSource" by Avisynth, because it was reported that MPC (> 6.4.8.9)+FLVSplitter+FFDSHOW does play FLV, so I assumed that it shoud be available also for editing via AviSynth.
At the beginning MPC was reporting that it does not know how to decode Video.
After a lot of efforts I did discover where the problem is - in FFDSHOW by default FLV decoding is DISABLED. Go to FFDSHOW -> Video Decoder Configuration -> "FLV1" and select LIBAVCODEC for decoding.
Ather that you can play FLV in MPC or handle it by AviSynth as "DirectShowSource" (for example, encode by CCE).

Screw

[vlada]

LoRd_MuldeR> I'll try to put the .DLL file to "codecs" folder. Thanks for the advice. I have the newest version of mencoder I could find, but I'm quite sure that even the nevest version of mencoder won't decode VP6 without external decoder.

screw> What splitter do you use? I don't have problems with video decoder, but Gabest's splitter shows no output video pin.

[vlada]

Still no success. Mencoder is reporting "Unsupported video codec". I have the VP6VFW.DLL in codecs folder, where it's supposed to be. Even Mplayer can't play the file (or it plays sound only). My problem is, that after running Mencoder, there is maybe a couple of hundred lines with sentence "Unsupported video codec" and I can't roll back to the first Mencoder messages. Can I somehow run Mencoder to write me some info about the file? Can someone try to transcode the file? It has less then 5 MB, so I can send it by e-mail or put on my FTP.

Thank you.

[screw]

Well, I am using Gabest FLVSplitter, and it allows to decode FLV by FFDSHOW, but as I already mentioned, it must be enabled in FFDSHOW configuration.
If you are asking about existance of video pin, I suppose this is for Graphedit usage, so I have never used it an can not answer, if Gabest splitter is compatible with Graphedit.

[vlada]

screw> I looked in Guliverkly bugs section on Sourceforge and this problem is already mentioned there and Gabest promissed to fix it in next version.

FLV1 is probably a decoder for Sorenson Squeeze video format. But since Flash 8 VP6 is used for video encoding. You can try it yourself, just download Flas 8 demo a create there a video with default settings.

I think that Mplayer/Mencoder has the same problems with detecting VP6 video as Gabest's splitter. See this scrrenshot (http://jech.webz.cz/samples/flv.png). The VP6 decoder is in the correct "codecs" directory.

[celtic_druid]

Try: http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/Media%20Player%20Classic/external%20filters/unicode/FLVSplitter.7z

[vlada]

Try: http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/Media%20Player%20Classic/external%20filters/unicode/FLVSplitter.7z

Thanks a lot. I finally see the video output pin in graphedit. Unfortunately it only plays a few seconds a then video stops and only sound continues. Also the video is vertically flipped (upside down) but his is not a big problem.

Much worse is the fact, that if I try to convert the movie to an uncompressed AVI from Graphedit, it ends up with an "out of memory" error. Avisynth says it cannot detect framerate. If set it manually, it won't open in VD or any player again with an "out of memory" error. I tried more video samples with the same results.

Could you please check this sample (http://jech.webz.cz/samples/sample.flv) (1,3 MB), if it works for you? It is a movie a created myself from an AVI, it has 10 fps. I'll try updating AviSynth and restarting my system, I can also try it on another computer tomorrow at work. I'll let you know any results of my test. I think I'm quite close to be probably the first person on Earth who converted VP6 encoded FLV to AVI :)

Just to mention - all my files play fine in FLV Player (http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/article/flv-player-updated).

[vlada]

After some more tests I found out the following:

If I try to use Avisynth, I always get a simple "Out of memory" error in VD. ViPlay and MPC will open the file without error messages, but won't start playing. The strange thing is, that they report everything correctly - YUY2 video compression, length, resolution. But the screen is just black a clicking play button doesn't do anything.

Graphedit will start playing the file but then video stops, as I already reported earlier. If I try to convert the FLV to an uncompressed format, my computer suddenly starts using all memory (I have 512 MB RAM, about 60% is used normally). Then Graphedit shows a message saying something this: The graph could not change state
Vyrovnávací paměť není dostatečně velká. (Return code: 0x8004020d)
It can be translated as "Cache memory is not big enough". Do you have any idea what could it mean? A memory leak?

I go to sleep for today, it is almost 2:30 AM here. I'll try it on another computer tomorrow (in fact today :)).

P.S. My computer looks like this: MSI VIA KT400, Athlon XP 2000+, 512 RAM, 200GB SATA HDD, Radeon 9200, Audigy 2, Aver TVPhone98 card and some more hardware pieces like a FireWire card, Bluetooth adapter etc. An average PC. It's running WinXP Prof. SP2 (Czech). If anything of it could matter, although I don't think so.

[vlada]

So I just tried it today at work. Graphedit failed with the same error message. But surprisingly AviSynth forks O.K. and I was able to convert the video to AVI from VirtualDub. Also when playing it, it wasn't flipped. Do you have any idea what could be the problem with my computer? I think I have no other filters in my chain: source filter -> flv splitter ->
1) FFDShow audio decoder -> DirectSound Device
2) VP6 Decoder -> Video Render

I checked this in Grpahedit and MPC (in MPC internal MP3 decoder was used).

[screw]

There is new MPC build and FLVSplitter from celtic_druid (splitter is the same as in his post above). It is discussed in MPC thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=817779#post817779

I did realize, that "Out of memory" you were reporting, when opening AviSynth script for VP6 in VD, was caused by On2 VP6 decoder (vp6dec.ax). When I did unregister that and did register new FLVSplitter, everything is handled fine through AviSynth script. In this case I suppose VP6 or FLV4 is handled by FLVSplitter.

[posix]

screw, thanks a lot.

[Caleb13]

Hi everyone,

I realize that this thread has been abandoned more than half a year ago, but I think this is the best thread to ask anyway:

You see, I have a standalone (e.g. NOT muxed into a FLV file) video file encoded in VP6 codec. Just for the record, it is video file extracted from Command and Conquer 3 Demo.

So, I followed instructions in this thread in attempt to make the file playable or loadable into AviSynth, but I failed miserably - all the players and AniSynth report that they can't identify proper decompressor. Now, I'm not sure if the CnC3 video files aren't protected or deliberately corrupted to prevent "unauthorized" people from playing them, but my search on this matter ended up empty, so I don't believe this is the case.

Because the video is not in a FLV container, the FLVsplitter turned up to be simply useless to me. So, if I understood it correctly, I just need to "feed" the video file into ffdshow (which I of course set properly according to instructions in this thread), which should take care of decoding. Problem is that this is not happening. My best guess is that the CnC3 video files lack the proper fourcc code, which prevents ffdshow from recognizing them correctly. So I tried to dig up something more detailed about fourcc - I was blindly hoping that I would be able to hex-edit the video files and introduce a proper fourcc in them somehow - but I was unable to make heads nor tails from it. Or rather, I didn't understand where exactly I should put the fourcc code. And in fact, I don't even know what the code should be, as I couldn't find it in the code list:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms867195.aspx

I also tried On2's official VP6 decoder, but it didn't help in any way.

For the sake of completeness, here is header of a CnC3 video file:

MVhd vp60

Well, I'm probably just misunderstanding something. :confused: Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Fluffbutt]

I use ffplay from the ffmpeg package from here:
http://esby.free.fr/CelticDruid/mirror/ffmpeg/

just drop the flv file onto the ffplay.exe. Works here for me (obviously I've not tried your file!)

[Caleb13]

Sadly, ffplay didn't work either on my VP6 file (other video files worked fine).

[Fluffbutt]

Sorry to hear that.

Can you post the file or a link to the site you got it from.

That way others can play with it to see what we can do.

[Caleb13]

Thanks for the concern, but I think that there will be some C&C fan-made conversion tool pretty soon. After all, I extracted the video files from the C&C 3 Demo with help of such a fan-made extraction tool. Conversion capability is just matter of time now, because the game went gold about 14 days ago. Besides, all the video files are rather big, so it would just be unnecessary nuisance to up/download them.