adobe premiere pro, virtualdub, and MOV files in h.264 format

[bringthenasty]

i have a canon S90 that records MOV files in h.264 format. i am using adobe premiere pro to put them all together, but i cannot keep my final production from coming out with an entirely black screen.

what i tried first was selecting Microsoft AVI from the general tab when exporting my movie in premiere then selecting the codec i wished to use from the video tab. divx was my first choice, but the final production renders with sound, but is all black. i've tried several other codecs and they either cause my windows xp explorer (not internet explorer) or media player to crash, are all black, or the audio is completely out of sync.

selecting uncompressed microsoft avi yielded other horrible results.

so then i selected Microsoft DV AVI and it finally produced a video that looked and sounded good. however, it's 1.7 gigs, so i thought i'd throw it into virtualdub to shrink it down with divx. lo and behold, the compressed video came out BLACK.

i then used quicktime pro to export all my movie files to uncompressed avi files. when i put them through virtual dub using divx, it's black!

what is going on?

btw, i posted here bcuz this topic didn't seem like it fit in the other more narrowly focused topics.

EDIT: also, when i try to open one of these MOV files in avidemux, i get this message:

H.264 detected

If the file is using B-frames as reference it can lead to crash or stuttering. [blah blah]

anyone know what's up with these MOV files?

[bringthenasty]

i have been searching for days on how to convert my h.264 MOV files to a format for which i can use virtualdub to encode to divx. however, my searching always ends up in vain. i am not too much of a technically oriented person, so giant walls of technical jargon all explaining how to do it in different ways just frustrates the crap out of me. i don't want to download 50 codec packs and don't feel like downloading 5 different programs to get it to work. the command-line-driven apps are the worst. i paste the command line parameters that seem to work for someone else into my command window, but something always goes wrong. i just don't have the time to sit and read up on how all this works.

on this planet, is there one free app that can take an h.264 MOV file and convert it to a plain, uncompressed avi that i can encode with any other codec of my choosing?

i never thought something like this would be so difficult. well, i was wrong.

i am a bit frustrated here if no one is able to tell.

[Inspector.Gadget]

Why would you dupe a thread you posted today? The best that can happen is that you'll get adviced fragmented in two places and will reduce the speed with which your problem is resolved.

We work with samples. If you would like someone to explain to you how to get one of these files into Avisynth so you can use Virrtualdub to compress to DivX, the fastest way to get that done is to post a short movie in that format so we can check compatibility with existing source plugins and help you troubleshoot any rare issues. Generally, given H.264 content, I would demux it with ffmpeg, index and frameserve it with either DGAVCIndex/AVCSource() or DGIndexNV/DGMultiSource(), load the audio into the script with either NicAudio() or DirectShowSource() depending on the source format and my needs, combine the two with AudioDub(), and encode away.

The message you posted in the other thread about Avidemux ONLY MATTERS if you plan to do frame-level cutting and splitting or operations requiring similar access. For straight encoding, either mode will be fine (though the safer mode will help you avoid increasingly rare crashes that you may hit in the other mode).

[foxyshadis]

Merging the threads into the AVC forum (though containers would also make sense).

I always have problems even getting h264-in-mov with b-frames to play without stuttering (b-frames being played in coding order, not picture order). I rarely need them, so I don't really care enough to fix it, but FFMS2 in avisynth does a good job at converting them.

As for a dirt simple app for windows to do what you want: MediaCoder. Exporting to uncompressed is a slow and wasteful intermediate step, but it'll do it if you ask.

[nm]

what i tried first was selecting Microsoft AVI from the general tab when exporting my movie in premiere then selecting the codec i wished to use from the video tab. divx was my first choice, but the final production renders with sound, but is all black.

[...]

so then i selected Microsoft DV AVI and it finally produced a video that looked and sounded good. however, it's 1.7 gigs, so i thought i'd throw it into virtualdub to shrink it down with divx. lo and behold, the compressed video came out BLACK.

i then used quicktime pro to export all my movie files to uncompressed avi files. when i put them through virtual dub using divx, it's black!


Clearly either your DivX encoder or the decoder is broken. Have you tried playing the final videos with VLC (which doesn't use DirectShow codecs)?

[audyovydeo]

on this planet, is there one free app that can take an h.264 MOV file and convert it to a plain, uncompressed avi that i can encode with any other codec of my choosing?

i never thought something like this would be so difficult. well, i was wrong.



Free, yes, but not a single app, and probably not easy for you.
The most obvious choice is QuickTime Player Pro.
You'll then be able to export to avi with any codec short of DivX, then recompress with something else again.

(remember nevertheless that converting H.264 to DivX makes little sense, from any point of view. But of course you can do it).

cheers
audyovydeo

[GodofaGap]

I'm willing to make a bet that DivX gives black video because you have it set to first pass. If the MOV files is not too exotic VirtualDub (1.9.9) should be able to open it with Haali + ffdshow and the DirectShow plugin.

[Ghitulescu]

According to the Canon USA (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=144&modelid=19210#BoxContentsAct) there's a customised solution for this camera.

You don't need Premiere to put things in order, just use the provided software to get the movie in one file, then find out the format (you said H.264) and the container (you said MOV).

The next thing is to demux the MOV, use avidemux, vdub+qt, or even better yamb (latest beta can this according to changes history). Then process the files separately according to your needs.

[bringthenasty]

I'm willing to make a bet that DivX gives black video because you have it set to first pass. If the MOV files is not too exotic VirtualDub (1.9.9) should be able to open it with Haali + ffdshow and the DirectShow plugin.

now that's a good observation bcuz i had it set to 1st pass, multi-pass. i changed it to 1-pass and it works excellently. i then took it a step further and used 1-pass quantizer-based instead of bit-rate-based and it worked even better for me.

for some reason, though, i still can't use avisynth to frameserve these mov files into virtualdub. it just shows up in vdub as dual blank screens. oh well. it does what i want, so thanks for pointing that out!

:thanks:

[bringthenasty]

We work with samples. If you would like someone to explain to you how to get one of these files into Avisynth so you can use Virrtualdub to compress to DivX, the fastest way to get that done is to post a short movie in that format so we can check compatibility with existing source plugins and help you troubleshoot any rare issues.

here's a short MOV clip that i just recorded with my canon s90.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PG77H9QN

i can't seem to frameserve it (nor any other movie files recorded with this camera) into vdub using avisyth's directshowsource(). when i frameserve to vdub, both preview windows are blank. oddly, i can use quicktime pro to select all and copy, paste it into a new movie file, save it, and then frameserve it. perhaps you or someone else will have some luck with this one.

[Blue_MiSfit]

The s90 shoots H.264 and PCM in a MOV container. I have one too, AWESOME little camera, huh??

If you want to bring that into AviSynth, I'd suggest remuxing it to an MKV container, or possibly using ffms2 on the source directly.

Derek