Converting video to WMV - audio and video out of sync (ffmpeg and mencoder)

[Treppiede]

Guys,
I have an AVI video. I need to convert it to WMV.

I Googled "convert to WMV linux" and got a few results suggesting ffmpeg and mencoder.

In both cases, they seem to generate an identical file, but the audio goes out of synch by a few seconds.

Do you have any advice on how to resolve this issue?

If I recall correctly, the ffmpeg command I used didn't have special options besides input and output files... but this should be the mencoder command I ran:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -of mpeg -o output_file.wmv your_file.avi

Thank you in advance for the help!

-Walter

[shantiq]

what i would do here [for what it is worth] would be to turn your avi to mkv with handbrake to get a good and stable file [avi often is not but mkv is]

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install handbrake lame

to install; then for example [adapt to your wishes]

HandBrakeCLI -i ~/Videos/yourvid.avi -o ~/Desktop/yourvid.mkv -e ffmpeg2 -b 1500 -E lame -B 96 -r 25

insert -w and -l with number say -w 640 -l 320 if you wish to control width and height of vid


find all settings with

HandBrakeCLI -h

or use the gui


then run the mkv to wmv the way you said

ffmpeg -i yourvid.mkv -acodec copy -vcodec copy yourvid.wmv

[CaptainLinux]

Try adding -ofps to your mencoder command to make sure the frame rate is identical between the input and output files.

[Treppiede]

Awesome guys, thanks for the advice.
I'll try this later tonight or tomorrow and report back!

[Treppiede]

Guys,
I was able to use this command successfully:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy 1.avi 2.avi 3.avi 4.avi -o Full.wmv

One more question... I was asked to make the width of the viewing window 580 pixels, since he's putting it on a website and it should match the other embedded videos.

Right now the video is about 720px wide.

What's the most efficient way to accomplish this?

This is for a non-profit website, btw.

Thank you for your help.

-Walter

[shantiq]

check properties of current vid then use ffmpeg for conversion with the


-s switch as -s 580x[whatever is your height] see below for info

-s size
Set frame size. The format is wxh (ffserver default = 160x128, ffmpeg default = same as source). The following abbreviations are recognized:
sqcif
128x96
qcif
176x144
cif

352x288
4cif
704x576
16cif
1408x1152
qqvga
160x120
qvga
320x240
vga

640x480
svga
800x600
xga

1024x768
uxga
1600x1200
qxga
2048x1536
sxga
1280x1024
qsxga
2560x2048
hsxga
5120x4096
wvga
852x480
wxga
1366x768
wsxga
1600x1024
wuxga
1920x1200
woxga
2560x1600
wqsxga
3200x2048
wquxga
3840x2400
whsxga
6400x4096
whuxga
7680x4800
cga

320x200

ega

640x350
hd480
852x480
hd720
1280x720
hd1080
1920x1080

or again handbrake see my first post above

[Treppiede]

check properties of current vid then use ffmpeg for conversion with the

-s switch as -s 580x[whatever is your height] see below for info

or again handbrake see my first post above

Dear Shantiq,
Thank you for the help.

I apologize, I hadn't seen the resizing option you had included in your original post.

To figure out correct height, I took a snapshot of the video via VLC, opened it in GIMP and resized the width of the picture to 580px. GIMP told me the height in scale would have been 387px.

I realize there are probably much more direct ways, but this did the trick.

I proceeded to resize the video using this command:

ffmpeg -i Full.wmv -s 580x378 Full_580x387.wmv

The new video has the correct size and is 20% the size of the original, but there are two issues:

• It has visibly large pixels, literally squares (tiled)
• Audio went out of sync again

Is Handbrake the only option, or can I try one of the following?

• ffmpeg with a flag to prevent quality from dropping so much and another flag to keep audio synced
• mencoder with similar flags

I ask because I am on my work PC and I can't add repositories for security purposes, so no Handbrake, but ffmpeg and mencoder are kosher.
I can always do this at home and use Handbrake, so no sweat, although it would be nice to get it done here, so I can upload the video using a decent connection.

Thanks for all the help!

[tnob]

Treppiede,

I'm not sure as to whether you're talking about a VHS tape, a DVD or a video file you'd need to convert to .wmv. A much less complicated way to do this might be with VLC media player.

Click Media (in the top bar) --> click medium you'd like to show, so VLC will recognize it (and check that it does indeed) --> click Save/Convert. Choose the format you prefer, from a drop-down menu, and a suitable location and title for saving - and Bob's your uncle! Most of the time anyway...

tnob

[shantiq]

hhhhhhhhhhhhha should have advised you to try and use

ffmpeg -i Full.wmv -acodec copy -vcodec copy -s 580x387 Full_580x387.wmv

with the line you used what you got there is probably ffmpeg's default really low size [MB] quality conversion [ i bet your video dropped a lot of MB ??? ]


so try it again with -acodec copy -vcodec copy see if it is ok now

[andrew.46]

You can avoid the defaults by specifying the codecs you want in the following manner:

fmpeg -i Cold_Chisel_Bow_River.mp4 \
       -c:v wmv2 -q:v 5 \
       -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k -f asf \
       Cold_Chisel_Bow_River.asf

This should produce a file that will even keep windows users happy and also give you some scope for further experimentation .