ffmpeg & winff help

[arep3]

hi guys.

i converted to linux a while ago and liked it so much, i decided to stay. i now want to convert all of my windows format media to anything else. plus convert a certain video i have into a phone friendly video file.
I downloaded and installed ffmpeg and winff to do this.
this is where i have issues.
i add the file i want to convert, select the format i want to convert to, (3gp) and click convert.
i then get an error screen that pops up for a split second and then disappears again. too quickly for me to read any detail except just enough for me to figure out it says something about unknown error or something.
im no good at commands in terminal so i need to use gui's for most things. i am slowly learning though.
can anybody explain to me how i can sort out this issue? (the converting issue not my lack of talent with terminal )

many thanks, Ron

[unamanic]

have you tried avidemux? It should do the wmv to whatever conversion. I'm not sure about 3gp (never heard of it).

[arep3]

3gp is the standard video format here. i like the idea of ffmpeg and winff as they convert every format i know of plus more. i havent heard of avidemux. ill have a look at it when i get home.

[arep3]

well i tried avidemux but i didnt like it as much as ffmpeg. I forgot to mention that im running an AMD64 with F8_64 on it. winff im guessing is only available in i386? would this have an affect on it?

[unamanic]

I gave winff a try on some wmvs I had, and it did not like them. Personally, I use a script with mencoder do do most of my transcoding. I mostly transcode from avi to dvd compatible mpeg below is the script I use (it produces NTSC video). Usage is ./dvdvid <input> <output> <apect ratio (ie 16/9 or 4/3)>

dvdvid

#!/bin/sh
mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -vf scale=720:480,harddup -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:keyint=18:acodec=ac3:abitrate=192:aspect=$3 -ofps 30000/1001 -o $2 $1

[arep3]

that script kinda makes sense to me. i can make out a few things in it. everything where i am is in PAL not NTSC.

[unamanic]

to change it to PAL change -vf scale=720:480 (maybe 720:576) to correct dimensions and -ofps 30000/1001 (maybe 25) to correct frame rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

Also as long as mplayer can play the file, mencoder can encode from it (but not necessarily to it, it can encode WMVs but not well (I have a script for that too))

[axel]

I use ffmpeg to convert any video file to .3gp with this command. The output resolution is 176x144. Change it as need it.

ffmpeg -i input.avi -vcodec mpeg4 -s 176x144 -r 15 -qscale 4 -acodec aac -ac 1 -ar 32000 -ab 32 -f 3gp output.3gp

However you can find a guide about winff here:

How to convert any video format in Linux

Last time I tried it I had no problems.

[HaydnH]

Originally Posted by unamanic

Personally, I use a script with mencoder do do most of my transcoding.

Slightly off topic, but you may want to consider using mencoder with 2 passes for better quality, although it takes almost twice as long. There's an faq with sample commands to do this on their web site.

[unamanic]

When I made the script, my machine was woefully underpowered. I'll have to revisit it now that I have a better machine.

[arep3]

Thanks for all of your help guys. As i've always used windows since 3.1 was created, ive been used to using gui's. (so much so, i had to look up the meaning of GUI!) I have tried terminal to convert my .wmv and it has worked but only by copying the script axel posted and editing it to suit. I wouldn't have a clue how to type a script for anything from scratch. I will learn 1 day but until then, can somebody help me figure out what this error with winff is?

[arep3]

is there somewhere in fedora that keeps tracks of all the errors? then i could go and actually read what the error is.

[axel]

Run winff by typing its name in the terminal. The error might appear there when occurred.

[arep3]

such a simple idea. heres the results:
[arep3@localhost ~]$ winff

(winff:3307): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "nod oka",
TGtk2WSCustomListBox.SetBorder TODO

(winff:3307): Pango-WARNING **: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'DejaVu LGC Sans Bold 0'

(winff:3307): Pango-WARNING **: shaping failure, expect ugly output. shape-engin e='BasicEngineFc', font='DejaVu LGC Sans Bold 0', text='...'

(winff:3307): Pango-WARNING **: pango_font_get_glyph_extents called with null fo nt argument, expect ugly output