I have a problem on playing some video

[dibl]

this is one of the videos

http://a22.tk.swteh.ru/files/Steroid_Hormone_Biosynthesis_1.flv

Out of curiosity, I downloaded it and took a look with avconv -- there is a problem with the video:

don@imerabox:~/Downloads$ avconv -i Steroid_Hormone_Biosynthesis_1.flv 
avconv version 0.8.6-6:0.8.6-1, Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 24 2013 18:40:26 with gcc 4.7.2
[h264 @ 0x2529260] Overread VUI by 8 bits
[h264 @ 0x2529260] Different bit depth between chroma and luma not implemented. Update your Libav version to the newest one from Git. If the problem still occurs, it means that your file has a feature which has not been implemented.        
[h264 @ 0x2529260] If you want to help, upload a sample of this file to ftp://upload.libav.org/incoming/ and contact the libav-devel mailing list.  

{repeated a zillion times ...}

However, it will play with RealPlayer on Windows.

[Frank616]

Amam0 and dibl:

I just got finished installing VLC on an old XP box that I have downstairs. It reacts the same way in Linux as it does in Linux. Audio, but no video. I could not get Real Player for Windows to do ANYTHING with that file. The third option WinXP offered me as a possible player was Free All IN One Media Player (for Windows only). It played both audio and video.

Now, Flash 11 for Windows was installed with either Real or All In One, I don't remember which. I don't know if that made the difference or not, so I reinstalled VLC with the updated Flash now on the XP box. VLC still has a problem with it. I didn't try Real again.

I don't know if there is a Linux solution to this. There is something strange about the way that file is encoded.

There are file converters out there. What about converting it to a more common format (MP4) and then see if it can be made to play? I'll have a look at that next.

Frank.

[dibl]

I just now installed RealPlayer on my Win 7 VM, and that will play the file perfectly -- it is a video of a lecture. I would suppose the file was created with a very new version of the codec for realplayer. Windows media player can't play it.

[Frank616]

dibl:

Just Googled a way of converting the file. Found this:

ffmpeg -i "filename.flv" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "filename.mp4"

I installed ffmpeg and tried. A whole string of errors, and then it exited.

So, unless aman0 wants to run Real Player in Windows, he is out of luck on this one -- at least for the time being. As you say, it has to be something very recent if Windows Media Player won't touch it either.

Isn't it wonderful how many sticks people put in your spokes by continually re-inventing the wheel? This 'custom codec' nonsense just drives me crazy some days.

Frank.

[Frank616]

dibl:

A slice of the errors shows this:

*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.                                                                                           
[h264 @ 0x7e80a0] Overread VUI by 8 bits
[h264 @ 0x7e80a0] Different bit depth between chroma and luma not implemented. Update your Libav version to the newest one from Git. If the problem still occurs, it means that your file has a feature which has not been implemented.                                                                              
[h264 @ 0x7e80a0] If you want to help, upload a sample of this file to ftp://upload.libav.org/incoming/ and contact the libav-devel mailing list.

There were MANY more lines of the same thing afterwards. It looks like someone has increased the bit depth in the flv file spec, and current codecs don't seem to recognize it.

Frank.

[Frank616]

dibl:

In that ffmpeg says that it is deprecated, and one should use avconv instead, I tried it. It ran, but stripped out the video. The output follows:

Input #0, flv, from 'filename.flv':
  Metadata:
    audiochannels   : 1
    videoframerate  : 25
    aacaot          : 2
    avclevel        : 30
    avcprofile      : 100
    moovposition    : 237458864
  Duration: 00:56:50.56, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: h264, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 2k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 16000 Hz, mono, s16
File 'filename.mp4' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Output #0, mp4, to 'filename.mp4':
  Metadata:
    audiochannels   : 1
    videoframerate  : 25
    aacaot          : 2
    avclevel        : 30
    avcprofile      : 100
    moovposition    : 237458864
    encoder         : Lavf53.21.1
    Stream #0.0: Audio: libvo_aacenc, 16000 Hz, mono
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:0 (copy)
Press ctrl-c to stop encoding
size=   24217kB time=3410.56 bitrate=  58.2kbits/s    
video:0kB audio:23800kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 1.752265%
frank@netbook:~/Downloads$

The resulting mp4 file played in Dragon, and VLC, but only with the audio, which is where we were to begin with.

Frank.

[amam0]

i forget to mention that they were playing even on 12.10

but later on, they are not !?

[SteveRiley]

MPlayer2 offers this:

Requested video codec family [coreavcwindows] (vfm=dshow) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x34363248.

Linux support looks kind of complicated, and also seems stale:

2010-01-03: CoreAVC-for-Linux has been updated to support all versions of CoreAVC from 1.0 through 2.0. Using Wine is now a requirement for installation and using dshowserver. The old mplayer based Win32 code is still available but is no longer supported. Dshowserver should now work on any platform that Wine can run on.

The regular MPlayer2 in the repositories requires a DirectShow server:

steve@t520:~/$ [B]mplayer -vc help | grep -i coreavc[/B]
coreavcwindows dshow     working   CoreAVC H.264 for x86 - http://corecodec.org/  [CoreAVCDecoder.ax]

But there's no DirectShow server included in the standard LibAV:

steve@t520:~/$ [B]mplayer -vfm help | grep -i dshow[/B]
[I]{...nothing...}[/I]

Someone has a PPA, which for several *buntu releases has been compiling a custom version of MPlayer2 with statically-linked LibAV codecs including CoreAVC. This eliminates the need to run Wine and a DirectShow server. I downloaded the .deb file and extracted the player binary. It has one more dependency than the regular MPlayer2, namely libbs2b0. I installed that package, and then I was able to successfully play the video using this player.

And we can see that, indeed, this binary contains the correct format processor:

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]./mplayer2 -vc help | grep -i coreavc[/B]
coreavcwindows dshow     working   CoreAVC H.264 for x86 - http://corecodec.org/  [CoreAVCDecoder.ax]
coreserve   dshowserver working   CoreAVC DShow H264 decoder - http://corecodec.org/  [CoreAVCDecoder.ax]

steve@t520:~/junk$ [B]./mplayer2 -vfm help | grep -i dshow[/B]
dshowserver  DirectShowServer video codecs (win32 codecs)

= = = = =

Step-by-step for amam0:

First, add the PPA to your package list:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ripps818/coreavc

Next, update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Next, install the player; this will probably pull in some dependencies, too:

sudo apt-get install mplayer2

Finally, to play the video, you'll need to run it from a command line. In Dolphin, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the video. Press F4 to open a console window -- this window will appear inside the Dolphin frame, and the subdirectory will be the one to which you just navigated. To play the video, type:

mplayer [i]name-of-video.ext[/i]

Of course, replace name-of-video.ext with the actual file name, such as Steroid_Hormone_Biosynthesis_1.flv.


A further note...in my earlier explanation, you'll see I was running the binary by calling ./mplayer2. This is because I didn't actually install the packge, since I didn't want it to overwrite the standard one I already have. Instead, I was running the extracted binary directly from my "junk" subdirectory. A normal installation of this package will run update-alternatives and create a symbolic link called mplayer. That's what you should type, as I indicated in the steps just above.

[SteveRiley]

i forget to mention that they were playing even on 12.10

BTW, unless I follow the steps I posted above, my Quantal (12.10) laptop won't play the file, either. Even with all the extra LibAV stuff installed. You must have installed something at one point on your Quantal PC to get CoreAVC to work. Do you have any idea what that might be? Perhaps XBMC, or some packages from MythBuntu?

[amam0]

BTW, unless I follow the steps I posted above, my Quantal (12.10) laptop won't play the file, either. Even with all the extra LibAV stuff installed. You must have installed something at one point on your Quantal PC to get CoreAVC to work. Do you have any idea what that might be? Perhaps XBMC, or some packages from MythBuntu?

actually i am not sure, i was using ubuntu and i installed on kubuntu-desktop, and it was working fine
but suddenly stopped,
i installed kubuntu after removing ubuntu, but the problem continued

[amam0]

after following the steps it working now
thanks so much Administrator SteveRiley

although still not opening using vlc,
hope to be solved on coming 13.04

[dibl]

That is a nice piece of work, Steve Riley -- Congrats!




(not that I'll be polluting my Debian system with any of that stuff ....)

[Frank616]

Steve:

That is a nice piece of work, Steve Riley -- Congrats! :smile:

I'll second that!

Frank.

[SteveRiley]

although still not opening using vlc,
hope to be solved on coming 13.04

The LibAV that's supplied in the *buntu repositories isn't complied to include support for DirectShow. You'd have to find a version of VLC that's been built similarly to that version of MPlayer2 that I found.

[SteveRiley]

That is a nice piece of work, Steve Riley -- Congrats!

I'll second that!

Thanks, guys.

(not that I'll be polluting my Debian system with any of that stuff ....)

Well, since the LibAV stuff is compiled in, there's actually no "polluting" at all. Other than installing that one additional dependency, you've most likely got all the rest anyway. Just do what I did -- extract the binary from the .deb and place it somewhere.