[mythtv-users] Mytharchive errors

[Nick Rout]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Harry Devine <lifter89 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Rod Smith wrote:
>> The frame rate message you recorded is a *warning*, not an *error*. The two
>> are very different. A warning tells you about something that might be a
>> problem, but it's not something that'll stop the processing in its tracks. An
>> error is more serious, and will terminate the processing.
>>
>> Although it's true that you're having problems, there's little reason to think
>> that the frame rate is the cause of your problems. It could be, but if I had
>> to place a bet, I'd say that the frame rate is not the root of your problem.
>> In my experience, MythArchive (and/or ffmpeg, upon which it relies) does a
>> poor job at transcoding recordings into MPEG-2 form. My own experience is
>> filled with audio/video sync problems, transcodes that crash, transcodes that
>> loop forever and fill the disk with cryptic log file messages, etc. That's
>> why I developed my own manual transcode script that uses mencoder; I find
>> it's much more reliable than MythArchive's own method. (That said, my own
>> script doesn't always work. In particular, it occasionally produces a file
>> that later steps can't process fully, resulting in truncated recordings on
>> the DVD.)
>>
>> As to what happens when you make a DVD with MythArchive, the steps are these,
>> in summary and omitting various details:
>>
>> 1) If necessary or if you've told it to do so, MythArchive calls ffmpeg to
>>    transcode the recording (in MPEG-2, MPEG-4, RTjpeg, or some other format)
>>    into a DVD-compliant MPEG-2 form. This seems to be the step that's failing
>>    for you.
>>
>> 2) The MPEG-2 file is demuxed into separate audio and video streams.
>>
>> 3) The DVD menus are created.
>>
>> 4) The menus and recordings are recombined into new files and stored in the
>>    format appropriate for a DVD.
>>
>> 5) The DVD files are combined into an ISO image file.
>>
>> 6) If you requested it, the ISO image file is burned to DVD.
>>
>>
>
> OK, I understand that part, but I just can't seem to figure out why the
> command that Mytharchive is putting together is failing.  I go into
> Mytharchive and do the following:
>
> 1) I select "Single Layer DVD" and "Burn to DVD", then press Next
> 2) I select "Add Recording" then choose the recording that I want, then
> I press Next
> 3) I select the DVD menu theme (I chose MythCenter, just for the
> record), then press Next
> 4) I select SP for the Encoder profile, then press Finish.  At this
> step, I see the recording at the top of the screen and it has a scissor
> icon above it.  When I try to check the box next to the recording,
> nothing happens to the checkbox, but I do get 2 red arrows next to it.
> I assumed that selecting this checkbox would honor the cutlist, but it
> doesn't do anything.
>
> 5) I then see the Log Viewer window, and I get the following error (as I
> stated in my original post):
>
> 2008-12-04 18:01:15 Waiting for mythtranscode to create the fifos
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16 Running ffmpeg
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16
> ************************************************************
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16 ERROR: Failed while running ffmpeg to re-encode video.
> Command was ffmpeg -y -threads 2 -f s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 -i
> /tmp/work/1/audout
> -f rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 480x480 -aspect 1.33333 -r 29.97 -i
> /tmp/work/1/
> vidout -aspect 1.33333 -r 29.97 -croptop 0 -cropright 0 -cropbottom 0
> -cropleft
> 0 -s 720x480 -b 4771k -vcodec mpeg2video -qmin 5 -qmax 31 -qdiff 31 -ab
> 192k -ar
>  48000 -acodec ac3 -f dvd "/tmp/work/1/newfile2.mpg"
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16
> ************************************************************
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16
> 2008-12-04 18:01:16 Terminated
>
> So, the original question is: why does the ffmpeg command fail?  Is
> there some settings in the frontend somewhere that I need to massage to
> get it working better?

as I said try the ffmpeg line from the command line and check the
output, which should give a better error message.

midentify only identifies what codecs and formats the original file is in.