[mythtv-users] issue playing mp3 using Internal player

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 22:03:16 -0500 (CDT), you wrote:

>On Wed, 25 Mar 2020, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>
>> Yes, creating a playable video file that way has its problems.  I did
>> that for my mother's opera recordings that I used to do from an FM
>> radio station.  I did work out what settings to use to create a
>> playable file, but that was a very long time ago and the way I did it
>> back then does not work now with newer versions of MythTV.  But the
>> settings to make ffmpeg create a file MythTV can play may still work.
>> I actually used avconv instead of ffmpeg and here is the command I
>> used:
>>
>> avconv -loglevel quiet -f image2 -loop 1 -r 25 -i:v:0
>> /usr/local/bin/audio_only.jpg  -f s16le -channels 2 -ar 48000 -i:a:1
>> /dev/video24  -f mpegts -map 0:v -vcodec libx264 -map 1:a -acodec aac
>> -ab 512k -strict experimental -shortest $recording_file
>>
>> What that is doing is recording audio from the /dev/video24 device (of
>> a Hauppauge PVR-150 card with FM) and adding a looping video image
>> from the /usr/local/bin/audio_only.jpg file.  The output is an MPEG2
>> transport stream file (.ts) with AAC audio and H.264 video, similar to
>> the DVB-T broadcast programs we record here in New Zealand.
>>
>> Of course, since it is a long time ago, I am not sure that such a file
>> will still play properly, but it is likely.  The downside of your
>> using the above conversion is that it would convert the audio from MP3
>> format to AAC format.  So, as with all lossy conversions, the quality
>> will be reduced a bit.
>
>Thanks for the interesting input. I tried a number of different ffmpeg 
>incantations cribbed from various internet postings (I'm not proficient 
>enough in ffmpeg to come up with my own possibilities), but none have so 
>far resulted in a file that is playable. Just to be clear, I actually 
>download the finished podcast as an mp3 as opposed to recording it myself, 
>as you were doing. As to lossiness, that's not much of a concern to me 
>since this is a talk podcast.

I can remember trying all sorts of settings to try to get a playable
file.  Then I decided to try and make a file that was similar to the
DVB-T broadcasts, and eventually got the above settings.  In case the
format of the .jpg file matters, I have put a copy of my
audio_only.jpg file on my web server:

http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/audio_only.jpg

I made that file from a text file using IrFanView which is able to
convert ASCII text to a .jpg.  It says "Audio Only Recording".