[BALUG-Talk] Editing 3ivx Video under Linux?

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi,

On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 11:43 PM, Joseph Zitt <joseph.zitt at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been digging around the Web for a couple of weeks looking for answers
> on this, but haven't found a solution, so I'm asking the Group Mind here:
>
> I have a Flip Video Ultra Camcorder, which saves its videos as 3ivx-encoded
> AVI files.


I don't know the theoretical reason for your problem, but I might have a
work around for you.  I have captured and compressed about 80 hours of
footage for the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point Video Collection.
I do so by first capturing the video as .dv files, which is the underlying
format for which AVI is a wrapper, or so I am told.  I have never had the
problem you describe.  I use the following tools to capture my video.  I
first hook up my no-name Ubuntu box to a deck (works like a camera for these
purposes) and I run this command:

$ sudo dvgrab  --format raw [filename]

Please note the double space after dvgrab there.

dvgrab will chunk the video out into 1 GB segments, meaning 4.51 minutes of
video for each 1 GB file.  I then use transcode and ffmpeg2theora to
compress the video into .mpg and .ogg files, respectively.  dvgrab will
append 001.dv to the end of each file, and number then consecutively, namely
001.dv, 002.dv, etc.  I like to put a spacer _ after the file name in
anticipation of dvgrab's default filenames.

Please bear in mind that I am using Sony miniDV DVC 60 premium tapes on a
Sony DSR-45 deck and shot with a Sony PD-170 camera.  However, I have also
used the above command to capture from a Canon consumer camera.  In all
cases, I capture over firewire (IEEE 1394 cable).  I have run that command
with equal success on openSUSE 10.x; and Ubuntu Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy and
Hardy.


> While I can play them on my Eee PC running Ubuntu 8.10 using Totem and
> mplayer, when I use mencoder or ffmpeg to trim them, the files lose their
> sound. I notice, as shown below, that mencoder says that its audio btrate is
> missing.


Have you tried using Kino?  Kino works really well with .dv files.  It just
works out of the box.  Hence my recommendation for using .dv uncompressed
files.  Just a thought.  Good luck.

-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
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