[xubuntu-users] Video format conversions (was: Need help viewing video from my own web page)

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 5:46 AM, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 1:21 AM, Joshua O'Leary
> <joshua.oleary at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> What video codecs are you using? You can't just use any codec dumped from a
>> camcorder and expect it to work on a web page. Modern browsers such as
>> Chrome and Firefox usually recommend using the Webm codec/container for
>> video playback. Looking at your web page, it seems the videos are AVI format
>> - this is probably the worst format to use on the web, since it is
>> uncompressed and cannot normally be played in-browser. You can easily do
>> conversion with ffmpeg/libav - avi to webm would be:
>> ffmpeg -i foo.avi foo.webm
>> More info is here: http://paulrouget.com/e/converttohtml5video/
>> You could optionally add html5 video controls to allow playback without
>> exiting the webpage.
>>
>> Joshua
>>
>
> As far as I recall, I haven't done anything at all about codecs.
> Only the first group are in AVI format, the rest are MP4, but that's
> just because of the two cameras used.
>
> I've often wondered about converting formats, because MP4 did not play
> at all for a long time.  I'll look into it.  What you say about AVI
> could explain why those who can play those videos say they are
> "jumpy".

I tried the conversions you suggest.  It fails to produce output for
the AVI files, complaining about requested bits per frame.  The MP4's
(going to webm) are okay and about half the size.  Going to ogv, the
result is smaller but the quality is horrible.  You can see the webm
and ogv results of one conversion on the web page in Sept 19 row.

The link you gave shows much more elaborate command lines.  I don't
think I want the aspect ratio change, and I haven't digested the rest
of the options yet.  I guess I need to study up some.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD