Theora/Vorbis encoding working in 2.57b...?

Hello,

I’m trying to finish my new project for web distribution and still can’t figure out how the Theora/Vorbis preset is supposed to work (as with every Blender version I’ve tried over the years unfortunatelly I still only get “Error initializing video stream”).

Alternatively, or even better, I’d like to find a way to export to WebM (VP8).

This is under Ubuntu 10.10, using the latest official Blender 2.57b and I need to combine the final renders (.pngs) from one folder and a .wav, so programmes like Handbrake don’t seem to be able to do this.

Thanks!

same for me, i have never got a direct rendering in ogg/theora out of blender.
I had always to convert the video-output later to this codec.
For creation of video from a bunch of pictures,
check mplayer and/or ffmpeg and/or gstreamer examples (google search)

one example, you dont need all options


PNG to MPEG2 (framewise seekable as keyinterval set to 1):
mencoder -ovc lavc -oac copy -mf fps=25 'mf://*.png' -of avi -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:keyint=1:mbd=1:vqmin=2:vqmax=10:autoaspect -vf harddup -ofps 25 -noskip -o outputfile.avi

Thanks!

I installed Mplayer via Synaptic but it does not seem to show up under Sound & Video, nor does Gstreamer (yet it is installed). So my guess is you mean I would have to type code in the Terminal now…? Thing is I don’t feel comfortable with using it, so what I really need is a front end where I can adjust settings in a user friendly way.

Or: if I move my .pngs folder to the desctop, as well as my .wav, could someone post a code that would combine audio/video and output to my desctop either Theora/Ogg or WebM (VP8/Ogg) now that Gstreamer, MPlayer and FFmpeg are installed…?

As long as the code is obvious to read I can adjust bit rates etc. myself, I just havo no idea how to tell the Terminal where my folders are or how-to adapt the above code sample for Theora/Ogg etc.

Or any other solution…? Thanks! (Alternatively I guess there is hope that we’ll have VP8 in Blender 2.58 if a recent FFmpeg version will be included…?! So maybe I’ll have to post my video for now in Flash (don’t like it myself) via Blender 2.49b and wait for an open-source encoded version until 2.58 is out…)

sorry, i wont write a gui for this…
if you want to try it:
open a terminal,
change to the directory with the generated png-images
(the command is: cd /home/user???name…)
and then cut and paste the mencoder line
into your terminal and press return

if mplayer (with its mencoder) is installed, it should start running and
work thru all pngs generating the output.avi file in this directory.

i dont know if there are any gui-style progs (pitivi?, openshot?, avidemux?,…

Ok thanks, will play around with this… !

Avidemux does neither seem to support pngs nor can I see a Theora/Ogg option.
I now tried Openshot, this also seems to need video (crashed), but Pitivi may work…! I’m currently importing my single frames, it’s probably going to take another 10 minutes or so, but if it doesn’t crash this could work for a Theora/Ogg export. (No VP8 though.)

Thanks again!

i can only encourage you to use the commandline,
if pitivi works, i should take a look again at it, it uses the gstreamer libs
and i can put the simple commandline to generate a video from single images
for gstreamer too …

for example, to display in an x11-output the png-images starting with shot0000.png
!! it start with 0 not 1


gst-launch multifilesrc location=shot%04.4d.png ! image/png,framerate=1/15 ! pngdec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! xvimagesink

and to write it to a file with some codec …
… upps… with this version only the jpg-images works to keep the framerate when encoding and writing to file … - thats why i have only a jpg-sample … with this comment …

edit: never mentioned it, if you are a Windows-user … there might be other ways …

Hi test-dr,

thanks again for your help! Unfortunately the complexity of this works against me…:

Pitivi loaded my 5726 pngs and I was able to set the codec I wanted. But when I attempted to move my pngs from what seems the clip folder to what I believe was the timeline Pitivi simply crashed and took down the whole system (reset button).

Now even though I have mplayer, gstreamer, ffmpeg and since today also mencoder installed, it seems it’s not even possible to start using the command you posted - and then adapt it to my needs to VP8 with code from here: http://worldofursus.blogspot.com/2010/12/vp8-webm-encoding-unter-ubuntu-1010.html - on my system: in regards to pngs I get (from Mencoder): “Sorry, this file format is not recognised.” (?!)

Again this is under a very recent Ubuntu version (10.10.).

I will for now just give up with this and encode to Flash/PCM (correction: not MP2, that’s not working…!) via Blender 2.49b, this actually works. If the file then works in Firefox on my blip.tv account and on my blog this has to be it for now.

I will investigate this further and should I find a command line solution that works under Ubuntu 10.10 for pngs, combines them with an audio file and outputs high-quality VP8 that works at least in the VLC across all platforms, should I find that I will post it here for everyone!

Until then:

Dear Suzanne, my secret Blender Goddess,

Please make it that the Developers add out of the box working, high-quality, open-source video/audio encoding to Blender 2.58 that works on all platforms!

I know it’s a lot to ask for!

But who else could I beg, if not you, Suzanne…?!