Hi all,
I’d like to use videos coming from my DV camcorder (PAL) in a texture. Videos are captured in standart DV format. When I load the video in Blender I get an error : “ERROR : Not an anim”. I also have an error message in Blender “black window” (output of python ?) which says that Blender can’t find AVI decoder for type vids/dvsd .
The file plays correctly outside Blender. If I try to use a DivX video, it works well.
Anyone has a solution ?
Nicolas
Although I am not sure exactly, I believe that the problem is the fact that the DV format is propriatary. This means that programs cannot easily include decoders for them without paying royalties to the company that made the codec (of course, out of the question for programs like Blender). If you convert it to a different format, such as DivX, raw, or HuffyUV, Blender should be able to import them.
Please correct me if I am incorrect about this.
i used quicktime DV’s on my G4 without problems. but it seems DV can be encoded in several ways. maybe under windoze it uses some proprietary encoding. i remember someone using movieMaker to import from a DV-cam, and MM outputs only wma. what program do you use form importing?
Blender doesn’t yet support DV AVI. It may support some types of DV files through Quicktime, but it’s a bit sketchy. Your best bet is to convert the DV to another format before importing.
I run my PC with WinXP and I use Blender 2.34.
What is strange is that many other codecs are available. Even Microsoft ones.
I have enabled all codecs in “System & OpenGL” section of Blender preferences.
So I can export in many format (I have not tested this but I guess it works). DV codec is not present in the list of codecs I’m able to choose.
Strange thing.
Of course I can convert my video to DivX but I’d like to avoid video compression conversion. It is time consuming, space consuming and quality of the result may be altered.
About converting, try the codec that I previously mentioned HuffyUV. It is a lossless video compression codec that can get some fairly decent compression rates (nothing like DivX, of course). If you do not want to reduce the quality of your movies by unnecessary compression, I would go that way.
DV capture from digital camcorders typically results in a Type-1 DV file (this format is what most video editing software “likes”). You basically have two options.
Convert to a Type-2 DV file. This conversion is just that a conversion and not a re-encode. The difference between Type-1 and Type-2 is the way the audio stream is handled. A search for “Canopus DV File Converter” will yield one app that can handle the conversion.
Use a program like VirtualDub to resave the Type-1 AVI as an uncompressed AVI (i.e. full frame RGB). You will need massive amounts of harddrive space for this one unless your using just the smallest portion of the source video.
Note: I’m pretty sure either option above requires QuickTime to be installed, but I’m not sure as Quicktime predates my use of DV files in Blender.
Note about Window Movie Maker 2: It can indeed save AVI files (in the form of a Type-1 DV file).
Blender can import AVI raw and JPEG compressed natively (without QuickTime) and it can use AVI codecs on Windows (through the VFW codecs I guess).
Martin
OK thanks. So forget what I said about needing Quicktime.
The best solution I’ve found is to just convert the frames into an image sequence, like PNG for example. Transcode is one program that allows you to do that. Most video editing software also allow you to save the video as an image sequence, like Premiere for example.
I prefer doing that when I import animations into Blender.
Yes, I’ve done that as well but didn’t think of it in my earlier posts. VirtualDub is good for this as well, you can save the sequence as either Targa or Bitmap.
I’ll try a type 2 DV file when I have time.
suprised? you’re running XP 
So, type1 and type2 DV files don’t work either.
I’ll have to convert them to another format 