converting avi files to ntsc dvd with ffmpeg core dumps

[Wes Morgan]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007, Dave wrote:

> Hello,
>   I've got some .avi files i believe they are either divx or xvid and i am 
> trying to convert them to ntsc dvd video so i can play them on a standard dvd 
> player. I'm running FreeBSD 6.2-p3 or 4, and an up to date ports tree, My 
> ffmpeg is version 2007.07.12_3. During the process of conversion ffmpeg core 
> dumps, being not a programmer i do not know what to do about it and would 
> appreciate any suggestions. The specific cmdline i'm using is:
>
> ffmpeg \
> -i ${VIDEO}.avi \
> -pass 2 \
> -target ntsc-dvd \
> -aspect 4:3 \
> ${VIDEO}.mpg
>
> The first time i ran this i got the msg:
>
> ffmpeg2pass-0.log: No such file or directory
>
> googling revealed to run first pass 1 then rerun with pass 2, this seemed 
> like a  long way, but i did it. When running with pass 1 that's when it core 
> dumped. The log file created is empty. Output during the conversion process 
> seems to indicate that this avi has no frames, audio, or video, but i know 
> this to be incorrect, i ran a transcode on it for over a day got output and 
> finally decided it was going to slow. I am open to suggestions, any 
> additional information needed, i do have a copy of the .core file, and a 
> typescript of the entire conversion process, anything else  let me know.

This isn't really a direct answer to your problem, but if you want to 
convert avi to dvd, I recommend taking a look at the ports tovid, devede, 
and/or avidemux2. Provided that you don't require a command-line 
interface, I would go with devede or avidemux2. The tovid port seems to 
have a lot of problems with freebsd, but it can be used without the gui. 
Avidemux2 will do the two-pass encoding, whereas the others do not (yet) 
However, since the dvd bitrate is likely so much higher than your avi, a 
two-pass encoding is probably overkill. My transcodes always seem to end 
up far under the limit of a DVD5 -- but hey that could be operator error.