transcoding and .m2t files with Leopard

[Smokerz]

I've tried to transcode one .m2t file in Leopard three times. Failed everytime. "No movie file." This takes 2.5 hrs each time on my Mac Pro.
I've tried as I always do the same .m2t file on my PB G4 running Tiger (takes 10 hrs each time) and it never fails.

To be more specific I transcode the .m2t file and select H264 and MPG4 audio as I always did in Tiger. Leopard does not work. I hope there is an update to VLC 0.8.6 PPC and intel for Leopard.

[Smokerz]

Once the transcoding is completed VLC starts blinking offand on. I would choose quit and VLC would then hang. I would choose force quit and VLC will come up with the phrase not responding.

I had activity viewer open during one transcoding sesssion and watched my 3 gigs of ram dwindle down to 9 megs. I thought this is a problem. Also it would be beneficial to the user for VLC to be able to use all the processors available on the Mac Pro not just one.

[Smokerz]

I've waited for a few days. There have been no replies. Is it that no one transcodes .m2t to anything or no one wants to take all that time to do it? No replies. VLC is supposed to be compatible with Leopard. Yeah, right.

[Arite]

There are known compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.5. You could try one of the latest test builds of 0.8.6d, which aims to fix some of the issues with Leopard. Find them here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=42149

Cheers, Arite.

[Smokerz]

Tx for the response Arite. I tried 086d and same stuff. It does not transcode .m2t to h264 and mpeg4 audio. I didn't think it would anyway since I have not found any dialogue about the problem on this site.

[Smokerz]

Well my attitude may seem negative but at least I'm trying to figure this out and sharing my hard gained "knowledge."
I had the Steelers'05 superbowl in .m2t format. I used VLC 086d on my intel Mac Pro. Transcoding to H264 took 18 hours because the file size was 28 gigs. QT Player did play the mpeg4 file but the image was bubbly, blocky and had many lines going thru ; it was trashed by me. It was not even close to being HD.

I tried a smaller .m2t file and got the same type of transcode. The image in QT player seemed to shift left and then bordered right side by flashes which were annoying.
I tried in Tiger and Leopard to no good success.

So thinking it may be an 'intel' problem, I tried the transcode using my PB G4. H264 file came out sweet using VLC 086d. Unfortunately the transcode took 10 hours. This work takes 2.5 hours on my intel but it is always NG.

I'm going to use the PPC for transcoding until VLC gets fixed for intel. If the developers take the fix on at least make VLC multi-processor aware to speed things up. Then VLC will be tuff to knock off the high chair. Please include better memory management also. 3 gigs of memory transcoding a 2 hour .m2t file will use all the memory up.

[Smokerz]

Well I'll be darned...finally got my intel Mac to transcode without crashing in Leopard, did not try in Tiger but probably samo. Once I get to choose where to save the file, it must be saved to the desktop. If I save the file to a folder VLC will crash or get an error. Happens in Leopard on intel Mac and PPC Mac.

Here's error report:

access_output_file: cannot open `/save em here ƒ/jol.mp4' (No such file or directory)
stream_out_standard: no suitable sout access module for `file/mp4:///save em here ƒ/jol.mp4'
stream_out_transcode: cannot create chain
main: stream chain failed for `transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=1024,acodec=mp4a,ab=192}:standard{mux=mp4,dst=/save em here ƒ/jol.mp4,access=file}:sout-transcode-soverlay=0'
main: cannot start stream output instance, aborting

[Arite]

Do your folder/file names have unicode in them (what is "ƒ" - or is that incorrect?). If so then that may be the issue (although perhaps not - I think it is on the Win32 build of 0.8.6d with that issue).

Arite.

[Smokerz]

Arite,
no they did not. I did want to mention that I used VLC 086c to transcode because 086d just does not work.