The long scary looking string of gobblygook above is called a command-line command. The command line is a different mode of running programs on your computer. VLC and most other programs, can secretly be run from the command line. You type in commands with the keyboard and hit enter, to run stuff, instead of using icons or menus. You can often do more with the command line, because programmers first focus on getting stuff working from command line, and then add it later to the graphical side of a program. VLC can be run in graphics mode, or it can be run in command line mode... no movie may even be shown... just resaved or processed.
The following instructions are aimed at macs and unix machines (their command lines are one in the same). Microsoft is the odd one out here, but you can modify the commands to run on windows.
1) get to your command line
find your 'terminal' application and get a black screen and waiting cursor. It is waiting for you to type.
In windows, you get to it by clicking Start > Run... > and typing "cmd" and hitting enter
2) Know where your files are located. It is often easier to copy them to your root directory and deal with them there
cp "/Userss/billybob/Movies/Captured DVI.mov" /Movie.mov
windows is quite different here, something like copy or xcopy
3) Come up with the command you want to run. If, like me, you want to run a filter, and resave (transcode) the file, your command may be similar to mine. Also see the other command example above, and quite differenet examples in many other posts.
Code: Select all
/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc --vout-filter=transform --transform-type=vflip /Movie.mov --sout='#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=800,scale=1,acodec=mp4a,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:std{access=file,mux=ts,dst=/output.mp4}'
4) Look for output file and troubleshoot
Watch in your root directory ( / ), to instantly see the output.mp4 file.
If you have any troubles, you can escape with ctrl+c and add to the command a --verbose=1 or --verbose=2
Add this in before the /Movie.mov
Code: Select all
/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc --vout-filter=transform --transform-type=vflip --verbose=2 /Movie.mov --sout='#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=800,scale=1,acodec=mp4a,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:std{access=file,mux=ts,dst=/output.mp4}'
You will
You will get ALOT of info back, much of it just letting you know what it is doing correctly, how it is doing it, etc.
Read through it if you have problems, try to make sure that it is using the right files and getting no errors. You can paste these verbose logs to forums here and get more exact answers.
5) while its encoding, it doesnt say anything on the command line screen
you can type
to get more info. Hit enter after either.
6) Ctrl+c once its done to get out of VLCs command prompt, if you are stuck in it.