The VideoLAN Forums

Novice user, Win XP, VCL media player ver 0.8.1

I'm playing a network stream (UDP/RTP multicast) and have been able to save it to disk using Stream output > File. So far, so good.

Question: The saved file will play within VCL media player, but no other programs (even on the same system) will. I'd like to save a 'generic' file that will play on most systems.

I assume I need to tweak the Encapsulation method and/or transcoding options? What settings hould I use?

Thanks!

to make a windows media player compatible file you should use DIV3 and mp3 in ASF
you can also try MPEG4 in mov or theora and vorbis in ogg ...

(some better settings might exist ... i just guessed those)

Thanks, Antoine.

The above works, but quality is bad and it's almost impossible to view the live picture while 'recording'.

If I simply select 'MPEG TS' and uncheck Video and Audio codec, I get a very good copy, but I cannot view it in any other program on my computer. Why not? What kind of file is this (mpeg? -- and what codec is used?)

If I select MPEG 1 (Encapsulation method) and no codec, Windows Media Player/Winamp can play audio, but no picture. Strange.

I can't imagine why this should be so difficult. I'm sure someone else have done this before?

Any suggestions most appreciated!

you could also try to keep the video and audio and just change the muxer (to something like asf ... maybe that would work)

Thanks again.

Unfortunately, I still haven't found the answer I'm looking for. I'll try a different approach:

What output file format do I get if I only select 'MPEG TS' (or 'MPEG 1') and don't select any Video and Audio codec?

Is it MPEG? Which version? Why can't it be played by any other software?

Anyone?

I very much suspect, from the description you are giving, that the stream is MPEG-II format; you can confirm this by examining the messages VLC outputs while playing the stream or the file you have recorded.
I had been having a similar problem, and this is the solution I found:
If I have saved the MPEG-II stream to disk by using "stream to file" and "dump raw input", thus producing a file which VLC will play but nothing else, I open the file again in VLC and use "stream to file" to re-encapsulate it using the "MPEG PS" option [and no transcoding &c] into a file with a .mpeg extension. Other media players will handle this file just fine.
When saving the stream, you can also "stream to file" with the "MPEG PS" encapsulation option and a .mpeg extension; at least, this also works for me.
Of course, if the stream is not actually MPEG-II, you will have to transcode at least the video for this to work.