convert/save avi to mp4 playback

[EleCon]

Ok searching didn't seem to reveal much about using the convert/save feature so I will try this. Hopefully I haven't missed the boat here and generated a question for nothing. please advise if I need to search better for answer already given...

Brief as I can I start a convert/save session in 3.0.4 for Windows Vetinari and add my single avi file (about 11GB). I select profile in the next window and make sure Convert is selected. I use the preset Video - H.264.... profile then create the output filename and hit start. File progress bar moves and about 10-15sec later I have my new file.
Problem is it will not show the video even within VLC, even though I can play both the avi I am trying to convert, and also I can play other MP4 files with no problems. The audio is there and sounds perfectly fine. The timer across the bottom has the correct time for end of playback and moves across looking perfectly normal. I just have no picture. I tried WmP as well and it suggests the codec selected was not supported. Am I missing some files perhaps on my PC? But I can play other MP4's with no issues - A/v both good.

I said I was going to be brief so I will leave it there. Perhaps some pointed question at me will provide needed information to solve my issue. thanks so much in advance for reading and responding. trying to convert very large avi's to MP4's to playback in my church beginning in January2019.

[EleCon]

As a quick update I did see a note in another post about selecting the Windows open source codec for playback, but still so picture
I have been scouring for any posts on ~no video~ or ~black screen~ etc but have not yet located anything that fixes my issue. Since I am able to play any MP4 I want in either VLC or Windows Media Player, except for the one I tried to convert/save from an AVI (and the AVI plays fine as it is) it seems to point at the conversion VLC is doing. Not pointing the finger at VLC, I'm hoping I simply haven't set a switch correctly somewhere, or am missing maybe some component of Windows that VLC is calling? I'm grasping here so I'll stop typing and let people ask questions hopefully to point me at a solution...

Anyone have any ideas at all?

Thank you !

[EleCon]

Still hunting for a solution to this. Maybe it is Christmas break and everyone is enjoying the break from everything
I have tried more searches but this doesn't seem like a very popular problem which leads me to believe it must be me that is doing something wrong.
One thing I didn't mention before is this is a new install of VLC. I use It on other computers purely for playing videos, but I did a clean install on a computer that has never had VLC and is also a recent clean install of Win7. So shouldn't be anything to pollute VLC from trying to do what it does. But maybe the issue is that Windows is missing something that I need to add myself that is maybe not included in a Windows install??
So if that added info helps - again I appreciate any feedback I can get as Jan is creeping up fast and I would like to get the first of these large church produced avi's down to MP4 for playback.

Thanks again for any feedback you may have on my problem.

[Lotesdelere]

Please open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2) before you start the conversion, and then paste the full resulting log here or on Pastebin.com if it's too long.

Also please upload a short sample of a problematic file to Zippyshare.com (200 MB max) and then post the link to the file here.

If needed cut it with DGsplit and read here about how to do it:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57724&p=193335#p193335
50 MB max should be enough.

[EleCon]

Hi there and thank you so much for your reply. Log file was too long so there's a link below for you to look over.
Result was the same this time as all previous. Audio is clear as a bell with file length in time showing exactly correct. Finished file though is only 10Meg and there is no picture at all. Screen remains black.
Don't have the file clipping yet, Will work on that, but I am at work today so may have to wait till after hours to do that part as it will be a bit more involved by the looks of it Let me know if you come up with something without the vid clipping and I will check back in here before I go attempt that later today.

Thank you again for your reply! Robert.

https://pastebin.com/S66fJv1h

[EleCon]

Hey again, so I went to do the file split thing and then I realized the entire file is only 10Meg. So I uploaded the whole thing. Again the issue is the audio plays beautifully but there is no picture when I try to play it using VLC or I tried Win Media Player as well. Same result on both. I ran convert/save with MP4 setting enabled as shown in my first post at the bottom of this chain.

Appreciate anything you can analyze on this for me


https://www23.zippyshare.com/v/GPgbFEQW/file.html

[Lotesdelere]

Well, we want the source file for testing purposes, not the resulting one

[EleCon]

Ok sorry about that... I thought you would want to see the resultant file so you could see the end result. So OK I have split off a 200Meg chunk and placed it on ZippyShare. here is the link...


https://www114.zippyshare.com/v/n8TH3QUe/file.html


So now you have both a chunk of the original and the end result file. Again though, what I would add as stated below is that the original AVI file plays just fine in VLC as well as Win Media Player. The converted file is what does not show a picture in either.

Thank you so much for pursuing this with me. I hope when a conclusion is reached that others can benefit from the resulting solution!

Cheers,
Robert

[EleCon]

Good Day and Happy New Year

Just wanted to check in on this again. I hope I have provided everything properly now for a quick diagnosis of my issue with convert/save. I know your help with all these things for people is probably voluntary and so i wanted to say I appreciate the time and effort it takes to respond and try to figure out what's going wrong for folks. It helps you too I suppose when something comes up that shows a bug in the code. Anyway just wanted to say thanks...

Robert

[EleCon]

Hello again... You guys are probably busy and have my issue in the cue for review. Just hoping the zippyshare and pastebin provided previously are still live and didn't expire in some way. I've never used either or even heard of them before posting my convert/save issue. When I'm at work I can't check the links as they are blocked by IT because they are file sharing sites.
Anyway I am moving forward with MP4's at church which I have from another fellow who was able to convert the files but I don't think they are as good a quality as they could be. They are jumpy when they play. I'm looking forward to trying VLC when I can get to the other site of my convert/save problem.
Thank you for what you do and for your support...

[BGDavis]

I had a similar problem (black screen, audio only) after upgrading VLC. This problem was resolved by doing an uninstall and reinstall. However, I can find no way to save any changes other than conversion (in my case, .mts to .mp4). Editing changes are not saved. It appears that the effects only work in real time via the VLC player and are not actually embedded into the video. Would love to know if you've had better luck on that score.

[EleCon]

OK so I'm updating this again as I tried a couple of things. VLC popped up an update window to take me from the 3.0.4 Vetinari to 3.0.6 I thought maybe something got tweaked that would fix my problem. This also kind of speaks to what BGDavis stated above fixed his problem, although I didn't do a complete uninstall/reinstall. But my 3.0.4 install was already clean a few weeks back as I had never had VLC installed before and my PC is pretty new and only has Win7 on it. This is literally the first ~work~ I've tried to do on this computer. I did however select the advanced update option for VLC and chose to wipe all Preferences and Cache in case that would help, and which I was Ok with as I wanted as close to a clean install as I could get out of an update. That was the only switch setting I changed incidentally. I left all else as it was set.
However to keep the wordiness down here it did not work. I tried conversion again and again as outlined above and tried conversion setting even to low res etc - even tried SD Youtube setting in case it was something about what I was trying to convert to that was messing up the playback.
I cannot playback any converted file I've tried so far using either VLC or any other mp4 player and actually see a picture. No problems playing the orginal avi file on any player I tried. I get full sound no matter what I've tried for conversion settings, but I have yet to see a picture no matter what I try. Material is not copyright. It is a locally produced video that my church put together, but it was rendered and saved as an 11GB avi which I am trying to convert to MP4 for more PC friendly playback.

So VLC Support I hope that you are able sometime soon to have a peek at this and try the files I left for you to work with as you requested. Thanks so much for your time and effort on this.
And BGDavis I have not tried to save any settings for conversion of a file and have yet to get a picture out of a conversion.

[EleCon]

Hi there... Wanted to check in on this one again. Thankfully I am able to run the shows with existing MP4's made from avi's by someone else, but I'm not happy with them and hoped to be able to produce a better result with VLC. The delay in responding I can only take two ways.
1) The problem has sparked some conversation and problem solving within the VLC writers.
2) The issue is either unable or unwilling at this time to be solved.
Not sure which it is but I'm pulling for option 1
Is there anything at all to report at this time? Are the files you requested which I provided at the drop sites still available to you?

[Lore]

So I see that you're not getting much help in this matter. Unfortunately you are not the only one experiencing this problem.
It's not as much a playback problem as it is a conversion problem.
This is what happens to me:

I have several almost identical files I which to reduce in size so I convert them with the 264 codec.
I managed to convert two of them just fine but then the codec broke. It stopped including the video.
So by some reason the only thing exported was the sound. And I have not changed any settings. It just stopped working.
So I reinstalled the program and tried again but the problem was still there.
So I thought, aeh, forget this crap, I've got a second computer that works just fine.
So I switched computers and I managed to convert three videos and then it too stopped working.
Exact same problem in two different computers cant be a coincidence.
So I thought maybe it's the files. So I tried one of the files that worked just fine an hour ago but that too did not work.
My conclusion: VLC converter has lost it's ability to code 264 video so it only exports the sound.
Why this happens I have no idea. And I can't offer any solutions either.
I hope someone might be more inclined to offer some help in this as there are more people experiencing this bug.
(At least I'm guessing it's a bug. It almost feels like there's a built in conversion roof.)

[EleCon]

Yes it was very frustrating. They never did reply again. They just stopped communicating completely. It's a free program so I just gave up on it. This is also a few years ago now. I'm surprised you actually were able to still see my posts lol.
I could not get even one video to convert if I remember correct. My pc was a completely fresh install of Win7 at that time. So I know the computer was good. Other than the OS I only had VLC on it.

[EleCon]

Ok I see now it was from Jan 2019. Seemed like a lot longer ago than that somehow lol....

[Lotesdelere]

There are many other reports with conversion issues to MP4.

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153896
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=154251
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153985
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=153853

And audio too:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=151215

You should create a new ticket on the VLC Trac with the link to this thread:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/

[Jalu589]

from what I've been reading, VLC will work fine for a few days and then just totally collapse and not function normally anymore. The solution I found for this is using a virtual machine software (I use Virtual Box cause it's free) and downloading your favorite free linux distribution. Make a clone of the linux vm as backup. On your new VM download VLC and it will work like new for however long until the bugs kick in. Once it starts to not run normally anymore then delete the VM with the bad copy of VLC and use the clone backup you made and keep repeating this simple process over and over as long as your heart desires. You can also make multiple VMs each with their own copy of VLC and run them at the same time depending on your computers processing power for simultaneous video converting. All of this may seem a little complicated, especially if you've never used VMs before, but once the initial downloading and set up is done it actually runs very smoothly.