[MPlayer-users] Null audio

[The Wanderer]

Yan Seiner wrote:

> I'm having an issue with mencoder, and I need some advice.
> 
> 1.  I have a video with no audio, and I want to capture the video
> with no sound.  It is coming from a TV capture card (bt878).  I've
> tried all sorts of ways and I am having no luck telling mencoder to
> capture video only.

...does '-nosound' not work? It seems to do the job for me, at least on
transcoding from a file.

(On a separate note, the combination of '-nosound' and '-oac' apparently
behaves exactly the same way as '-nosound' alone; I would think that it
would be a better idea to make the options mutually exclusive, such that
MEncoder will exit if both are specified.)

> 2.  After a while (3-10 seconds) the video buffer fills up.  Usually,
> this is due to a lack of CPU horsepower, but top shows CPU usage as
> 50-60%.  Again, I've tried all sorts of things, but it always fills
> up. I am stumped on this one, as I usually capture video on another
> machine with no problems at all, and I am using similar mencoder
> commands.  The hard drives are plenty fast; I am using IDE RAID-1
> with each drive on its own controller.
> 
> Unfortunately the machine is at work, and I am at home, so I can't 
> reproduce the command lines I use, so I am really looking for general
> suggestions and thoughts.  I am really under the gun on this one;
> the Win XP machine that this was supposed to be done on has puked,
> and of course I said, 'I can take care of that', so now I'm stuck....

I'm not sufficiently familiar with TV-capture encoding to be able to
help, but I'm fairly sure that no one else will be able to help much
either unless and until you can provide command lines and verbose
output. (If you're lucky, I'll turn out to have been wrong.)

> I am using the latest try2 tarball, compiled on a fresh debian sarge
> install.

If circumstances permit, it would be a good idea to try the latest CVS;
changes go in all the time, and if you're using a version of
MPlayer/MEncoder more than a few weeks old there's usually a fair chance
that whatever problem you have might behave differently (or have
disappeared entirely) in the latest version.

On a side note, there is a MEncoder-users mailing list as well, and
properly speaking this sort of question belongs there; however, there is
extensive overlap between the lists' membership, and most people don't
seem to mind much if encoding discussion takes place on this list.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.