VideoFileClip error

[ghost]

Hi when I try to pass a .mp4 file to VideoFileClip I get the following backtrace in iPython:

----> 1 VideoFileClip("./test.mp4")

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/moviepy/video/io/VideoFileClip.pyc in __init__(self, filename, ismask, has_mask, audio, audio_buffersize, audio_fps, audio_nbytes, verbose)
     56         # Make a reader

     57         pix_fmt= "rgba" if has_mask else "rgb24"
---> 58         self.reader = FFMPEG_VideoReader(filename, pix_fmt=pix_fmt)
     59 
     60         # Make some of the reader's attributes accessible from the clip


/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.pyc in __init__(self, filename, print_infos, bufsize, pix_fmt)
     40 
     41         self.pos = 1
---> 42         self.lastread = self.read_frame()
     43 
     44 

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/moviepy/video/io/ffmpeg_reader.pyc in read_frame(self)
     95                     self.duration)+
     96                    "Using the last valid frame instead.")
---> 97             result = self.lastread
     98 
     99         else:

AttributeError: FFMPEG_VideoReader instance has no attribute 'lastread'

Edit: I got it fixed by building/installing the latest version of ffmpeg from github. The one in the ubuntu 12.04 repo is out of date.

[Zulko]

Thanks for the feedback. It's a strange error, like if FFMPEG couldn't read the first frame of the file. One possible reason would be that you don't have a recent version of ffmpeg (if you are on ubuntu/debian, the version in the repos is deprecated, you need to download a recent version on the website).

If it's not that, could you provide a file for which it doesn't work ?

[Zulko]

Huh, fixed ?

[ghost]

That has got to be the fastest fix ever. It was what you said.

[Zulko]

Yeah ! I will see what I can do to improve the error messages. This one really sucks.

[stuaxo]

Hi,
I realise this is closed - however I get the same error on Ubuntu 14.04 - I think it's because Ubuntu uses libav, which being a fork is slightly incompatible with ffmpeg.

These two are probably going to remain forks for a couple of years, is it possible to support libavs ffmpeg library ?

[Zulko]

Hi,
I didn't understand, did you install the last version of ffmpeg ? It is straightforward, you just download the binary on the website and copy it in usr/bin.

[stuaxo]

Ah in the end I tried this. Just with the default ffmpeg it doesn't work, was wondering if it's possible for it to work with the default setup.

[Zulko]

Just to be sure, it worked when you updated ffmpeg, right ?

I don't think it is a good idea to try and make it work with avconv. I spent a lot of time understanding the subtleties of ffmpeg (it's trickier than it seems) and I really don't want to spend more time doing support for avconv. I believe that using one single software like ffmpeg (i chose ffmpeg over avconv because it is more common on all platforms) makes the code more coherent, I would have to code alternative commands for almost all the i/o functions if we were to make moviepy avconv-compatible.

The current situation is only damaging for Ubuntu/Debian users (I am on Ubuntu, btw), but that is because the packagers have decided to completely deprecate ffmpeg, even in the repos, which is completely nuts imho.

[stuaxo]

It did work with ffmpeg in the end.

Given enough time the forks will reconcile I guess.