ffmpeg_writer.py

[ghost]

Hi when I do something like:

myVideoClip.to_videoFile("myFileName.mp4", codec="libx264")

I get a broken pipe error which originates from where ffmpeg_writer.py create the ffmpeg subprocess around line 78:

        cmd = (
            [ FFMPEG_BINARY, '-y',
            "-loglevel", "panic" if logfile==DEVNULL else "info",
            "-f", 'rawvideo',
            "-vcodec","rawvideo",
            '-s', "%dx%d"%(size[0],size[1]),
            '-pix_fmt', "rgba" if withmask else "rgb24",
            '-r', "%.02f"%fps,
            '-i', '-', '-an',
            '-vcodec', 'libx264']
            + (['-b',bitrate] if (bitrate!=None) else [])

            # http://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/658
            + (['-pix_fmt', 'yuv420p']
                  if ((codec == 'libx264') and
                     (size[0]%2 == 0) and
                     (size[1]%2 == 0))

               else [])

            + [ '-r', "%d"%fps, filename]
            )

        self.proc = sp.Popen(cmd, stdin=sp.PIPE,
                                  stderr=logfile,
                                  stdout=DEVNULL)

If you remove the line '-vcodec', 'libx264' parameter it seems to work. I don't know why this causes an error, or how to resolve it so that a codec can be specified. Maybe stderr could provide some useful information here.

[Zulko]

It would mean that you don't have the codec libx264 which is the default codec in moviepy (because most distributions have it). You can install it from the repos on Ubuntu/Debian. You can also try another codec that you might already have :

clip.to_videofile("test.mp4", codec= 'mpeg4')

Or change the format (and the codec):

clip.to_videofile("test.ogv", codec= 'libtheora')
clip.to_videofile('test.webm', codec='libvpx')

See the doc of clip.to_videofile for more infos.

PS: it's strange that in the code you give one line looks like

'-vcodec', 'libx264']

while it should be

'-vcodec', codec]

[ghost]

The code was different because I tried to set a specific codec, in order to rule out other potential issues. However, I think you're right about the codec not being installed. I recently rebuilt ffmpeg and it looks like I forgot to configure the build to include libx264 support. I'm currently rebuilding ffmpeg and fingers crossed it will work this time!

Edit: Now it works!

[Zulko]

I didn't see the edit. Very cool, I am closing the issue.