[image2pipe @ 0xa7fa710] Could not find codec parameters (Video: ppm)

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. make movie from gource animation as described in Wiki

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
a mp4 file. There is no file, the command just finishes with [image2pipe @ 
0xa7fa710] Could not find codec parameters (Video: ppm)
[image2pipe @ 0xa7fa710] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be 
inaccurate

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Ubuntu 10.10

Please provide any additional information below.
Various instructions and example command lines exist on the internet but none 
will work. It is very unclear why it doesn't work. image2pipe, gource, 
hardware, video card, wrong command line? There can be a hundred reasons why 
this doesn't work.

I would very much like this to work but I can't spend to much of my free time 
working on this. I would very much appreciate some help so much so that i'm 
willing to offer some financial compensation to get this fixed. I expect I can 
work for days on this issue and still fail to come up with a solution. 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by onno.van...@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2011 at 9:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi. I think you will probably find if you read the complete error message that 
your ffmpeg doesn't have libx264 support.

This thread talks about various ways to get ffmpeg with libx64 on ubuntu:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1117283

Or you could use a different codec. Eg mpeg (though the quality wont look as 
good):

gource -o - | ffmpeg -y -b 3000K -r 60 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - gource.mpg

Original comment by acaudw...@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2011 at 2:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This causes the same error. I think the problem is -vcodec ppm not being
recognized. So the ppm thing is not working.

Original comment by onno.van...@gmail.com on 8 Feb 2011 at 7:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Is Gource actually producing output if you run it without the '| ffmpeg ...' 
part of the command line? I think you may get that error your seeing if nothing 
has been supplied to ffmpeg.

If you run:

gource -o - > test.ppm

and then close it and look at test.ppm, the header of the file should look like:

P6
# Generated by Gource
1024 768
255

(followed by lots of hieroglyphics)

Original comment by acaudw...@gmail.com on 8 Feb 2011 at 8:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hello,
On an Ubuntu 10.10, I solved this issue by remove and install gnome-mplayer and 
ffmepg.

I have done a lot of stuff so I'm not sure, it's the exact solution...

$ gource -h
Gource v0.23
...

$ ffmpeg -version
FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice 
Bellard, et al.
...

$ gnome-mplayer --verbose
GNOME MPlayer v0.9.9.2
...

The commande and the console output :
$gource --log-format custom ecommerce-trunk-gource.log --stop-at-end -s 0.01 
--hide-filenames --date-format "%d/%m/%Y" -1920x1200 --disable-progress 
--output-ppm-stream - | ffmpeg -y -b 3000K -r 30 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - 
-vcodec flv video-gource.flv
FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice 
Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Mar  4 2010 12:35:30, gcc: 4.4.3
Input #0, image2pipe, from 'pipe:':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: ppm, rgb24, 1920x1200, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
Output #0, flv, to 'video-gource.flv':
    Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 1920x1200, q=2-31, 3000 kb/s, 90k tbn, 30 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
[ppm @ 0x84b99b0]picture size invalid (1x0)time=26.17 bitrate=3083.0kbits/s

Original comment by cyril.ba...@gmail.com on 23 Feb 2011 at 10:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

"This causes the same error. I think the problem is -vcodec ppm not being
recognized. So the ppm thing is not working."

This is the issue. It seems that the ubuntu provided ffmpeg is not compiled 
with PPM support.

Original comment by Matthew....@gmail.com on 19 Mar 2011 at 9:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi. Ffmpeg in Ubuntu does have ppm support (I know, I have 10.10 on my laptop).

Most likely, if you're seeing 'Could not find codec parameters (Video: ppm)', 
your Gource command line isn't actually working, so Gource is exiting with an 
error message, and ffmpeg interprets the lack of ppm data coming in on STDIN 
'as invalid codec parameters'.

Original comment by acaudw...@gmail.com on 20 Mar 2011 at 12:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

"Hi. Ffmpeg in Ubuntu does have ppm support (I know, I have 10.10 on my laptop).

Most likely, if you're seeing 'Could not find codec parameters (Video: ppm)', 
your Gource command line isn't actually working, so Gource is exiting with an 
error message, and ffmpeg interprets the lack of ppm data coming in on STDIN 
'as invalid codec parameters'."

Actually, this is a good point and so i checked (ffmpeg -formats) and it's PPM 
is indeed.
This is on "Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS" .

Original comment by Matthew....@gmail.com on 20 Mar 2011 at 1:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

On my side (Ubuntu 10.04), it works but ffmpeg isn't able to find codecs (that 
exist however), so I use a command like:
./gource log.log -o - | ffmpeg -y -b 3000K -r 60 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - 
-vcodec libx264 -vpre /usr/share/ffmpeg/libx264-lossless_slow.ffpreset -threads 
0 gource.mp4
with -vpre to specify preset's canonical path.

Original comment by arnaud.bienner on 21 Mar 2011 at 6:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I still think this might be a plain PPM issue (ffmpeg not being compiled with 
ppm or something else is off).
Here is my output using Arnaud's method:

gource -o - | ffmpeg -y -b 3000K -r 60 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - -vcodec 
libx264 -vpre /usr/share/ffmpeg/libx264-lossless_slow.ffpreset -threads 0 
gource.mp4
FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice 
Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on Mar  4 2010 12:35:30, gcc: 4.4.3
[image2pipe @ 0x8de5b70]Could not find codec parameters (Video: ppm)
pipe:: could not find codec parameters

Original comment by Matthew....@gmail.com on 21 Mar 2011 at 7:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi. Ok can you do a few things to confirm you're getting PPM output to ffmpeg:

1. Confirm 'gource' (no arguments) works in the same directory you have been 
running it so far.

2. Run 'gource -o - > test.ppm' for a few seconds before closing it.

3. Look at the header of test.pm in less, it should look something like:

P6
# Generated by Gource
1024 768
255

4. Try it with ffmpeg (replace '-i -' with '-i test.ppm') and see if it still 
gives you the same error.

5. If it still fails, using gimp (you may have to install it) open test.ppm, if 
its a valid ppm, you will probably see a black screen with the words 'Reading 
Log...' on it.

Cheers

Andrew

Original comment by acaudw...@gmail.com on 21 Mar 2011 at 8:33

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ah, actually it seems running (2) above might be the issue:

$ gource -o - > test.ppm
$ head -n 4 test.ppm 
Gource v0.23
Error: unknown option -o

Usage: gource [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Original comment by Matthew....@gmail.com on 21 Mar 2011 at 8:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi.

Ah ok. That version is fairly old now, and printed errors to STDOUT to make 
things confusing.

You need to use --output-ppm-stream (-o was added in later versions as an 
alias).

You also probably want --disable-progress and --stop-at-end on there too.

New version is much nicer if you can just get that.

Cheers

Andrew

Original comment by acaudw...@gmail.com on 21 Mar 2011 at 10:06

• Changed state: Done