[CinCVS] Exporting to Quicktime DV

[Matt Pfingsten]

A while back I was having issues importing QuickTime DV files that had been captured on a Mac with Final Cut Pro. I learned that, apparently, in spite of the fact that Cinelerra both claimed they were compressed with the DV codec and were quicktime files, someohow the FCP quicktime was different. Cinelerra, for whatever reason, wouldn't read all of the frames. Playback appeared choppy, but even when advancing a frame at a time only evey fourth of fith frame would actually display. I figured that Apple, being the creators of Quicktime, had done something different to their Quicktimes that the Linux efforts hadn't caught up to just yet. MPlayer/MEncoder could read it fine, so I managed to export it to an AVI DV, although Cinelerra proved unable to play anything pass the first GB of data.

Well, in the last few days I've learned more. It's not just FCP that creates "different" DV compressed Quicktimes. There appear to be many different DV Quicktimes, each claiming to be the same thing but obviously different in some way. Here is a comparison between three different clips:

1) A file called fhmp_footage.mov. This first file is some footage captured in Final Cut Pro.
-In Cinelerra, playback is choppy and only every fourth or fifth frame is displayed.
-In MPlayer it plays fine. "mplayer -identify fhmp_footage.mov" yields this: (relevant portions only): ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=dvc, and later ID_VIDEO_CODEC=qdv
-FFMpeg cannot play it, complaining "could not open codecs."

2) A file called 16A-1.mov. This is a clip I shot two weeks ago and captured using dvgrab.
-Cinelerra plays it back fine. No issues.
-In MPlayer it plays fine. "mplayer -identify 16A-1.mov" yields this: (relevant portions only): ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=dvc, and later ID_VIDEO_CODEC=qdv
-FFMpeg can play it. "ffmpeg -i 16A-1.mov" identifies the video as dvvideo. FFPlay plays it fine.

3) A file called titles_end.mov. This clip was created in Cinelerra from a bunch of PNG files. It is a one minute title sequence.
-Cinelerra can play it back fine. No issues.
-MPlayer/MEncoder have no problems. "mplayer -identify titles_end.mov" yields this: (relevant portions only): ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=dvc, and later ID_VIDEO_CODEC=qdv
-FFMpeg can't play it, complaining "could not open codecs."

Cinelerra identifies all three as DV Codec compressed Quicktimes. It should also be noted that Kino 0.9.1 can't open any of these files without complaining that the file isn't a DV file and wanting to import it via MEncoder. Kino 0.7.6 can open all of these files, although it takes about five minutes to open the first file (fhmp_footage.mov) probably because it is 13 GB.

At the present time this is preventing me from burning my dailies or cuts to DVD which I could like to do before Tuesday. The biggest issue is why Cinelerra is exporting Quicktimes that can't be read by others.

I remember reading something in the archives about dvc, dvsd and multiple headers or something being written into one file. Of course, two hours of searching has failed to produce this message now that I needed it.

Anyone have any idea what is going on? What's different about these files? Why are they called the same thing? How can I fix them. Most important of all, how can I export a DV Quicktime out of Cinelerra that will work in something besides Cinelerra and MPlayer?

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Matt Pfingsten
www.GotWookiee.com