[mythtv-users] Problems playing MPEG2 from ffmpeg

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/23/2009 09:54 PM, Tyler T wrote:
>>>> My Myth frontend is perfectly happy playing back MPEG2 video from a
>>>> Hauppage-PVR150, but barfs on ffmpeg's "-target dvd" output. I have
>>>>         
>>> mythtv relies on an internal database table which contains an index
>>> which is essential for ffwd/rew in a mpeg file. You need to re-index
>>> your file:
>>>       
>> Ah, 'mythcommflag --rebuild' did the trick nicely. Many thanks!!
>>     
>
> Sadly this only works for some shows.

Right.  In -fixes mythcommflag --rebuild doesn't work for virtually all 
MPEG-2.

>  Others are still messed up (no
> more display corruption, but FF/RR and skipping shoot all over the
> place) no matter how many times I rebuild them.
>
> Per http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Repairing_the_Seektable, I also tried
> mythtranscode,

Which is what you should use.

>  but something is wrong as I only get 0-byte files as
> output (and of course the original file still does not work properly):
>
> root at mythback:/store# mythtranscode --mpeg2 --buildindex --allkeys -v
> all -i 2042_20090223070000.mpg -o 2042_20090223070000.mpg.tmp
...
> Why does mythtranscode produce 0-byte files

Because mythtranscode --buildindex does /not/ transcode.

There's a /very/ good reason that the wiki page did not include the -o 
argument in the command line given.

>  and how do I fix it?

Use the proper command line--like in the wiki page.  Don't use -o.

Mike