Use avconv to convert iMovie DV streams to other formats

I have a bunch of DV streams that were imported from a DV camcorder using iMovie.

Unfortunately, neither avconv nor VLC seem to be capable of converting these files correctly, whereas QuickTime works just fine on "OS X".

As I would like to convert these files with avconv on Linux (no, using QuickTime is not an option), I wonder if I need to provide avconv with some extra options so that it understands iMovie's version of the DV format (or whatever is causing these peculiarities). I've googled but that didn't help.

Any ideas how I can make this work? Here's an example output from avconv -i FILENAME:

avconv version 0.8.6-6:0.8.6-1ubuntu2, Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 30 2013 22:20:06 with gcc 4.7.2
[dv @ 0x258cb80] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, dv, from 'clip-1998-08-02 01;58;06.dv':
  Duration: 00:00:22.06, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 28771 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: dvvideo, yuv411p, 720x480, 28771 kb/s, PAR 8:9 DAR 4:3, 29.97 tbr, 29.97 tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 32000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1024 kb/s
    Stream #0.2: Audio: pcm_s16le, 32000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1024 kb/s

kapuzineralex

Posted 2013-06-30T12:18:54.767

Reputation: 111

Please be more specific. Does it not work at all? Or do you get some (visual) errors while transcoding? What do you want to convert them to? What exact command are you using, and what is the full, uncut output? In theory, Libav should support de- and encoding DV without issues. Can you provide a sample that exhibits the error? – slhck – 2013-06-30T14:02:59.970

I experience both visual and audio errors when transcoding, no matter what file format I'm converting to. The full command would be something like avconv -i input.dv -target pal-dvd foo.mpg or avconv -i input.dv -c:v h264 -c:a aac foo.mp4 or ... ATM I'm convinced that the problem lies on the input part of avconv respective the encoding used by iMovie as the visual errors are just the same when playing back the files with VLC. Unfortunately I cannot provide a sample file due to privacy issues. – kapuzineralex – 2013-06-30T19:23:35.160

I understand the privacy issues. Without a sample it might be hard to reproduce though. Do you get any warnings from [dv … ] when you run the conversion? Maybe with avconv -loglevel debug added? Have you tried converting the file with a recent build of ffmpeg, available from their download page?

– slhck – 2013-06-30T19:47:07.463

avconv is a recent build. The whole output of avconv for an example sessions is available as a gist here. It doesn't matter what output codec/format/pixel_format/... I choose, I have also tried various input options, e.g. with respect to endianness, format, etc.

– kapuzineralex – 2013-07-01T05:07:41.700

Use avconv to convert iMovie DV streams to other formats

No answers