[FFmpeg-user] c:v copy - output file is empty, nothing was encoded

[Moritz Barsnick]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2014 at 00:52:47 +0200, Peter Trompeter wrote:
> so i do: ffmpeg -i snippet.h264 -r 25 -c:v copy snippet.mp4
> however, this does not seem to work. error message: Output file is empty, nothing was encoded

> ffmpeg version 1.2.6-7:1.2.6-1~trusty1 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers

This version is way too old. Use a recent one or build your own from
git.

Because it works for me (two week old snapshot), see below.

Moritz :-)

barsnick at sunshine:/tmp > ffmpeg -i snippet.h264 -r 25 -c:v copy snippet.mp4 -y
ffmpeg version 2.4.git Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Sep 26 2014 08:47:09 with icc (ICC) 14.0.3 20140422
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/new/tools/video/install/ffmpeg/20140925 --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --disable-shared --enable-x11grab --enable-gnutls --enable-libcdio --enable-libfreetype --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-openal --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libass --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libsmbclient --cc=icc --cxx=icpc --extra-ldflags='-L/usr/new/tools/video/install/x264/current/lib -L/usr/new/tools/video/install/fdk-aac/current/lib' --extra-cflags='-I/usr/new/tools/video/install/x264/current/include -I/usr/new/tools/video/install/fdk-aac/current/include'
  libavutil      54.  7.101 / 54.  7.101
  libavcodec     56.  1.101 / 56.  1.101
  libavformat    56.  5.100 / 56.  5.100
  libavdevice    56.  1.100 / 56.  1.100
  libavfilter     5.  1.102 /  5.  1.102
  libswscale      3.  1.100 /  3.  1.100
  libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  libpostproc    53.  1.100 / 53.  1.100
[h264 @ 0xa35c420] Stream #0: not enough frames to estimate rate; consider increasing probesize
Input #0, h264, from 'snippet.h264':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 1440x544, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1200k tbn, 50 tbc
Output #0, mp4, to 'snippet.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf56.5.100
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p, 1440x544, q=2-31, 25 fps, 12800 tbn, 25 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=   99 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 Lsize=    8451kB time=00:00:03.96 bitrate=17481.8kbits/s
video:8449kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.014528%