Fixing Wrong or Different Frame Rate of a Video File and Container

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The problem is seen well when you get video file information with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i [bad_file].avi

It will show something like:

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 30000.00 (30000/1) -> 25.00 (25/1)
Input #0, avi, from '[bad_file].avi':
Duration: 01:06:42.20, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1466 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 608x320 [PAR 1:1 DAR 19:10], 25.00 tb(r)
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 160 kb/s

The files like the above do not play at my WDTV device and re-encoding them in a normal way with Avidemux or HandBrake leads to some funny results.

To salvage files like these I take the following steps (though there is a zillion ways if doing that better than me).

1. Rip audio

mplayer [BAD_SOURCE].avi -ao pcm:fast:file=audio.wav -vc null -vo null

2. Encode audio (I prefer AAC encoder from Nero):

neroAacEnc -if audio.wav -q .5 -ignorelength -of audio.m4a

3. Rip and encode video with ffmpeg (I prefer x264 codec):

ffmpeg -i [BAD_SOURCE].avi -vcodec libx264 -b 1400000 -sameq -an video.m4v

Hint: choose a 15-20% lower bitrate than original (in our case above: -b 1400000).

4. Mux together into a nice matroska file

mkvmerge -o [GOOD_OUTPUT].mkv  -d 1 -A -S video.m4v -a 1 -D -S audio.m4a --track-order 0:1,1:1

5. Cleanup

rm -f [BAD_SOURCE].avi video.m4v audio.m4a

Enjoy. And please do not use packed bitstream any more, it’s ugly.

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