video 6.x-3.2 produces a set of identical and unusable thumbnails

@heshanmw you are wrong - with the default settings I got blank or black frames from the very beginning (or end?) of the video as thumbnails

when I replaced %seek with the value 2, I got thumbnails from 2 seconds into the video which were usually the titles and appropriate as thumbnails

In the older version of the video module, I think you had a field on admin/settings to set the value for %seek to select the elapsed time for the thumbnail

That is what I am requesting in 6.x-3.x

** half a debug:

in ffmpeg.inc you define $duration line 207

$duration = ffmpeg_auto_playtime($vidfile);

and $seek in line 211

$seek = ($duration/$count) * $i;

so the thumbnails should be evenly distributed through the video, but my results were always adjacent frames from the beginning or end, not sure which, so some value must be changed elsewhere

no I did not change the default number of thumbnails (5)

I believe that when we set -ss to 2 the thumbs will all be identical (but usable)

please see attached that compares the video import with thumbs and teaser for default settings (unusable) and for -ss 2 which is usable

I recognize your code aims to spread the thumbs through the video - it's not working, and it's not producing usable thumbnails (actually, the default settings appear to produce identical - and unusable - thumbs too)

I am changing this to a bug report since the default settings are not distributing the thumbnails as intended and not producing usable thumbnails

My kludge changing the ffmpeg -ss setting produces usable thumbnails (the numeric value can be adjusted) but it does not have the intended elegance of a set of varied thumbnails to choose from (like YouTube)

I added debug code to ffmpeg.inc

  $count = variable_get('no_of_video_thumbs', 5);
  $duration = ffmpeg_auto_playtime($vidfile);
  $_SESSION['debug'] = "duration " . $duration . " " . "count " . $count . " ++ ";
  $files = NULL;
  for($i = 1; $i <= $count; $i++) {
  //get ffmpeg configurations
    $seek = ($duration/$count) * $i;
  $_SESSION['debug'] .= "seek " . $i . " " . $seek . " ++ ";

as you can see, the duration is not set and the seek value is always 0

duration count 5 ++ seek 1 0 ++ seek 2 0 ++ seek 3 0 ++ seek 4 0 ++ seek 5 0 ++

so when I override the ffmpeg settings with the -ss value 2, at least I get a thumbnail which is not the first frame

It happens with every video file.

How am I to send you the files? they are too large to attach here...

but it doesn't matter, it happens with every file (most are wmv format but same problem with flv)

oh- and best wishes for the New Year!

It is a Linux server - sometimes the FastCGI causes problems, but no known problems with ffmpeg

here is my phpinfo

the hosting company, Hot Drupal, is very accomodating with regard to all things Drupal

my server admin assures me it is the latest build version of ffmpeg

It is from the latest major 0.5 build line. Installed from rpmforge packages.

the site is hosted at Hot Drupal/Holistic which is very Drupal-centric, but I do not have shell access to the level of the ffmpeg binaries

Our videos are tagged at http://faiththedog.info/category/tags/video

some are embedded, like from YouTube, not uploaded

I know this one I uploaded http://faiththedog.info/videos/faith-and-hope-vs-shock-and-awe-original

we are using a CDN server because sometimes the traffic spikes, but we move the video file after upload/conversion and the thumbnails are already created

I just tried the 6.x-2-x.dev of ffmpeg_wrapper but the video module stopped working, WSOD

maybe my video module is old, it's late at night and not a priority right now to sort this out

when I disabled ffmpeg_wrapper and reinstalled video it looks fine now

actually we are using Video 6.x-3.8 and the embedded videos are not using the Video module

ffmpeg_wrapper (disabled, see above) provides this info:

FFmpeg version:

FFmpeg 0.5 libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0 libavcodec 52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0 libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0 libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0 libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 FFmpeg version 0.5, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al. configuration: --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64 --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --incdir=/usr/include --extra-cflags=-fPIC --enable-libamr-nb --enable-libamr-wb --enable-libdirac --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --enable-shared --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0 libavcodec 52.20. 0 / 52.20. 0 libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0 libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0 libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 built on Nov 6 2009 19:11:04, gcc: 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-46)

I have not uploaded a video recently so I tested it, also after reinstalling Video 6.x-3.8 after disabling FFmpeg_wrapper 6.x-2.x-dev

same problem

you are correct, we get identical thumbnails because they all have the zero seek value 0/5

tried 6.x-4.x-dev but got an error with filefield

6.x-3.9 has same problem as 6.x-3.8

so since I only need one thumbnail, makes sense to set the seek time manually

also, any idea why FFmpeg_wrapper 6.x-2.x-dev caused a problem? I know there are major changes since 1.x, haven't tried the 1.x version

the doggy Christmas wmv is at http://bit.ly/aYaIX6