How can I make ffmpeg open my raw video file?

Question

I'm trying to convert a raw video-only file to some other formats but all I'm getting ffmpeg to produce is a black video. There are no error messages displayed and this is what ffprobe shows when analyzing the file:

ffprobe version 3.2.2 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with Apple LLVM version 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)
configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.2.2 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-opencl --disable-lzma --enable-vda libavutil 55. 34.100 / 55. 34.100 libavcodec 57. 64.101 / 57. 64.101 libavformat 57. 56.100 / 57. 56.100 libavdevice 57. 1.100 / 57. 1.100 libavfilter 6. 65.100 / 6. 65.100 libavresample 3. 1. 0 / 3. 1. 0 libswscale 4. 2.100 / 4. 2.100 libswresample 2. 3.100 / 2. 3.100 libpostproc 54. 1.100 / 54. 1.100 Input #0, avi, from '1.avi': Metadata: encoder : Lavf54.20.4 Duration: 00:00:57.43, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 83196 kb/s Stream #0:0: Video: rawvideo, pal8, 720x480, 83238 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc

Other input files can be transcoded to a playable outfile file with the same ffmpeg convert command:

ffmpeg -i 1.avi -vcodec h264 output.avi

I know the input video is not corrupted because VLC plays it successfully and can even convert it to other formats, but I want to preserve the original one when trying different configurations using ffmpeg.

Thanks in advance for helping!

Answer 1

ffmpeg cannot "guess" the video details from the raw video stream. Therefore, the details should be explicitly specified to ffmpeg when input file is a raw video.

As minimum, the video resolution and frame format should be provided. In this particular case the command would be:

ffmpeg -f rawvideo -pix_fmt pal8 -video_size 720x480 -i 1.avi -vcodec h264 output.avi