Beyond Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Version 11.1

Chapter 44. Video Utilities

Transcode-1.1.7

Introduction to Transcode

Transcode was a fast, versatile and command-line based audio/video everything to everything converter primarily focussed on producing AVI video files with MP3 audio, but also including a program to read all the video and audio streams from a DVD.

Although outdated and no longer maintained, it can still be used to extract items from a DVD using only the required and recommended dependencies, or to recode to AVI files.

Subjects to the comments below, this package is known to build and minimally work using the current LFS platform.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-11.1 platform.

Package Information

Additional Downloads

Transcode Dependencies

Required

FFmpeg-4.4.1 (configured with --enable-avresample)

Recommended

alsa-lib-1.2.6.1, LAME-3.100, libdvdread-6.1.2, libmpeg2-0.5.1, and Xorg Libraries

Optional

FAAC-1_30, FreeType-2.11.1, ImageMagick-6, liba52-0.7.4, libdv-1.0.0, libjpeg-turbo-2.1.2, libogg-1.3.5, libquicktime-1.2.4, libtheora-1.1.1, libvorbis-1.3.7, libxml2-2.9.13, LZO-2.10, SDL-1.2.15, v4l-utils-1.22.1, x264-20220219, XviD-1.3.7 MJPEG Tools, and PVM3,

Optional (at runtime)

lsdvd

User Notes: https://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/transcode

Installation of Transcode

[Note]

Note

The details of how the FFmpeg libraries are used has changed since this version of Transcode was released. The patch allows the package to be compiled, but some or all of the internal calls to FFmpeg may fail at run time (they report an error and processing continues, but without any output).

For many packages, that would be a critical error. In this case, the main reason to install Transcode is for the tccat program, which works. Some of the transcode options work - for the others, use ffmpeg directly on the command line.

[Note]

Note

Support for most of the dependency packages requires using options passed to the configure script. View the INSTALL file and the output from ./configure --help for complete information about enabling dependency packages.

Install Transcode by running the following commands: 

sed -i 's|doc/transcode|&-$(PACKAGE_VERSION)|' \
       $(find . -name Makefile.in -exec grep -l 'docsdir =' {} \;) &&

patch -Np1 -i ../transcode-1.1.7-ffmpeg4-1.patch   &&
patch -Np1 -i ../transcode-1.1.7-gcc10_fix-1.patch &&

./configure --prefix=/usr     \
            --enable-alsa     \
            --enable-libmpeg2 &&
make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

Command Explanations

sed -i ...: Fixes install location for documentation.

Contents

Installed Programs: avifix, aviindex, avimerge, avisplit, avisync, tccat, tcdecode, tcdemux, tcextract, tcmodinfo, tcmp3cut, tcprobe, tcscan, tcxmlcheck, tcxpm2rgb, tcyait, and transcode
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: /usr/lib/transcode and /usr/share/doc/transcode-1.1.7

Short Descriptions

avifix

fixes the header of an AVI file

aviindex

writes a text file describing the index of an AVI file

avimerge

merges AVI files of the same format. Do not try to merge AVI files of different formats, it will most likely result in errors (and format means same bitrates, too!)

avisplit

splits AVI files into multiple files

avisync

can shift audio in AVI files for better synchronizing of the audio and video data signal

tccat

concatenates input files using the input plugins of Transcode. This is useful for extracting VOB (Video OBject) files, either for a whole DVD or for selected Titles or Chapters, which can then be played or recoded

tcdecode

is used to decode input files to raw video and PCM audio streams

tcdemux

demultiplexes (separates) audio/video input that contains multiple streams, e.g., VOB files

tcextract

grabs single streams from a file containing multiple streams

tcmodinfo

loads a supplied Transcode filter module and prints its parameters

tcmp3cut

is a tool which can cut MP3 streams at milliseconds positions

tcprobe

prints information about the input file format

tcscan

performs several measurements on the given input data

tcxmlcheck

checks information in a SMIL input file

transcode

is the encoder's user interface that handles the plugins and other programs, being the glue between the modules. There are several well documented usage examples on both the homepage and the documentation included in the package

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