Fun Expander 2.5.2 - Video converter with ffmpeg to i-frames added [Updated 2022-04-11]

Greetings and thanks for this program!
I had not tried to use the Convert video to i-frames until yesterday and have an issue or something. I have the ffmpeg path set. Then I press the convert button, navigate to and select my video.
The ffmpeg opens and processes and appears to save the new output. The problem is that windows nor other programs can see the file. I can only see it in the Converter select a file window. Somehow it is hidden from Windows? Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Sorry I do not quite understand. After conversion, there should be two video files, the original *.mp4 and the new *_i-frames.mp4. You can’t see them in windows, but in fun expanders open file dialog?

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I can see the original which is there when I start.
The file _i-frame.mp4 does not appear. If I open the convert dialogue to select a video after the original conversion, it is there. But the created file is not there to see with any Windows 10 directory viewers or other programs.

Did ffmpg has write access in the destination directory? Try Fun Expander with adim rights and give ffmpg also admin rights.

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I ran Fun Expander as admin first and no improvement.
I checked the ffmpg and a far as my knowledge goes it has write rights. Anyway it works with other programs. Still no fix.

I remember some program similar to this that I used that did not work until I downloaded an older version of ffmpg. Cannot find the thread for that program or which versions worked and which did not. I may try that later.

Try ffmpeg from the command line and see if that works for you. See How to get started with scripting and go down to the section called How to improve performance when stepping frame by frame in JFS.

This is the interesting part:

Use the following command line after changing paths and video file names:

“C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe” -i “C:\MyScriptingFolder\source_video_file_name” -filter:v “scale=2048:-1” -intra -qp 30 -acodec copy “C:\MyScriptingFolder\desination_video_file_name.mp4”

Change the path to where your ffmpeg.exe is located.
Change the path and file name to the file you want to convert.
Change the path and file name of the output file.

If this doesn’t work then something is really fishy with your computer.

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Yes this does work. This does not help my confusion for this whole issue. But I will use this command directly to ffmpeg for now. Thanks.

Fun Expander is not doing anything else than automize the command line entry. And if i understand @hosenguy right, the command window for ffmpeg has opened after selecting the video file. I have no clue what’s going wrong there.

The command window should look like this while converting:

With a long video (big file size) it should stay for some minutes or hours. You have to wait until it is closing itself, then your new file should be available. Don’t close this window manualy, this would stop the converting.

I’m having trouble getting ffmpeg. I download it from the site, extract it twice and then can’t find the .exe within the folder. Am I missing something? I downloaded the “ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2.”

Try this one @Glove, to see if it helps, its the one I personally use : 60.23 MB file on MEGA

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Looks like smooth sailing! Thank you, @Realcumber

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I have an odd problem where Funexpander works fine the first time I unzip it, but then subsequent times it says it’s open but I can’t see it on screen. I’ve tried to maximise/restore but the only solution I’ve found is to delete funexpander.ini - is there a setting in the ini file to fix this?

I think, I know what you mean. This happens when you close the program while it is minimized. You can open the ini file in a text editor and set the negative values ​​(2nd and 3rd last entry) to zero. I will fix that bug at the next opportunity. Thank you for reporting this error.

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@HeelsLover69 Could you add a checkbox to force the i-frames feature to re-encode using 30 fps? You only need to add -r 30 in the command line, typically before the -filter parameter. If you already have that parameter in the command line in the current version then please ignore this request (I use a bat-file from the command line myself so I’m unsure what Fun Expander produce).

The motivation for this request is just to reduce the number of key presses needed to step frame by frame when using OFS for scripting. OFS loads the video in its original fps while JFS tend to load the video in 30 fps regardless of the source fps. 30 fps also makes the output file size smaller if the video is e.g. 60 fps, which is great for those scripting long videos like VR-videos.

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I had the problem of the i-frame file being made but not visible to any program except Fun Expander as described above. I since found another program that also uses ffmpeg to create a file and it did the same result. So I got mad and tried a bunch of stuff and found a fix.

If I go to the directory of ffmpeg and run just it with no switches as administrator it runs and quits.
Then I go to the directory of Fun Exp and run it as administer and locate the ffmpeg from before, then load a video and it works every time after that.

Each time I use Fun Exp I have to run it as administrator but the ffmpeg only has to be run as administer one time. I don’t understand what running ffmpeg as admin one time does but I have tried this several times with different copies of ffpmeg and it always requires this.

Thought you would like to know.
Thanks for the fine program!

I will check that.

Strange!

Just for clarification, I cannot make a 60 fps to a 30 fps with Fun Expander, correct?
The i-frames stuff is mostly for vr videos?

I have a bunch of videos I would like to script. Some are at 60 fps and they are a pain to script. And I was looking for a method to reduce a video to 30 fps (if that’s even possible).

With funexpander you can’t but you can do this via command line if you have ffmpeg.
Check last point is Sentinel’s tutorial, there is a code for it:

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Thank you very much.

I am not understanding how to do it, so I guess I will continue the tedious scripting with 60 fps video. Feeling really stupid now, but anway.

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