When WinFF is all set up, it works like a charm. However when installing it for the first time, or in my case setting it up again after a long period of time, problems revolving around codecs usually come up.

The problem isn’t particularly difficult, it’s just frustrating.

When you get an “unknown encoder libmp3lame” error for example, what is the normal course of action? Look for it in Ubuntu Software Center and install libmp3lame of course!

Wrong! Ubuntu has most of the codecs in the repository, but FFMPEG needs its codecs to be compiled in. So having installed libmp3lame from the Software Center doesn’t automatically mean FFMPEG can use them.

WinFF uses FFMPEG to work on your media files. In Ubuntu, the FFMPEG version in the repositories are quite lean, with many of the non-free codecs like XVid and MP3 not compiled-in by default because of Ubuntu’s legal philosophy. So we now have two options:

1. Install a fuller-featured FFMPEG from Medibuntu
2. Install libavcodec-extra-XX from the repository. This will replace the normal libavcodec-XX with an unrestricted FFMPEG library.

As much as possible, I prefer working with whatever’s already existing in the repository, so #2 is fine with me. However, I will make an exception for programs with slow Ubuntu updates. An example is Blender. It’s a great 3D modelling and animation program but I often prefer the more bleeding-edge development versions or betas for its features over the much more stable versions in the repository.

Well, I’ve written this mostly like a “note to self” kind of post, but I hope it helps someone out there as well.

Happy converting!

Concept art by Andree Wallin

The third open movie, Sintel, is coming out really soon and is in its last few weeks of development. Like the first two open movies, it is being produced by the Blender Foundation, inviting the best talents to work on it for six months in Amsterdam and introduces several more improvements to the Blender software. As an open movie, the guys creating it are not restricted as with commercial movies and have all the creative freedom they could have to create it. This time around, the third open movie will be an epic, action-adventure short movie set in a fictional fantasy setting.

Video of their intro video at the Blender Conference after the jump

Blender Conference Intro Video from Project Durian on Vimeo.

Big Buck Bunny

How Much Is That Bunny in the Window?

Meanwhile, as I was looking for the SM/Nokia dropbox where I could dispose my old batteries, I was surprised to see Big Buck Bunny looping on some monitors of a computer store window. Not that I don’t want them to show it there, it’s great that they are. It’s just that Big Buck Bunny has been out for almost a year and a half now…

For those of you who also have no idea about Big Buck Bunny, it’s the second open movie project by the Blender Foundation after Elephants Dream (see To the (Open) Movies).

If you found this information useful, buy me a coffee.