System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

hchiper · 2022-07-17 09:54

Hi,

When I try to read a video from a GoPro Hero 7 black with VLC 3.0.17.4, the whole screen goes black and the system stops responding. Nothing works anymore (Alt+F4, Alt+Ctrl+Del, Alt+Tab, Ctrl-Esc...). The only thing I can do is to hold down the power-on button for some seconds to power-off. I was able to copy the videos from the GoPro to my local SSD. Videos from other sources (and audio files) are read without issue.

On a Windows computer, VLC 3.0.4 plays the GoPro videos without issue.

I found on another forum it was advised to do check the file with ffmpeg. I have ffprobe 4.3.4. The result is

$ ffprobe GH010079.MP4
(...)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'GH010079.MP4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp41
    minor_version   : 538120216
    compatible_brands: mp41
    creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
    firmware        : HD7.01.01.61.00
  Duration: 00:00:11.76, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 60606 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p(pc, bt709), 2704x1520 [SAR 1:1 DAR 169:95], 60343 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : GoPro AVC  
      encoder         : GoPro AVC encoder
      timecode        : 21:27:32:07
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 189 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : GoPro AAC  
      timecode        : 21:27:32:07
    Stream #0:2(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74), 0 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : GoPro TCD  
      timecode        : 21:27:32:07
    Stream #0:3(eng): Data: bin_data (gpmd / 0x646D7067), 36 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : GoPro MET  
    Stream #0:4(eng): Data: none (fdsc / 0x63736466), 9 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2022-07-15T21:28:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : GoPro SOS  
Unsupported codec with id 0 for input stream 2
Unsupported codec with id 100359 for input stream 3
Unsupported codec with id 0 for input stream 4

There seems to be a problem with an "unsupported codec", but I don't know what I can do to to solve that.
Has anyone encountered a similar problem and solved it?

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks.

bin · 2022-07-17 12:05

I've downloaded a couple of test GoPro videos from https://www.pexels.com/search/videos/gopro/

They seem to play OK with the same ver. of VLC on Plasma

ffprobe results are good. I'm guessing you've installed the Q4OS multimedia codecs package?

Could you put one somewhere to share/test?

hchiper · 2022-07-17 19:06

Hi bin, thanks for your response.
I had not installed Q4OS multimedia codecs. So I did it right now, but ffprobe gives the same error. (I didn't reboot.)
A sample video is on Dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s4pd1vc93agy … O9T0a?dl=0
MD5=89a64afea6bfdb127d5b57ccc84fcdc4
I post this message before giving a new try to VLC, in case my system hangs again...

Back here! My system stuck again.

By the way, no problem with my videos when I use Shotcut (despite the video is jerky).

Too high resolution for my old computer (Pentium P6000) ?

Edit:
Gwenview crashes when I open these videos, but the system does not freeze.

Last edited by hchiper (2022-07-17 21:12)

bin · 2022-07-18 06:19

OK - I was able to play your video off Dropbox in Firefox and VLC in both XFCE Buster and Q4OS Plasma Bullseye.

Try this

ffmpeg -i GH010079.MP4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -write_tmcd 0 testout1.mp4

That removes the 'Unsupported codec' side of the equation.
If that still causes trouble

ffmpeg -i testout1.mp4 -vf scale=640:480 testout2.mp4

should help decide if it is a resolution problem.

I've put the results of these on pCloud http://u.pc.cd/UbSrtalK so you could always just d/l and see if they work - perhaps try testout2.mp4 first....

hchiper · 2022-07-18 09:13

Thank you so much for your help, bin.
You really have an in depth knowledge of ffmpeg!

I executed both ffmpeg commands successfully, so I didn't download your files. Results of the tests:

VLC

testout1.mp4: I got a black screen again, VLC crashed, the system freezed for some seconds, but resumed and I didn't need to power-off.
testout2.mp4 was played perfectly.

Firefox

The local SSD GH010079.MP4 was played, but was jerky with longer and longer pauses after mid time.
The "Dropbox" GH010079.MP4 was played perfectly, athough with a loss of resolution.
Once downloaded to my SSD, the "Dropbox" version was played with the same problems as the originnal local file.

For the time, I'm going to plunge into some readings about ffmpeg to understand the meaning of your the command lines
At least, just

ffmpeg -i GH010079.MP4 -vf scale=640:480 testout3.mp4

makes the output playable with VLC, without codec problem. Maybe VLC and Firefox know something about codecs that ffprobe doesn't.

The thing hard to understand to me is why (how) ffmpeg was able to decode the video file although ffprobe detected that a codec was unknown (missing?) to decode the video.

If I may draw some conclusions, on my old laptop VLC (at least 3.0.17.4) is less able than Firefox to manage the resolution problem.
When I believed that my system was stuck, maybe it was just pausing a long time (several minutes?) and would have resumed if I had not powered it off. The most important lesson is that my old laptop isn't powerful enough to handle modern high resolution videos.

Thanks again for your valuable help.

bin · 2022-07-18 09:50

That's good news - you can of course experiment with the output resolution - I used 640x480 but you should be able to plug in whatever res your chip/screen handles normally.

Good luck in the ffmpeg rabbit hole! I think what was happening was that there are gaps in the encoding info in the original which ffmpeg takes literally but is not sure what to do.

You can have fun just using ffplay to play the video as well.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2022-07-17 09:54

System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

#2 2022-07-17 12:05

Re: System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

#3 2022-07-17 19:06

Re: System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

#4 2022-07-18 06:19

Re: System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

#5 2022-07-18 09:13

Re: System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

#6 2022-07-18 09:50

Re: System stuck when trying to read GoPro videos

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