Autostakkert! and video

[Swoop1]

I tried a bit of daylight lunar today, stills and video. The video recorded as MP4.

On trying to upload to Autostakkert! I opened the software, clicked on open and selected my video. Nothing happened.

I mooched around the software a bit and found a button for opening AVI and something else so I converted my MP4 to AVI and tried to upload. I still can't get past stage 1 Open.

What is this idiot doing wrong?

[JamesF]

I wonder if Autostakkert can't handle the codec used?  That's the only thing that occurs to me at the moment.  What were you using to record the data?

James

[Swoop1]

I was using my Sony a6300.

[JamesF]

Could be worth trying to convert the mp4 file to avi and change the codec to UtVideo at the same time, if that's possible.  FFmpeg can probably do that sort of stuff though it's hardly user-friendly.  Not sure what other tools might do the job.

James

[symmetal]

Download PIPP (Planetary Imaging PreProcessor) This will import MP4 files, and others and output an AVI or SER file which Autostakkert can read.

Alan

[JamesF]

Ah, yes, that's a good plan.  I'd forgotten that PIPP can use FFmpeg as a backend.  Definitely worth a try.

James

[Swoop1]

Downloaded and processing!

[Swoop1]

Aaaaaaaand we have a winner!

After a few wak wak oops moments and some fiddling, I have a video file that Autostakkert is working on.

Thanks for the input gents👏

[symmetal]

Swoop1, I forgot to say the reason your initial MP4 to AVI conversion didn't work is because AVI is just a 'container' format for video which can hold a multitude of compression codecs including MP4, MPEG-2 and MJPEG. Autostakkert requires the AVI to contain an uncompressed RGB video file, so if your conversion program allowed you to select what format you wanted the AVI file to contain you would need to select 'Full Frame RGB uncompressed'. Many simple conversion programs don't give you this option, and yours may have just left it as an MP4 compressed format file, inside an AVI container file. 

For astro use all the AVI video files generally need to be uncompressed RGB (or Luminance if you have a mono camera). AVI can only work with 8-bit video files which is why the SER format is often used as that can work with 16-bit video files too (uncompressed as well).

Alan

Edited June 27, 2019 by symmetal