Feeding FFMPEG from buffer in c code RAW H264 to MP4 wrapping, or named fifo?

[michael c]

i have a raw h264 stream coming in from cameras with a custom API. data gets put into a callback function in my c code.

i need to wrap this as mp4. i'm using ffmpeg to do this now, but only after the h264es file has been written and closed, so very time consuming on a beaglebone-like processor.

i have been trying to write this data to a named pipe and feed that to ffmpeg but can not get this to work. maybe i'm not opening/closing pipes properly, it hangs. or not specifying the piping properly for ffmpeg.

is it possible to feed the buffered data more directly to ffmpeg? or, how do i set up the named pipe to work properly?

first i'm opening the fifo like this

g_fifoname="/tmp/fifocam1.h264";
mkfifo(g_fifoname, 0666);               // make the fifos
fd_fifo[ch+brd*2] = open(g_fifoname, O_RDWR);

then, i'm calling ffmpeg like this, at this moment anyway. trying many things.

char* execargs[]={PATH_TO_FFMPEG,"-re","-y","-framerate","30","-f","h264","-video_size","1920x1080","-i",g_fifname,"-c:v","copy","-an",pathname, (char*)0};

i probably got the ffmpeg call wrong. argh. i open the fifo first, then start ffmpeg. when streaming is stopped i close fifo's, then close ffmpeg output file.

send my buffer to stdin and get ffmpeg to read stdout?

make the named fifo work?

thanks all,

Michael

[michael c]

i am able to named pipe my stream to a file and then CLI ffmpeg it from h264es to mp4 no problem,

but when i launch the same ffmpeg command using execv()

char* execargs[]={PATH_TO_FFMPEG,"-loglevel","debug","-framerate","30","-y","-f","h264","-i","/tmp/fifocam1.h264","-c:v","copy","-an","-video_size","1920x1080","-f","mp4",pathname, (char*)0};

i get this error

(well the logs come from two ffmpeg in two threads. little convoluted)

i'm hoping closing the pipes causes ffmpeg to close out it's file. then do i need to kill ffmpeg? 

i keep getting empty files.

thanks,

    Stream #0:0Opening an output file: /media/sd-card/orbi_0145.cam1.mp4.

Successfully opened the file.

, 0, 1/1200000: Video: h264, 1 reference frame ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p(left), 1920x1080 (0x0), 1/1200000, q=2-31, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 1200k tbn, 1200k tbc

Stream mapping:

 Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)

Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Immediate exit requested

[AVIOContext @ 0x8c4ee0] Statistics: 0 seeks, 1 writeouts

[AVIOContext @ 0x8aefc0] [mp4 @ 0x1017f50] Statistics: 32768 bytes read, 0 seeks

Exiting normally, received signal 15.

Codec for stream 0 does not use global headers but container format requires global headers

Output #0, mp4, to '/media/sd-card/orbi_0145.cam1.mp4':

 Metadata:

   encoder         : Lavf56.40.101

   Stream #0:0, 0, 1/1200000: Video: h264, 1 reference frame ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p(left), 1920x1080 (0x0), 1/1200000, q=2-31, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 1200k tbn, 1200k tbc

Stream mapping:

 Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)

Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Immediate exit requested

[AVIOContext @ 0x1020ee0] Statistics: 0 seeks, 1 writeouts

[AVIOContext @ 0x100afc0] [h264 @ 0x1e9d800] Statistics: 32768 bytes read, 0 seeks

Exiting normally, received signal 15.