Video files with no audio stream.

[Rydian]

I can't tell you the number of times I've had some "universal" converter unable to properly convert video files with no audio stream. I spent 3 hours on somebody else's computer a day ago trying to convert a damn video for my PSP, but the PSP kept saying it was unsupported and I only found out at the end that it was because the video file lacked an audio stream.

Not just PSP, but I run into this a lot. Too many things choke if there's no audio stream. Is there some easy way to insert a blank audio stream into a video file? MP4 or AVI containers are preferable as those are often dealt with either in the middle or as the end product of video work.

 

[FAST6191]

Assuming you are doing a full encode (as opposed to a quick recompress) and you do not want to just mux one on (you can generate any amount of silence you like in something like audacity and use an avi muxer or MP4 muxer like MP4box to just add it to the file- depending on how fussy your player is you might even be able to get away with just having a second or two of audio on there) can I point you at avisynth- just use the tone command and the audiodub command.

Most encoders should take avisynth input (even if you have to trick it by typing *.* in the name box) and if not there are virtual file options available that do make a micro AVI file that should be suitable everywhere. I have not used one of the virtual filesystem things in a while but http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/ should do it.

Script will probably look something like

video=directshowsource("yoursilentvideofile.ext")
audio=Tone(yourchosenlength*, 440, 48000, 2, "silence", 1.0)
audiodub(video,audio)

*you might be able to do it with the Clip Properties if you really wanted.

I will add some space to your video although it is just silence you can reasonably get away with dropping the quality to nothing.

 

[Rydian]

I might just use a muxer, thanks. Quality is a secondary concern to speed when using somebody else's processor to convert your stuff.