Saving H.264 encoded data into file using ffmpeg

Question

I have H264 data, coming from a frame grabber. Using this data, I have already written an RTP/H264 streaming server (using live555) and a RTP/H264 client (using ffmpeg and live555).

I want to add a new feature to my server : Directely save encoded H264 data to file (without transcoding) in any format (avi, mp4, mkv, etc.) which enables later to watch videos using VLC.

For the display client, basically, I have performed :

1) Build packets from H264 data using ffmpeg/av_new_packet()

2) Decode H264 data ffmpeg/avcodec_decode_video2()

3) Format decoded frame using ffmpeg/sws_scale()

4) Display

Could someone quickly advise me for the video file saving feature without decoding/transcoding data and using ffmpeg ? It is sufficient to

1) Choose an output context (format)

2) Build packets from H264 data using ffmpeg/av_new_packet()

3) Save the packet using ffmpeg/av_(interleaved)_write_frame() (and also av_write_trailer() and av_write_header()) ?

?

Thank you every one

Answer 1

Please view ffplay.c:

static int video_thread(void *arg)
{
...
ret = get_video_frame(is, frame, &pts_int, &pkt);
...
}

The pkt is raw h264 packet. save pkt.data to file is OK.

fwrite(pkt.data, 1, pkt.size, pf );

if this file cant play by mplayer,please first add :

unsigned char const start_code[4] = {0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x01};
fwrite(start_code, 4,1, pf );

Answer 2

I did similar one; used ffmpeg for encoding. I found ffmpeg remuxing example 1 and it worked for me. (It is too late to answer, but I hope it will help someone else. )