VideoReader Error: Unable to initialize the video properties on Debian 10

I have a problem at the moment of read a video with VideoReader, this error is only for videos with mp4 extentios

this is the error:

Error using VideoReader/initReader (line 734)

Could not read file due to an unexpected error. Reason: Unable to initialize the video properties

Error in audiovideo.internal.IVideoReader (line 136)

initReader(obj, fileName, currentTime);

Error in VideoReader (line 104)

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in previous post i see that the problem is the actual verssion of gstream, i try installing gstream0.1 but it doesnt work.

HELP please.

[Kuba Kiszkurno]

I have exactly the same problem.

However neither avi, nor wmv works.

[David Morales]

I had to convert the mp4 to avi in other platform to solve this,

now i cant save a video on avi format. :C

[Karina Lebel]

I have the same problem... If I convert into avi, this is ok but not really practical... Found any other solution?

Answer 1

[Urmila Rajpurohith]

Hi

The reason is that old versions of MATLAB used to rely on gstreamer-0.10 to process video but from at least R2017a the dependency of gstreamer library has changed to gstreamer-1.0 or higher.

The error message indicates that the suitable codecs are not installed on the system to decode the file. Try to determine if the file can be played outside MATLAB on the Linux system.

To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Copy the file to /tmp

2. On the Linux terminal, execute: gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///tmp/<filename> video-sink=appsink audio-sink=fakesink text-sink=fakesink.

If this errors out, it indicates that the suitable codecs are not available.

Installing the correct gstreamer codecs may solve the issue.

Hope this helps!