Ast_writefile: No Such Format ‘h261’, Yet H261 Is The Only Video Format That Works.

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Built asterisk 11.8.1 on a Debian VPS. Testing using ekiga.

If h261 is checked in ekiga’s video format list I have video, and mouse over the video window shows it to be using h261.

But then I get the following lines a dozen or more times in the CLI:

[Mar 21 16:25:32] WARNING[31818][C-00000010]: file.c:1241
ast_writefile: No such format ‘h261’

The problem is that I can’t seem to get h263 or h264 to show video. They are checked in ‘make menuconfig’.

./configure output shows h323.h to be missing. If I install everything I can find to do with h323 using apt-get then configure throws an error about not finding ptlib-config and halts.

I did search for this ptlib-config and found some old ML posts reporting the same thing. I didn’t find a cure though unfortunately.

I tried installing ptlib and openh323 from source but make in ptlib errored out with something that I couldn’t fathom out.

Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.

-Dave

8 thoughts on - Ast_writefile: No Such Format ‘h261’, Yet H261 Is The Only Video Format That Works.

  • Ekiga can do SIP. Maybe try that? And set/prioritize the codec in ekiga to desired codec, not h261.

  • On (21/03/14 13:28), Adrian Serafini put forth the proposition:

    I am using SIP. I’ve tried all sorts of ordering/checking/unchecking. The problem seems to be related to not having h323 installed.

    -Dave

  • H.323 is a communications protocol like SIP. H261 is a codec like ulaw or gsm. You do not need H323 unless you are using the H323 protocol INSTEAD of SIP.

    —–Original Message—

  • I see. In Ekiga video codec window they are listed like:

    [ ] h261 90kHz H.323. SIP
    etc.

    Which is what I’m going by. The address that I’m connecting to /is/ a sip: address. I assumed from the ‘H.323’ that it was needed. If that’s not the case, then something else is missing for the codecs to not be built.

    -Dave

  • Ok so your all SIP. Find the command to show the codecs for your release. The wiki has info to point you in the right direction. For old 1.4 releases, I set the codec in the sip.conf file peer. Also try another SIP video phone maybe on android?

  • On (21/03/14 15:20), Adrian Serafini put forth the proposition:

    core show codecs shows all 4 loaded:

    200001 video h261 (H.261 Video)
    200002 video h263 (H.263 Video)
    200003 video h263p (H.263+ Video)
    200004 video h264 (H.264 Video)

    Unfortunately my android phone only has a camera on the back so it is useless for video conferencing. I will give linphone a try to see if it’s any better.

  • On (21/03/14 20:07), Dave Woodfall put forth the proposition:

    Well linphone doesn’t help. It doesn’t even see my video device…

  • On (21/03/14 15:20), Adrian Serafini put forth the proposition:

    This is 11.8.1. The latest that I know of. I have no peers in sip.conf since I only want it for conferencing.

    I have checked the wiki and I /seem/ to be doing everything correctly.

    sip.conf:

    [general]
    alwaysauthreject=yes canreinvite=yes Qualify=yes allowguest=yes context=incoming allowsubscribe=yes dtmfmode=auto allowoverlap=no bindportP60
    bindaddr=0.0.0.0
    udpbindaddr=0.0.0.0
    transport=udp srvlookup=yes limitonpeers=no videosupport=yes textsupport=yes callevents=yes notifyringing=yes notifyhold=yes registertimeout`
    limitonpeers=yes call-limit0
    localnet.128.0.0/255.255.0.0
    externhost