Failure to copy AVI to AVI with MP2 present

[gdittmer]

I convert HD satellite streams using
cat *.TS4 | ffmpeg -i - -c copy in.avi
ffmpeg -i in.avi -c copy out.avi

in.avi works perfect, plays in VLC, can be converted to any other format.
out.avi works the same if AC3 sound is auto-selected in line 1
with MP2 sound auto-selected VLC plays no audio, other players on different platforms have mixed results:
no playback at all, no video, no audio, delayed audio, symptoms mixed in one file
Filesize is reduced after line 2 by 160 bytes.

diagnostic output from line 2:
Input #0, avi, from 'in.avi':

Metadata:

encoder : Lavf55.19.104

Duration: 01:48:14.52, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 11760 kb/s

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 100 fps, 50 tbr, 100 tbn, 100 tbc
Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, s16p, 256 kb/s

Output #0, avi, to 'out.avi':

Metadata:

ISFT : Lavf55.19.104
Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 100 fps, 100 tbn, 100 tbc
Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, 256 kb/s

Stream mapping:

Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

To make this a valid ticket, please provide the complete, uncut console output (not an excerpt) and a sample.

[gdittmer]

complete output from line 2:

ffmpeg version 2.1.4 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 24 2014 14:56:08 with llvm-gcc 4.2.1 (LLVM build 2336.11.00)
  configuration: --prefix=/Volumes/Ramdisk/sw --enable-gpl --enable-pthreads --enable-version3 --enable-libspeex --enable-libvpx --disable-decoder=libvpx --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-avfilter --enable-libopencore_amrwb --enable-libopencore_amrnb --enable-filters --enable-libgsm --arch=x86_64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect
  libavutil      52. 48.101 / 52. 48.101
  libavcodec     55. 39.101 / 55. 39.101
  libavformat    55. 19.104 / 55. 19.104
  libavdevice    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
  libavfilter     3. 90.100 /  3. 90.100
  libswscale      2.  5.101 /  2.  5.101
  libswresample   0. 17.104 /  0. 17.104
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
Input #0, avi, from 'in.avi':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf55.19.104
  Duration: 01:48:14.52, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 11760 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 100 fps, 50 tbr, 100 tbn, 100 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, s16p, 256 kb/s
Output #0, avi, to 'out.avi':
  Metadata:
    ISFT            : Lavf55.19.104
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 100 fps, 100 tbn, 100 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, 256 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=324646 fps=899 q=-1.0 Lsize= 9323509kB time=01:48:14.52 bitrate=11760.4kbits/s    
video:9104523kB audio:202927kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.172548%

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

I tested the following:

$ ffmpeg -i in.avi -vcodec msmpeg4 -acodec copy -t 2.8 -qscale 5 out.avi
ffmpeg version N-62701-g2f2629c Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Apr 25 2014 14:25:02 with gcc 4.7 (SUSE Linux)
  configuration: --enable-gpl
  libavutil      52. 78.100 / 52. 78.100
  libavcodec     55. 59.100 / 55. 59.100
  libavformat    55. 37.101 / 55. 37.101
  libavdevice    55. 13.100 / 55. 13.100
  libavfilter     4.  4.100 /  4.  4.100
  libswscale      2.  6.100 /  2.  6.100
  libswresample   0. 18.100 /  0. 18.100
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
Input #0, avi, from 'in.avi':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf55.19.104
  Duration: 00:00:15.46, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1325 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 100 fps, 50 tbr, 100 tbn, 100 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, s16p, 256 kb/s
Please use -q:a or -q:v, -qscale is ambiguous
Output #0, avi, to 'out.avi':
  Metadata:
    ISFT            : Lavf55.37.101
    Stream #0:0: Video: msmpeg4v3 (msmpeg4) (MP43 / 0x3334504D), yuv420p, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 50 tbn, 50 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: mp2 (P[0][0][0] / 0x0050), 48000 Hz, stereo, 256 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 -> msmpeg4)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=   57 fps=0.0 q=5.0 Lsize=     575kB time=00:00:02.80 bitrate=1678.8kbits/s
video:472kB audio:88kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 2.828374%

The output file shows the same problems with vlc as originally described, but plays fine with WMP, MPlayer, xine and ffplay so I suspect a problem in vlc. Please reopen this ticket if you find an indication that I am wrong.