无法在Mac上的python中使用opencv读取xvid视频

Question

I have been trying for hours to read a xvid .avi file on my mac with python 2.7 and opencv. I have installed all the latest versions using brew and opencv is working in python and I can open images and other movie files but when I try to read a xvid avi file with

cap.cv2.VideoCapture('video.AVI')
ret, frame = cap.read()

It fails as frame is empty. I have installed ffmpeg with brew and x264 as well and ran brew doctor. I am totally lost what to do now. Happy to provide more information if needed. I hope someone can help me, thanks.

Answer 1

I finally discovered the solution myself a couple weeks later. I first had to install Perian and then via brew reinstall opencv with python and ffmpeg support:

brew uninstall opencv
brew install opencv --with-ffmpeg -v

I hope this will be useful for others.

Answer 2

For opencv3 (in pyenv) I'll supplement crazjo's very helpful and accurate question and answer. I also struggled in vain to read an avi file until I found his answer. Finally I was able to read xvid avi files!

I did the following (I could not and did not install perian!!):

brew install ffmpeg
brew uninstall opencv3
brew install opencv3 --with-ffmpeg -v

Afterwards I made a symlink between the site-packages of my virtualenv and opencv3.

And presto it worked!! I could read avi files.

Thanks once again and I hope this will also be useful for others!!