Writing an mp4 video using python opencv

Question

I want to capture video from a webcam and save it to an mp4 file using opencv. I found example code on stackoverflow (below) that works great. The only hitch is that I'm trying to save it as mp4, not avi. Part of what I don't get is that the 'XVID' argument passed to the FOURCC writer is supposed to be, I think, an mp4 codec (from this link). If I change the filename to 'output.mp4' it tells me that the tag is invalid, so I have to believe that the XVID codec is actually making an avi file. Is this a stupid question? How do I write to an mp4?

I have found links showing how to convert an avi to an mp4 after the fact but that seems inefficient. Seems like I should be able to do it during the initial write.

import numpy as np
import cv2

cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)

# Define the codec and create VideoWriter object
fourcc = cv2.cv.CV_FOURCC(*'XVID')
out = cv2.VideoWriter('output.avi',fourcc, 20.0, (640,480))

while(cap.isOpened()):
    ret, frame = cap.read()
    if ret==True:
        frame = cv2.flip(frame,0)

        # write the flipped frame
        out.write(frame)

        cv2.imshow('frame',frame)
        if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
            break
    else:
        break

# Release everything if job is finished
cap.release()
out.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

Answer 1

This worked for me.

self._name = name + '.mp4'
self._cap = VideoCapture(0)
self._fourcc = VideoWriter_fourcc(*'MP4V')
self._out = VideoWriter(self._name, self._fourcc, 20.0, (640,480))