Debian unstable packages, relevant package versions:
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg       0.10.2-3   FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer
gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs     0.10.14-2  GStreamer plugin for GnomeVFS
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad  0.10.5-2   GStreamer plugins from the "bad" set
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base 0.10.14-2  GStreamer plugins from the "base" set
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good 0.10.6-2   GStreamer plugins from the "good" set
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly 0.10.6-2   GStreamer plugins from the "ugly" set
gstreamer0.10-x            0.10.14-2  GStreamer plugins for X11 and Pango

I'm streaming MPEG-4 video from a Sony surveillance camera (SNC-DF50P).
In Mplayer, this plays perfectly. Here is some information:

MPEG4-ES file format detected.
(11:20:14) Zombie3: Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
(11:20:14) Zombie3: INFO: libavcodec init OK!
(11:20:14) Zombie3: Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)

Even with libavcodec debug messages enabled, no errors are reported in the stream.


With GStreamer, the video plays horribly. The initial frame seems to only decode the top few lines reasonably. After that, only chunky effects are drawn where there is motion.

gst-launch gnomevfssrc location='http://10.10.1.203/mpeg4' ! typefind ! ffdec_mpeg4 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! xvimagesink

Errors like these are shown constantly:
0:00:02.382286000  5381 0x80749d0 WARN                ffmpeg gstffmpegdec.c:1577:gst_ffmpegdec_frame:<ffdec_mpeg40> ffdec_mpeg4: decoding error (len: -1, have_data: 0)
0:00:02.384020000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: cbpc damaged at 12 14

0:00:02.384117000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: Error at MB: 586

0:00:02.440572000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: cbpc damaged at 23 5

0:00:02.472886000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: Error at MB: 228

0:00:02.557964000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: header damaged

0:00:02.558157000  5381 0x80749d0 WARN                ffmpeg gstffmpegdec.c:1577:gst_ffmpegdec_frame:<ffdec_mpeg40> ffdec_mpeg4: decoding error (len: -1, have_data: 0)
0:00:02.559959000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: ac-tex damaged at 5 14

0:00:02.560056000  5381 0x80749d0 ERROR               ffmpeg :0:: Error at MB: 579

I've captured about 500KiB of data and placed it in a file, which is available at:
 http://users.telenet.be/eekzombie/cam.mp4