Redirecting colored output + into logfile

[pstein]

Some nice command line tools use (partially) colored output to emphasis certain lines.

Example: If one uses the well known video tool ffmpeg for validation in a command like:

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ffmpeg -loglevel warning -i D:\videos\soemcorruptedfile.mp4 -f null - 

then the ffmpeg warnings are displayed in colors at the commandprompt.
Excellent so far.

Now I want to redirect the ffmpeg output to a logfile and want to keep the colored lines.

So when I code

ffmpeg ..... >D:\myoutput.log 2>D:\myoutput.log

or

ffmpeg ..... >D:\myoutput.log 2>&1

And open the resulting logfile in a well know editor like Notepad++ then there is no color any more.
Just black-on-white text.

How can I redirect the colors as well?

Are colors a matter of ANSI or Unicode?

Is the issue of not-color-displaying possibly only a Notepad++ problem?

Even worse: If I do not redirect output to logfile but just the warnings from stderr to stdout then the colors are vanishing:

ffmpeg ..... 2>&1

[miskox]

Probably we would need a dump of this logfile - to see if it contains ESCAPE characters.

Print screen too (if possible).

Saso

[einstein1969]

I think that the program output in two different method.

When write to file not insert color. When write to console then write the color.

But this is my suppose.

Can we capture the color on the screen?

On 32Bit platform is possible via DEBUG.EXE.

EDIT:

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By default the program logs to stderr, if coloring is supported by the terminal, colors are used to mark errors and warnings. Log coloring can be disabled setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_NOCOLOR or NO_COLOR, or can be forced setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_COLOR. The use of the environment variable NO_COLOR is deprecated and will be dropped in a following FFmpeg version. 

source

einstein1969

[penpen]

Can we capture the color on the screen?

One could use powershell:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2009/01/11/colorized-capture-of-console-screen-in-html-and-rtf.aspx.

penpen