x264 crashes quicktime!

[cwolves]

I encoded a couple of x264 videos for use on a website. Unfortunately they crash quicktime (and the browser) quite often.

I followed the guide at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=102609

link: http://www.recruiterlife.com/blackbook/robin_mee.asp

if you load that page, it will crash IE and Firefox on a PC (you may have to refresh it a couple of times to get this to happen).


Any ideas as to what could cause this? Here's what I ran to make the video:

x264.exe --pass 1 --bitrate 350 --stats "robin.stats" --bframes 2 --subme 6 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --me --esa --progress --no-psnr --output NUL "robin.avs"
x264.exe --pass 2 --bitrate 350 --stats "robin.stats" --bframes 2 --subme 6 --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,p4x4 --me --esa --progress --no-psnr --output "robin_350.mp4" "robin.avs"

mp4box.exe -fps 29.970 -add "robin_350.mp4" -add "robin_mee.m4a" "final_robin_350.mp4"

and the avs:

AVISource("robin_uncompressed.avi")
Crop(0, 32, -0, -32)
ConvertToYV12()


I converted the same file using FFMpegX on a mac and although it plays without crashing the browser, the quality isn't nearly as good as the results out of x264.exe

Any ideas?


Also, does anyone know how to show some kind of error message if the client's quicktime version doesn't support the codec?

[bond]

try with one or without b-frames

[cwolves]

if I drop b-frames, won't the quality drop, probably to what I got from ffmpegx?

[foxyshadis]

You can have high quality at a low bitrate, or you can have quicktime compatibility, but you can't really have both. (btw, --me esa is generally no better than umh, you can really speed things up by dropping it. Although it's a little faster in the latest rev.)

[cacepi]

if I drop b-frames, won't the quality drop, probably to what I got from ffmpegx?
You don't have much choice, as QuickTime doesn't support multiple b-frames. --me esa will lock up QuickTime 7.1 as well. Just stick with hexagon search.

[foxyshadis]

me method cannot crash a decoder, barring a very fortuitous bug. However, me range potentially could, but x264's default range of 16 hasn't led to any crash reports up until now, to my knowledge.

[bond]

if I drop b-frames, won't the quality drop, probably to what I got from ffmpegx?try it first, to see if thats the reason why qt crashes

[cacepi]

me method cannot crash a decoder, barring a very fortuitous bug.
It does, though; every encode I've tried with '--me esa' would lock up QuickTime 7.1 on both of my Windows machines. '--me umh' and hex would work fine. Exhaustive ME = crash. But only in 7.1, and only on the PC. Other versions of 7.x don't have this problem (at least for me they don't), and the Mac would play back without issue.

It's more likely the problem is that cwolves is using multiple b-frames, however, as QuickTime doesn't like them very much.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Good old Apple... You gotta love it.

[cwolves]

So I've tried:

--bframes 0 --me esa
--bframes 0 --me hex
--bframes 0 --me umh
--bframes 1 --me esa
--bframes 1 --me hex
--bframes 1 --me umh
--bframes 2 --me esa
--bframes 2 --me hex
--bframes 2 --me umh

every single one crashed quicktime as soon as I reloaded the page and hit play.

any other ideas?


I just want decent looking video, so if anyone happens to have any settings that that would work, please let me know!

x264 would work, or any way to encode h264 with quicktime that doesn't have that washed out look that I always get.

[check]

Try MeGUI with the QT profile.

[cwolves]

MeGUI, "CE-QuickTime" profile - same result.

This is happening on 3 different computer, btw. So I know it's not a local problem...

arg. Someone has to have gotten x264 or h264 to work on a webpage, right???

[foxyshadis]

Exactly what version of quicktime? The latest or an older one? Do the sample apple HD trailers work? (Or the SD ones for that matter.) What is the exact resolution of your source & output?

[cwolves]

7.04 and 7.1. All of Apple's videos work fine, then again so do any videos I encode with quicktime pro. The problem with the quicktime pro videos is that they're all washed out (they're gamma shifted for some reason - can't find a solution to this either).

The video is 576x304 (both exact multiples of 16)

[cwolves]

So in a moment of inspiration I fixed it...Well I didn't fix the problem, persay, I just figured out a way around it...prevent the stupid browser from caching the video. Even though I had cache=false set on the object, it apparently still was...

So I added ?x=[random number] to the end of the .mp4. All better, browser no longer caches or crashes.

I hate computers somtimes!

[cwolves]

.........................................................

Okay, I dropped the x=[random number]

I left the ? so my link is now just "filepath.mp4?"

it works...wtf?

[check]

*blames localcache* :P