H.264 video in WMV/ASF container?

[chrislynch]

I think this may be a silly question, but I wanted to ask non-the-less. I have a lot of H264 video that I would rather not wait hours to re-encode to WMV-HD/VC1. I would rather extract the video tracks, and mux them into the WMV/ASF container, along with WMA 10 Pro audio tracks.

This is all in attempts to stream to my Xbox360, since the Spring 07 update added H.264 support.

Please, no flames. This is just simply a question, and I would like to know if anyone else has attempted this (like my) and actually have some sort of success.

:thanks:

[ajp]

Don't think it's possible, pretty sure it isn't...

The easiest way right now without reencoding is Red kawa's Videora 360, which will remux your mkv to mp4 but you will lose the surround sound because MS only supports AAC LC 2ch audio in mp4 container...but maybe you knew this already. :)

[vsv]

Try SolveigMM ASF Multiplexer (http://www.solveigmm.com/?Products&id=ASFMuxer)

The demo application allows an user:

* to remultiplex AVI,MP4,MPEG2 PS,TS to ASF without recompression
* to choose an input stream to be written to ASF
* to decode input video/audio streams and multipxex them to ASF (needs a proper decoder)
* to change a Video FourCC
* to index a resulting ASF file

[chrislynch]

@VSV:

Thank you for your suggestion. I have already tried using that tool without success. What I did was:

* Demux H264 video track from MKV file using mkvextract v1.7.0
* Took raw H264 video and used it as input file. SolveigMM ASF errored stating the input file was invalid.
* Used mp4box to re-write the raw H264 video to MP4 file. SolveigMM ASF errored stating the input file was invalid.

I'll contact the developers to see if there's anything I could do to make this work.


@ajp:

Yep. I knew that MS does not support any other type of multi-channel audio streams other than WMA10 Pro. I'll look at the tool, and play around with it.

Thanks.

[benwaggoner]

The Xbox 360 won't play H.264 in a .wmv file - there's no spec for how to do this, so it's not something we ever tried.

So, you'll either need to leave the video in a .mp4 and live with stereo AAC-LC audio, or recompress.

[ACrowley]

I think this may be a silly question, but I wanted to ask non-the-less. I have a lot of H264 video that I would rather not wait hours to re-encode to WMV-HD/VC1. I would rather extract the video tracks, and mux them into the WMV/ASF container, along with WMA 10 Pro audio tracks.

This is all in attempts to stream to my Xbox360, since the Spring 07 update added H.264 support.

Please, no flames. This is just simply a question, and I would like to know if anyone else has attempted this (like my) and actually have some sort of success.

:thanks:

Xbox 360 Dashboardplayer can only play H264 with AAC into mp4 !
Even a asf remux would be possible


Only HighProfile 4.1 Level 10Mbps with 2.0 AAC LC

[chrislynch]

@ACrowley/benwaggoner

I figured I would ask the question. I didn't think it was technically possible. I just hate having to wait 24+ hours to re-encode 1080p x264/H.264 content to WMV-VC1. I guess it's time to update my hardware to quad-core.

[zambelli]

To be clear: it's technically possible to mux H.264 into ASF. Playing it back, however, is a whole different can of worms. I wouldn't recommend going down that route as it's unlikely to yield any benefits.

[chrislynch]

@zambelli:

Why not? If the FourCC is defined correctly in the video stream, shouldn't a media player be able to locate the installed codec to decode? Please correct me if there are other ramifications that would affect decoding video.

[foxyshadis]

To be clear: it's technically possible to mux H.264 into ASF. Playing it back, however, is a whole different can of worms. I wouldn't recommend going down that route as it's unlikely to yield any benefits.

Well, the one big benefit is that you can combine it with WMA Pro, since Xbox doesn't support any other 5.1 formats at all yet, and afaik there's no way to get WMA Pro in MP4.

[chrislynch]

@foxyshadis:

Yes, I know that WMA cannot be muxed into MP4 containers. I would want to mux H.264 along with WMA Pro into a WMV/ASF container.

[zambelli]

@zambelli:

Why not? If the FourCC is defined correctly in the video stream, shouldn't a media player be able to locate the installed codec to decode? Please correct me if there are other ramifications that would affect decoding video.
On the Xbox the playback architecture isn't as Plug'n'Play as one might expect. The codecs and formats need to be matched up explicitly and there's not really a good codec extensibility model.

In Windows, on the other hand, there are 3 different APIs you can use to play back ASF files: WM Format SDK, Media Foundation, and DirectShow. The first requires DMO (DirectX Media Objects) decoders, the second requires MFT (Media Foundation Transforms) or DMO decoders, and the third can use any DirectShow or DMO decoder.

WMP and MCE use MF on Vista and WMFSDK on every other OS version for playback of ASF files by default. That means that if you were to try to play an ASF file with H.264 video in WMP, the player would complain about no codec being available because it would only look for a DMO or MFT decoder. If you tried to play the same file in DirectShow (i.e. MPC player), it'd probably work just fine because it would look for the DirectShow H.264 decoder.

You run into the same problem when storing AC3 audio in an ASF file, for example (a slightly more realistic scenario).

Make sense?

[chrislynch]

@zambelli:

Interesting. Very good to know. I do wish the Xbox 360 was more "open" than what MS has on the market. But then again, that's what you get with a closed source product.

BTW, do you know if the 360 will eventually support multi-channel AAC audio, instead of WMA 10 Pro only?

[Awax]

I have been using a few different programs to make my videos playable on the 360 through the windows media center. I found VC1 files to be a problem, but if they are in wmv format, they can be played through the dashboard. So I found a solution, but it cost $39 for the program. It works though, flawlessly, and does not take as long as you'd think. The program is WME Assistant. It encodes in any HD setting (1080p, 720p, etc) and multichannel audio, loseless if desired. Using the encoding setting at fastest, with no loss in quality, a two hour hd movie will encode in four hours. Best I've seen yet. It supports mkv, ts, avi, etc. The only file type I have found it does not support is a ts container with an mpeg2 file in it, and it does not support dvr-ms. Other than that, works great. I just wish there was a free program that output a file as fast with the same quality. Quality in equals Quality out.

[bond]

did you try muxing h.264 and wma9 to avi on xbox?

[dand]

On the Xbox the playback architecture isn't as Plug'n'Play as one might expect. The codecs and formats need to be matched up explicitly and there's not really a good codec extensibility model.

In Windows, on the other hand, there are 3 different APIs you can use to play back ASF files: WM Format SDK, Media Foundation, and DirectShow. The first requires DMO (DirectX Media Objects) decoders, the second requires MFT (Media Foundation Transforms) or DMO decoders, and the third can use any DirectShow or DMO decoder.

WMP and MCE use MF on Vista and WMFSDK on every other OS version for playback of ASF files by default. That means that if you were to try to play an ASF file with H.264 video in WMP, the player would complain about no codec being available because it would only look for a DMO or MFT decoder. If you tried to play the same file in DirectShow (i.e. MPC player), it'd probably work just fine because it would look for the DirectShow H.264 decoder.

You run into the same problem when storing AC3 audio in an ASF file, for example (a slightly more realistic scenario).

Make sense?


Some years have passed; has anything changed regarding AVC+AAC muxing into ASF?

[Midzuki]

Some years have passed; has anything changed regarding AVC+AAC muxing into ASF?

As the ASF container
(which is unsuitable for storing B-frames)
hasn't changed so far...