Open partial MP4

[Ranguvar]

Hello,

When I encode videos with x264, I do so from the command line with x264.exe straight to the MP4 container. Sometimes I'd like to take a peek at what the video looks like so far, so during encoding, I use HoboCopy to copy the partial MP4 to another directory. However, no apps can read it - MPC-HC "cannot render the file", VLC doesn't work, AviSynth DirectShowSource "cannot open the file", with an "Unspecified error", and YAMB does not show anything when adding the partial MP4 in any of the modes (create, split, extract).

Is there any way I can play these truncated MP4s?

:thanks:

[bond]

no, the header is only written once at the end of the file. the header can only be written at the end because before not all needed informations are available before encoding the full stream

[rebkell]

Hello,

When I encode videos with x264, I do so from the command line with x264.exe straight to the MP4 container. Sometimes I'd like to take a peek at what the video looks like so far, so during encoding, I use HoboCopy to copy the partial MP4 to another directory. However, no apps can read it - MPC-HC "cannot render the file", VLC doesn't work, AviSynth DirectShowSource "cannot open the file", with an "Unspecified error", and YAMB does not show anything when adding the partial MP4 in any of the modes (create, split, extract).

Is there any way I can play these truncated MP4s?

:thanks:

You can encode them to mkv and watch it as it progresses, of course you'd have to demux the 264 after completion to be able to mux it back into an mp4.

[Ranguvar]

@bond: Is there any way to rewrite this header, even with guesswork?

Sorry, I just can't believe that an MP4 like this would be completely unreadable no matter what :p

(Now just more out of curiosity)