Sony's MPEG-4 Codecs (Image Converter 2)

[bond]

As some might already know the new playstationportable from sony is supposed to handle playback of MPEG-4 SP, AAC and even AVC (all in the .mp4 container)

sony provides some .mp4 files itself here (http://psp.connect.com), but of course sony also provides software which lets people convert their own video files to .mp4 called "MSSW-IC2 Image Converter 2 Software" (http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=MSSWIC2&Dept=tvvideo&CategoryName=tvvideo_playstation_PSPaccessories)
i assume this software includes a mpeg-4 simple profile video encoder and an aac encoder, did anyone ever tried this? hows the quality for the a/v?
does anyone know whether sony developed these encoders on their own or uses encoders from other vendors?
maybe sony's encoders are also nice for useage even if you dont own a psp :)

i didnt find a discussion about this till now, but if one of the biggest companies propably existing develops mpeg-4 codecs it at least deserves an own thread imho :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've just downloaded a few of the samples. And they sure don't look (or sound) anything special :eek:

Here's a typical files properties: -

http://img184.exs.cx/img184/4024/pspnikevincecarter3ce.gif


Cheers

[Irwin]

overall bitrate: 1309
video bitrate: 768
audop bitrate: 64

video+audio 768+64=832 -> why 1309 overall?

[bond]

if you dump the filestructure of the Nike Suffocation and Survival .mp4 with mp4dump it says "xvid" under compressorname in the stsd atom :D

also the files seem to be simple profile only, which might show again that asp isnt supported on the psp

btw these .thm files seem to be some normal picture format, as i am able to open them in ms paint

[SeeMoreDigital]

Neither my Xcard or ADS Media-Link can play any of the original PSP files... I had to de-mux them with mp4UI and re-mux them with MP4BoxGUI before playback was possible!

And yes... with regard to the .THM files, if you re-name the file extension to say, .JPG you can see them ;)


Cheers

[bond]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
And yes... with regard to the .THM files, if you re-name the file extension to say, .JPG you can see them ;) you can also see them when your rename to .bmp, .png or anything else

[slavickas]

Originally posted by bond
you can also see them when your rename to .bmp, .png or anything else
but it's jpeg, open with notepad or something similar You'll find "JFIF"

[Elias]

I also noticed in Quicktime that sony used xvid in their *.mp4 files. Honestly though, the best way to create MPEG-4 files imo is still using XviD, BeLight with the nero dlls, and muxing with MP4Box. These PSP encoders are all bad because they don't use the full power of MPEG-4 Simple Profile. Surely, they shouldn't considering that the videos are aimed for use in a PSP, but hey, Adaptive quantization, Chroma motion, wide search etc can all be used in Simple Profile and work very well on any PSP. Because if these MPEG-4 features work more than fine on my cell phone, then they should work in PSP too. So I will not use these encoders, and I've tried them out. They're for complete n00bs imo :D Besides, paying for some of these encoders to Sony when some of them use the XviD source, and not giving money to the XviD devs, that sucks. Or is Sony's MPEG-4 encoder free?

[MSlv]

Originally posted by Elias
Or is Sony's MPEG-4 encoder free?
well, if it's not free, that doesn't mean you can't get it free.;)
For "testing purposes" only, of course.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Elias
Besides, paying for some of these encoders to Sony when some of them use the XviD source, and not giving money to the XviD devs, that sucks. Or is Sony's MPEG-4 encoder free?

How do you know they are using Xvid sources? All I have seen so far is talk about clips that Sony at least in part produced with Xvid. Which is not a bad thing. It says alot that Sony or someone at Sony is using Xvid to produce content. And this is a verry different thing from hijacking source in conflict with it's license. It is intreguing. But untill people use the Sony tools to encode a clip and do an info dump as Bond did resulting with information pointing to Xvid being the encoder. Then I fail to see this as much more than a rather unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. ;) Not that I can't imagine Sony doing such a thing. Wether by unscroupulous means or left hand right hand syndrome. But nothing solid indicates that is the case. :p

[Elias]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
How do you know they are using Xvid sources? All I have seen so far is talk about clips that Sony at least in part produced with Xvid. Which is not a bad thing. It says alot that Sony or someone at Sony is using Xvid to produce content. And this is a verry different thing from hijacking source in conflict with it's license. It is intreguing. But untill people use the Sony tools to encode a clip and do an info dump as Bond did resulting with information pointing to Xvid being the encoder. Then I fail to see this as much more than a rather unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. ;) Not that I can't imagine Sony doing such a thing. Wether by unscroupulous means or left hand right hand syndrome. But nothing solid indicates that is the case. :p I'm not trying to set up a conspiracy theory here. I checked their MPEG-4 files in Quicktime, and instead of MPEG-4 Video, it said xvid. Sure, that's not a bad thing; XviD kicks ass! But as I see it, they've probably taken the XviD source, modified it a little and incorporated it into their MPEG-4 PSP encoder. And they're probably paying to MPEG-LA so they can do this. But imo, I think the XviD devs should get a paycheck from Sony for doing this :) I'm not sure about any of these statements though, and they shouldn't be taken as canon. Just my theory on all of it.

[slavickas]

Originally posted by Elias
... But as I see it, they've probably taken the XviD source, modified it a little and incorporated it into their MPEG-4 PSP encoder. And they're probably paying to MPEG-LA so they can do this...
or their encoder suxxxorz and they used xvid for samples :p :rolleyes:

[Drachir]

From the sample I get this:

* Movie Info *
Timescale 90000 - Duration 00:01:08.034
Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
File Brand MSNV - version 512
File has no MPEG4 IOD/OD

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:01:08.034
Media Type "vide" - Media Sub Type "mp4v" - 2039 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x20
MPEG-4 Visual Size 320 x 240 - Simple Profile @ Level 3
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 24000 - Duration 00:01:07.882
Media Type "soun" - Media Sub Type "mp4a" - 1591 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 24000
Synchronized on stream 1

File Brand MSNV - version 512 ?

[bond]

Originally posted by Drachir
File Brand MSNV - version 512 ?yep, they seem to give their files an own "brandname" :rolleyes:

[Drachir]

Could the audio be HE-AAC?
When i play a sample from http://psp.connect.com/.

With xine(1.0) I get no sound(use an older faad version)(libfaad: Unexpected channel configuration change).
With mplayer (some days old CVS version) I get sound. Mplayer diplays 48000Hz.

[bond]

Originally posted by Drachir
Could the audio be HE-AAC?
When i play a sample from http://psp.connect.com/.

With xine(1.0) I get no sound(use an older faad version)(libfaad: Unexpected channel configuration change).
With mplayer (some days old CVS version) I get sound. Mplayer diplays 48000Hz. i am not sure because
- it seems that he-aac is not explicitely signalled
- all faad2 based decoders automatically resample to double frequency when having a low one (eg 24khz), no matter if he-aac or not afaik
- non faad2 based decoders, eg 3ivx, dont seem to resample, which could mean its not he-aac

[Elias]

It's not HE-AAC. It's LC-AAC. Quicktime can't play HE-AAC if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt that PSP can that either. But I might be mistaken.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Elias
It's not HE-AAC. It's LC-AAC. Quicktime can't play HE-AAC if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt that PSP can that either. But I might be mistaken. QuickTime player is able to play AAC-HE audio... It just can't decode SBR element ;)


Cheers

[Elias]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
QuickTime player is able to play AAC-HE audio... It just can't decode SBR element ;)


Cheers Oh yeah, that's true. I guess this is why it's 24 khz, because that's often the case with players that can't decode SBR elemnts :) So it's probably HE-AAC then :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well....

I've just fed one of the PSP .MP4 files into Foobar2000 and looked up the files "audio" properties and got this: -

http://img12.exs.cx/img12/2108/audioinfo2am.gif


And this is what Foobar2000 says about the same audio stream when it's de-muxed (using mp4UI) to .AAC.... However, notice how the bit-rate has now effectively doubled!

http://img148.exs.cx/img148/1803/exportedpspnaturesgreatestmome.gif


Normally, Foobar2000 is very good at identifying the properties of AAC streams. For instance, here's what Foobar2000 says about an typical AAC-HE stream created using NeroDigital and extracted out of the .MP4 container using mp4UI to .AAC: -

http://img232.exs.cx/img232/7113/aachetest8lf.gif


Cheers

[Elias]

It's really weird. I just checked with the ffdshow audio decoder in MPC, and it said 48khz, and ffdshow is HE-AAC decodable, right? My take on this it's that it's HE-AAC, but the PSP encoder from Sony has some serious issues and the audio becomes somewhat b0rked... which is imo one more reason not to use it :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Okay after getting out my calculator I've worked out the relationship between the audio file size (in MB) and the files bit-rate (in Kbps).

It would seem the audio stream is not 64Kbps, but is indeed nearer 123Kbps - as stated by Foobar2000.

So... for some reason the files properties are wrong :eek: . This would "partially" explain why Irwin saw this: -

http://img82.exs.cx/img82/3839/irwin1dd.gif


Cheers

[Elias]

I'm not surprised. It seems as if Sony needs to make some major bugfix updates on their MPEG-4 PSP encoder :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I've just downloaded a few of the samples. And they sure don't look (or sound) anything special :eek:

Here's a typical files properties: -

http://img184.exs.cx/img184/4024/pspnikevincecarter3ce.gif
Okay... As you know, Irwin pointed out that the bit-rates of the audio and video streams did not add up correctly!

So I decided to de-mux and re-mux the streams, to see if it would make any difference.... And it did: -

http://img218.exs.cx/img218/940/pspnikevincecarterremux1lx.gif

So it would seem something isn't right somewhere :eek:


Cheers

[Elias]

Well, I've bumped into this kind of stuff before actually. I've seen it when using pass through with Quicktime Pro for both audio/video. Basically just upgrading the *.mp4 container into an apple version. Some *.mp4 containers are b0rked. You might want to give it a try with QTPro and check the results.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Elias
You might want to give it a try with QTPro and check the results. The re-muxed files play fine in QuickTime player...

http://img133.exs.cx/img133/4841/quicktime8nz.gif

They also play fine when re-muxed again (using QuickTime Pro) to .MOV


Cheers

[bond]

there is an own flag which tells the bitrates of a stream, i assume sony's mp4 muxer is simply borked and doesnt set the correct value there
a wrong or not set value shouldnt influence playback at all

[Elias]

Originally posted by Elias
You might want to give it a try with QTPro and check the results.I didn't mean that it would give better playback, just that he should pass through the original sony psp *.mp4 with QTPro and check if the bitrate becomes corrected.

[bond]

i didnt meant that he shouldnt do it :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bond
a wrong or not set value shouldnt influence playback at all I was kinda hoping this might have explained why none of the PSP (.MP4) files it tried would play via my ADS Media-Link or Sigma Xcard.

I wonder whether some of our forum members with Siemssen SCO 5000 ND and Rjtech RJ-1500DVX II stand-alone players could try some PSP files in their machines?


Cheers

[bond]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I was kinda hoping this might have explained why none of the PSP (.MP4) files it tried would play via my ADS Media-Link or Sigma Xcardwell haali's mp4 parser also doesnt seem to play them :confused:
nero does

[temporance]

Originally posted by bond

...I was kinda hoping this might have explained why none of the PSP (.MP4) files it tried would play via my ADS Media-Link or Sigma Xcard...
...well haali's mp4 parser also doesnt seem to play them :confused: nero does...So much for .mp4 being a "pure MPEG-4" solid standard with reliable interworking. You chaps are better off with AVI ;)

[Latexxx]

According to psp owners, psp requires some hacked headers in mp4 to play the files properly.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by temporance
So much for .mp4 being a "pure MPEG-4" solid standard with reliable interworking. You chaps are better off with AVI ;) Hey, well... AVI ain't perfect either!

But seriously, the concern here is that Sony "appears" to have released a buggy encoding tool :eek:

Of course we might learn more if somebody here actually used their "Image Converter 2" application to create some short encodes. For all we know, the "sample encodes" might not have been generated using it!


Cheers

[bond]

guys cool down, haalis parser handles the sony .mp4 files perfectly! they are fine

another example of perfect interoperability between different, independant mpeg-4 implementations! :D


@smd and all, plz no avi vs mp4 flames :)

[dragongodz]

So much for .mp4 being a "pure MPEG-4" solid standard with reliable interworking.
lets all not forget that if someone(be it person or company) does things outside the standard, such as hacked headers, it in no ways says the standard is bad. all it says is that that implamentation does not stick strictly to the standard, so the standard itself can not be blamed. rather the one that introduced the hack is responsible for any interoperability problems.

[pspvideo9]

If you guys are interested, I've written down all the information I could find about Sony's proprietary PSP Movie Format (PMF) (AVC for video, ATRAC3+ for audio). You can find it here:
http://www.pspvideo9.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=415

There is a sample video from one of the game saves on that page for download. If any of you technically minded people would like to take a look at the other sample I have, let me know. I didn't post it up due to its large size.

Any comments, ideas, would be awsome.