Doom's MP4 Guide

[wing1]

I did a test using Doom's recent guide with MP4, and I failed miserably. The encoding and muxing went without any errors; However, the playback didn't work. MP4Player will playback the video only stream in the .mp4 but it reminded me of watching VCD on DVD player that can't handle CD-R media ( color blocks ). If i mixed the audio with the video then the player simply crashed. What went wrong?

I used all the files that was suggested in Doom's guide.

[Neo Neko]

Good queation. I think Doom9 himself might be best suited to answer this. I have not had a chance to look at his MP4 guide yet myself. The last MP4 I made I created an Xvid/MP3 AVI and used the DXN AVI2MP4 util to convert it to MP4. Played flawlessly in the new version of the playa. But Mpeg4IP and every other player failed miserably.

[Doom9]

well.. I only tested it with xvid/aac and divx5/aac... the latter failed, didn't even mux in fact. Did you follow the guide to the letter? The other guide I link to did have the audio and video muxing the other way round which didn't work for me. Obviously these tools aren't that stable yet so it might be a bit tricky to get it working.. and what I've heard the different multiplexing methods only work for the player that was written by the same people as the muxing tool. As I said... consider it an outlook of things to come (mp4 and aac).. something you have the chance to play with now but that doesn't necessarily work quite as well as you'd expect it. I would hold off doing all my rips in that format for now... if you want to try something new I suggest ogm with vorbis audio.. that has worked just fine every time I tried it (though with divx5 b-frames I dunno.. I've only tested xvid.. ). and since there's no disc format specified yet (at last not one I would know of), even if you burn mp4s today nobody can guarantee you that you'll eventually be able to play these discs on an mpeg4 enabled dvd player. consider the mp4/aac combo in alpha state..

[wing1]

This is what I did to create the test.mp4.

1. I used an encoded xvid file 10min commercial trailer.
2. I changed the fourCC from xvid to divx.
3. I extracted the audio and video into individual components, divx video and wav audio.
4. I encoded the audio to .aac using psytelACCdrop GUI with psytelACCenc215. No issue here.
5. I muxed the video and audio using mp4creator60.exe. No complain here.
6. I played the result using wmp4Player.exe. This is where the problem exist. If I just mux the video alone. wmp4player.exe would launch the video, but it produced garbage overlay. If I included the audio, then wmp4player.exe refused to even open the clip.
7. Atm, I am not planning to create an archive base on this format, rather it is an interesting format to play with. I would like to know what I did wrong in creating the .mp4 clip.

[Doom9]

there could be a few problems here:

1) encode with fourcc set to divx rather than changing it afterwards.. the fourcc changer change one instance of the codec's name.. that's enough for DS based players but if you use nic's or blights (on my site) fourcc changer they won't change the 2nd xvid line... try a hex editor and you'll see

5) in which order did you mux? what were the commandlines? try alternating video and audio muxing.. also play with the -I parameter

[Nozomi]

I did the same with a DivX5 source (w/B-Frame), muxing passed but the player reported client crash. Any idea why?

[Tri]

I have heard that you have to convert an DivX5-avi with B-frames to an mp4-file using the converter included with DivX5 before you can mux it to an mp4-stream. I haven't tested it but it seems to have something to do with B-Frames...

[Neo Neko]

I have done some xvid/aac MP4 recently without a hitch. Make sure you have the latest version of the MPEG4IP tools.

1. Encode Xvid video to an avi file with Xvid fourcc. No audio.
2. Use psytel to create the aac soundtrack.
3. Mux the video with mp4creator60.
4. Mux the audio with mp4creator60.
5. Open in WMP4player and watch without a hitch.

Problems.....
WMP4player does not seem to use video overlay. Or it uses it poorly on my machine. Switching to full screen was a no-no. And even play at normal rez seemed to stutter or chop every once in a while.

[Nozomi]

I did the same but just using DivX 5.02 w/B-Frame and it failed to payback. I will try next time without B-Frame and see if any success.

[Nozomi]

Client also crashed for DivX 5.02 without B-Frame:

23:45:46.831-plugin-6: Adding audio plugin aac aac_plugin.dll
23:45:46.831-plugin-6: Adding audio plugin celp celp_plugin.dll
23:45:46.841-plugin-6: Adding audio plugin mp3 mp3_plugin.dll
23:45:46.851-plugin-6: Adding video plugin MPEG4 ISO mpeg4_iso_plugin.dll
23:45:46.851-plugin-3: Can't find export point in plugin SDL.dll
23:45:46.851-plugin-6: Adding video plugin xvid xvid_plugin.dll
23:45:47.411-mp4file-7: MP4 - got track 1 profile ID 1
23:45:47.411-plugin-7: Found matching video plugin MPEG4 ISO
23:45:47.522-mp4iso-7: Caught exception in VOL mem header search

Any idea?

[symonjfox]

I checked the new Dooms9 guide for MPEG 4 files, now I'll tell you my way.

WAY 1

1- Video encode to Xvid. DivX 5.02 gave me some problems, and the resultant MP4 file was unplayable.
2- Mp4creator60.exe -c"d:\video.avi" -H "d:\video.mp4"
3- I convert audio (WAV) to MP4 AAC (using Nero Plugin) and checking the Low complexity, Add Hint track and Mix audio to existing Video file.

WAY 2

1- Video Xvid
2- Audio AAC (psytel or faac)
3- Mp4creator60.exe -c"d:\video.avi" -H "d:\video.mp4"
4- Mp4creator60.exe -c"d:\audio.aac" -H -optimize "d:\video.mp4"

@ Doom9
Don't forget the OPTIMIZE option (in the manual way) because if you don't add it, the audio will be included AFTER video, and will occour some delays in audio while playback (also your hard disk will continue to read here, there, here, there ... while with optimize, audio and video are interleaved). Please modify your guide (add "-optimize" while multiplexing the second stream.

I've some doubts about multiplexing Audio before Video. I always did the opposite and it always worked well ... I think that it's only it you use MP4UI.

@ all
I'd advice everybody to use Mp4creator60 instead of mp4ui, because newer versions of MP4IP contains a lot of bugfixes and also are often updated.

[dillee1]

making mp4
1) There is changes in the AAC header format recently, which the mp4creator from mepg4ip is no longer standard compliant. so stop using it. get the hacked one from memmo(from hydorgenaudio or rareware)
2) the old pystel and aacenc doesnt produce compilant stream also,
switch to new FAAC
3) Divx5x/Xvid/3ivx all mux properly even with all advance features on(Qpel, B-frame, GMC). Make a video only avi then mux with the hacked mp4creator.

playing mp4
1) Divx Playa 2.0.1 don't play aac stream, use mp3 on it.
2) Wmplayer is a buggy freak, don't use it at all
3) Use a combination of 3ivx decoder and ffdshow for optimal playback. enable "Allow unspported decoder" in the 3ivx media splitter and enable "Use overlay mixer" in recent version of ffdshow.
Then playback with any dshow player

[tiki4]

@dillee1:

Just to give some minor corrections to what you poster (sorry). I'm hanging out on HA for quite a while now and follow discussions with Menno (that's his name) Bakker and Ivan Dimkovic, the guys that work for Ahead.

1) aacenc.exe from RareWares (now rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org ) still produces standard compliant AAC streams as it uses an MPEG2 ADTS header, which hasn't changed.

2) aacenc_mpeg4.exe from RareWares produced MPEG4 ADTS headers which weren't standard compliant due to some recent changes. Therefore that version was removed. Also recent updates were included in the mp4tools.rar package (version 0.9.8) that is hosted on RareWares.

3) For playback you are absolutely right. 3ivx + ffdshow: this is the combination that I use as well.

4) Some minor hint: Quicktime player still refuses in version 6.1 on Windows to play MP4 files which have an AAC audio track with MPEG2 ADTS header. I still don't know of any way how to change that. Maybe someone knows how to do that (bitstream is identical).

tiki4

[symonjfox]

Originally posted by tiki4
[B4) Some minor hint: Quicktime player still refuses in version 6.1 on Windows to play MP4 files which have an AAC audio track with MPEG2 ADTS header. I still don't know of any way how to change that. Maybe someone knows how to do that (bitstream is identical).
tiki4 [/B]

Well, quick time doesn't support MP3 in MP4 container ... doesn't support Advanced Simple Profile (GMC, QPEL, BFrames, MPEG quantizzation and such stuff).

I use 3ivX to play MP4 files and works fine.

[hans-jürgen]

Originally posted by tiki4
@dillee1:
Just to give some minor corrections to what you poster (sorry). I'm hanging out on HA for quite a while now and follow discussions with Menno (that's his name) Bakker and Ivan Dimkovic, the guys that work for Ahead.

Maybe it's also a good idea to hang out at the forum (and the Wiki) of Audiocoding.com now and then...

1) aacenc.exe from RareWares (now rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org ) still produces standard compliant AAC streams as it uses an MPEG2 ADTS header, which hasn't changed.

That's right, the problem always has been and still is with MPEG-4 software from Apple and others that is not fully standard-compliant, because it does not recognize MPEG-2 AAC LC files (and MP3 within a MP4 container and multichannel audio files etc.).

2) aacenc_mpeg4.exe from RareWares produced MPEG4 ADTS headers which weren't standard compliant due to some recent changes. Therefore that version was removed. Also recent updates were included in the mp4tools.rar package (version 0.9.8) that is hosted on RareWares.

Correct, if you want to know more about this, read e.g. some of the recent threads and/or the Wiki pages about MP4 and ADTS on Audiocoding.com. By the way, for Apple users there's a brand new MPEG4IP package on RareWares now with a patched version of mp4creator.

3) For playback you are absolutely right. 3ivx + ffdshow: this is the combination that I use as well.

Another possibility would be mplayer that also seems to work well with multichannel MP4 files when compiled with FAAD2 (see the related thread on Audiocoding.com). The 3ivx developer promised to release a new AAC decoder for their DS filter 2 days ago (not based on FAAD anymore), so multichannel audio in a MP4 file should be possible soon with 3ivx.

4) Some minor hint: Quicktime player still refuses in version 6.1 on Windows to play MP4 files which have an AAC audio track with MPEG2 ADTS header. I still don't know of any way how to change that. Maybe someone knows how to do that (bitstream is identical).

Well, the problem is simply this MPEG-2 flag instead of the MPEG-4 flag that QuickTime expects in the MP4 file header, so the easiest solution for PsyTEL AACEnc files is to enable mp4creator to change that flag while muxing.

Enrico Palmeri is working on that (and another closely related issue) right now and will send the necessary changes to the mp4creator code to Bill May (the MPEG4IP developer) as soon as he figures out how to implement command line switches in mp4creator. His hardcoded changes already work since several weeks now, so if someone here is willing to help, he might post on the Audiocoding.com forum perhaps. Enrico published the source code of his changes (without the command line switches) some days ago on the Apple QuickTime forum for Windows ("QT 6 not fully standard-compliant..."), so you could have a look at it there.

[tiki4]

Is it you? The famous guy with the headphones from HA?

Well, welcome at doom9!

Thanks for your updates. Actually I wasn't able to follow all this stuff in real time as I don't have enough time to hang out in sixteen forums (or more?). I just follow HA now and then and I'm still very interested in 5.1 AAC playback (well, not all people are watching movies on Linux, but MPlayer is a good hint ). I still hope that the guys of 3ivx get it done sooner or later (although they are quite slow with their updates, but they give it away for free, so we can't demand anything).

Anyway thanks for your help.

tiki4

[el00343]

well, there is another way that worked perfectly for me:

1.make the .ac3 -> wav from headac3he
2.make the wav -> .mp4 from Nero's AAC plugin <-.currently the best AAC encoder if I'm not wrong
3.make the .avi using XVID
4.multiplexed the .avi into the existing .mp4 from step 2.

Plays fine with any player i've tried,including quicktime 6

[hans-jürgen]

Originally posted by tiki4
Is it you? The famous guy with the headphones from HA?

Well, welcome at doom9!

Thanks... and yes, that's me with the Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones on listening to Ogg Vorbis during the c't listening test Aug 2002...

Thanks for your updates. Actually I wasn't able to follow all this stuff in real time as I don't have enough time to hang out in sixteen forums (or more?).

Yes, I know how you feel.

I just follow HA now and then and I'm still very interested in 5.1 AAC playback (well, not all people are watching movies on Linux, but MPlayer is a good hint ).

I don't know anything about Linux either, but I think there are Windows and/or Mac ports available somewhere.

Another freeware MPEG-4 player that doesn't get mentioned much is the platform4 player from Philips. Just yesterday someone at HA confirmed it works with Nero AAC stereo files (preset -normal), so it might be an alternative for some people, especially because there's also a WinCE version available: http://www.digitalnetworks.philips.c...elId=N764A2175

And of course there's EnvivioTV (they also claim to have a PDA and a Linux version of it), mpegable DS filter and player (don't work with audio-only files) and Zoomplayer, all freeware. A summary of available DS filters can be found in the Audiocoding.com Wiki on the pages for "Software Audio Players for Windows" in the paragraph about Windows Media Player.

I still hope that the guys of 3ivx get it done sooner or later (although they are quite slow with their updates, but they give it away for free, so we can't demand anything).

I guess it won't take long this time, because they probably also realize what has happened with the Apple release of their Music Service, iTunes4 and iPod, all using AAC/MP4.

@el00343: Yes, that's right, this method should work, but not with the playback of multichannel audio files in QuickTime 6, or am I wrong? Nero AAC is probably the best AAC codec around or will be very soon, because Ivan Dimkovic continues to improve it, e.g. with better TNS tuning, fixing bugs etc. which will not happen to PsyTEL of course. The drawback concerning multichannel audio is in the Nero Burning ROM plugin manager right now that can't read multichannel WAVs while the AAC codec can. This known bug will hopefully be fixed some day... My guess for the new Nero Digital MPEG-4 application with Ateme's video codec and the new AAC+ audio codec is that it won't suffer from that bug, because it had to be built from scratch, as far as I know.

[el00343]

well, I didn't know about multichannel aac's, all my rips are 1-cds so I transcode into stereo sound only.
Still waiting for the day we will be able to mux 64kbps AAC+ audio into our .mp4's...I'm dying to lay my hands upon such an encoder,even if it's pre-pre-alpha-don't-touch version

[hans-jürgen]

The last thing I heard about this issue was that it will be before July 1, 2003... And it will be a release, not an alpha version.