MeGUI: General Questions and Troubleshooting Thread

[jlw_4049]

Does m4v containers support HEVC? Can you play mkv or mp4?

Upon googling it I don't see anywhere that it says it supports HEVC.


https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/7685

tag for codec hevc in stream #0, codec not currently supported in container
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid argument
Error initializing output stream 0:0 --

encoded 0 frames
Conversion failed!



Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[LigH]

I am not sure if "m4v" here is just an MP4 container with a renamed extension ... or really a different container specification. I have seen this extension used for MPEG4-ASP elementary video (without container) as well.

If there is MPEG4 (or newer) video multiplexed with audio, it certainly needs a container. I would assume that Apple TV should use ISO Base Media MP4 v2 as container too, just with some specific atoms.

The MP4 container supports HEVC video streams already (L-SMASH and MP4Box support their multiplexing); whether Apple TV supports them, is a different chapter.

[videoh]

"m4v" refers to a video elementary stream. That may not be what the questioner meant but it is the correct usage.

[bruno321]

I've started to play around with qaac which I had never used. I chose these options:



and I ran it on an MP2 file, this is the log:


My question is: did it go directly from MP2 to AAC or was there some intermediate encoding? (like MP2 to AC3 to AAC or something)

[LigH]

AviSynth source plugins decode audio to uncompressed PCM (and often floating point samples, because many audio filters expect that). Then the result is fed to the encoder.

[beto]

Originally Posted by jlw_4049

Does m4v containers support HEVC? Can you play mkv or mp4?

Upon googling it I don't see anywhere that it says it supports HEVC.


https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/7685

tag for codec hevc in stream #0, codec not currently supported in container
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid argument
Error initializing output stream 0:0 --

encoded 0 frames
Conversion failed!



Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

If I mux the hevc video to a mp4 , m4v or mkv container they play ok using VLC or the native Windows 10 movie player in the PC.

In iTunes and other apple devices (iPhone, Apple TV etc.) they do not play at all. May be a limitation of the Apple devices regarding the container format. I do not know...

[beto]

Originally Posted by LigH

I am not sure if "m4v" here is just an MP4 container with a renamed extension ... or really a different container specification. I have seen this extension used for MPEG4-ASP elementary video (without container) as well.

If there is MPEG4 (or newer) video multiplexed with audio, it certainly needs a container. I would assume that Apple TV should use ISO Base Media MP4 v2 as container too, just with some specific atoms.

The MP4 container supports HEVC video streams already (L-SMASH and MP4Box support their multiplexing); whether Apple TV supports them, is a different chapter.

I read Apple's documentation related to HEVC and it states that the iPhone records video in HEVC format and stores it in a MOV container. Maybe iOS only supports playing back HEVC in a MOV container and not MP4. Not sure if this is the case. At least it is what I could infer from the support documentation.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by beto

I read Apple's documentation related to HEVC and it states that the iPhone records video in HEVC format and stores it in a MOV container...

Out of interest... Did Apple's documentation mention anything about supported 'Profiles'?

[beto]

Originally Posted by SeeMoreDigital

Out of interest... Did Apple's documentation mention anything about supported 'Profiles'?

Nothing specific about that unfortunately.

[slick1109]

Hello. I am trying to figure out how to Downgrade the x264 codec in MeGUI.

Since I save backups during updates, I still have the previous x264 "obsolete" zip file. I would assume I simply extract the x264.exe file I want and overwrite the newer one in the "MeGui\tools\x264" folder, but after doing so, and checking the current version by running Update in MeGUI, it still shows the newer version. So I assume there is a better way to do this, or some Settings file that also needs to be changed as well.


[For anyone wondering WHY I want to downgrade, the reason is because my older Samsung TV will not play any of my recent encodes (via USB) after upgrading to x264 r2969. So I want to revert back to x264 r2935 which is the last version I used that works fine.]

UPDATE: So while I was waiting for a response, I tried changing my update settings from the STABLE server to the DEVELOPER server, which gave me a newer version of the codec (x264 r2991). I encoded a few second long video just to test it, and it seems like the r2991 fixes the problem. So something is clearly wrong with the x264 r2969 codec. However, I usually prefer to stay with the STABLE updates, so I would still like an answer to my question regarding how to downgrade my x264 codec to a previous version.

Thanks.

[sneaker_ger]

Originally Posted by slick1109

So something is clearly wrong with the x264 r2969 codec.

JFYI: It's a Samsung bug. x264 developers accommodated for such buggy players in the newest versions.

https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x...f341027b57f6f8
https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x...f03a302da0ca1c

[slick1109]

Originally Posted by sneaker_ger

JFYI: It's a Samsung bug. x264 developers accommodated for such buggy players in the newest versions.

https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x...f341027b57f6f8
https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x...f03a302da0ca1c

Thanks for letting me know. I was able to confirm that the x264 r2969 encodes do play on both my PC and a friends Roku Ultra (via USB), but not on my Samsung TV. So I guess that explains it. Glad to find out it was fixed on newer versions of the codec.

Hopefully someone else on here will still help me figure out how to downgrade my codec since I prefer to stay with the stable releases for now.

[kalehrl]

Well, MeGUI isn't updated that often even when using develop so I guess you are pretty sure sticking to it.

[jlw_4049]

I have always used the development server. Never had an issue.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[sneaker_ger]

Originally Posted by slick1109

Since I save backups during updates, I still have the previous x264 "obsolete" zip file. I would assume I simply extract the x264.exe file I want and overwrite the newer one in the "MeGui\tools\x264" folder, but after doing so, and checking the current version by running Update in MeGUI, it still shows the newer version. So I assume there is a better way to do this, or some Settings file that also needs to be changed as well.

Does MeGUI even check against the .exe files (e.g. by running "x264 --version")? My guess is it alters AutoUpdate.xml when running updates through the GUI but not when you manually exchanged e.g. the x264.exe. So manually exchanging the x264.exe should make it work with the different x264 although it's not shown in the GUI, i.e. it's only a cosmetic issue? Maybe someone else can confirm.

[slick1109]

Originally Posted by sneaker_ger

Does MeGUI even check against the .exe files (e.g. by running "x264 --version")? My guess is it alters AutoUpdate.xml when running updates through the GUI but not when you manually exchanged e.g. the x264.exe. So manually exchanging the x264.exe should make it work with the different x264 although it's not shown in the GUI, i.e. it's only a cosmetic issue? Maybe someone else can confirm.

I considered that as well. I would assume just replacing the current x264.exe file with the version I want to use would allow me to encode using that lower codec version, but I didn't know if that would cause any problems. I figured at the very least that a settings file needed to be changes as well, simply for the software to recognize that it is using a different version.

Perhaps not. Maybe it is only "cosmetic" in the sense that I will see it shown incorrectly in the Update screen, but it wont actually cause any issues. Thats why I asked the question because I wanted to know for sure, or if there was a proper way to do it.

[kalehrl]

I've just replaced older Xvid with the newer one and MeGUI doesn't complain at all.

[jlw_4049]

I don't think the main megui developer is around anymore. Which is a shame because the program is awesome. I hope it doesn't get left behind eventually.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[hello_hello]

I think the only tool you can't "simply" replace with a different version is Avisynth+ and it's plugins, because MeGUI copies them to various sub-folders. To update Avisynth+ (if MeGUI is using it's portable version) you need to close MeGUI and replace the files in the "MeGUI\tools\avs" and "MeGUI\tools\avs\plugins" folders with the newer/desired versions, then when MeGUI starts it'll copy those files to it's various directories, oblivious to the fact they've changed. If you don't replace the files in those folders, MeGUI will replace Avisynth.dll etc in it's main directory and any copies in sub-folders with the older files again each time it starts.

[magnetite]

For some reason, whenever I make changes to a preset in the One Click encoder profile, it doesn't effectively update itself until after I close down and restart the application. Clicking the update button isn't enough to make the change.