nerodigital h264 and 'playing while downloading'

[smok3]

ok, so iam doing some clips for web - to be played in quicktime7 (trying to use nero h264 + aac in mp4), somehow they wont play while downloading like qt mov container does, what exactly must i do in nero (or maybe later in qt? - trying to pass through qt to enable 'streaming' will produce qt errors..)

or what tool is there to enable 'play while downloading'?

tnx

[bond]

propably hinting is a good idea :D

[smok3]

testing:

mp4box -hint filename.mp4

Hinting file with Path-MTU 1500 Bytes
Hinting track ID 3 - Type "avc1:avc1" (H264) - BW 604 kbps
Hinting track ID 4 - Type "mp4a:mp4a" (mpeg4-generic) - BW 128 kbps

/will report back if that did anything positive/

edit: yep, that seems to work fine now.
edit2: also firefox javascript model for embeding is working fine while the mp4 ending seems to be problematic for ie.

[smok3]

another question, chapters...

this is the info i get with mp4box -info after hinting:

--------------------------------------------------------
* Movie Info *
Timescale 1000 - Duration 00:06:31.325
Fragmented File no - 6 track(s)
File Brand avc1 - version 0

File has root IOD
Scene PL 0x01 - Graphics PL 0xfe - OD PL 0xfe
Visual PL: No visual capability required (0xff)
Audio PL: Main Audio Profile @ Level 2 (0x02)

Chapters:
Chapter #1 - 00:00:00.000 - "Chapter 1"
Chapter #2 - 00:01:50.900 - "Chapter 2"

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 1000 - Duration 00:00:00.001
Track is present in Root OD
Media Info: Language "eng" - Type "odsm" - Sub Type "mp4s" - 1 samples
MPEG-4 Config: ObjectDescriptor Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x01
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 1000 - Duration 00:00:00.001
Track is present in Root OD
Media Info: Language "eng" - Type "sdsm" - Sub Type "mp4s" - 1 samples
MPEG-4 Config: SceneDescription Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x01
Synchronized on stream 1

Track # 3 Info - TrackID 3 - TimeScale 25000 - Duration 00:06:31.320
Media Info: Language "eng" - Type "vide" - Sub Type "avc1" - 9783 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21
AVC/H264 Video - Visual Size 512 x 384
Synchronized on stream 1

Track # 4 Info - TrackID 4 - TimeScale 44100 - Duration 00:06:31.302
Media Info: Language "und" - Type "soun" - Sub Type "mp4a" - 16852 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 44100
Synchronized on stream 1

Track # 5 Info - TrackID 65538 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:06:31.320
Media Info: Language "und" - Type "hint" - Sub Type "rtp " - 9783 samples
Streaming Hint Track for track ID 3

Track # 6 Info - TrackID 65539 - TimeScale 44100 - Duration 00:06:31.325
Media Info: Language "und" - Type "hint" - Sub Type "rtp " - 4963 samples
Streaming Hint Track for track ID 4
--------------------------------------------------------
(i guess 1 and 2 are chapter points ans 5 and 6 are this hint thingies.)

the chapters (only 2) were defined in nero, but nero showtime navigation next/previous is not working, the chapter slider is thought, any clues how correctly are nero chapters implemented, should i expect that this will work fine in qt as well or maybe vlc?

[bond]

(i guess 1 and 2 are chapter points ans 5 and 6 are this hint thingies.)tracks 1 and 2 are systems tracks, which qt doesnt need

the chapters (only 2) were defined in nero, but nero showtime navigation next/previous is not working, the chapter slider is thought, any clues how correctly are nero chapters implemented, should i expect that this will work fine in qt as well or maybe vlc? these chapters have been invented by nero, so i assume the nero tools will support them correctly

qt and vlc dont support them

[smok3]

bond: tnx

these chapters have been invented by nero
how come mp4box will display them with the use of -info (i guess it will just dump out anything that looks metadata like)?

[bond]

bond: tnx

these chapters have been invented by nero
how come mp4box will display them with the use of -info (i guess it will just dump out anything that looks metadata like)?mp4box supports the chapters too

[smok3]

just a note; i guess embeding via some quicktime html code doesnt really make sense anymore anyway (if the mp4 is about standardization.)?

[elbows]

Embedding code to make mp4's play in a browser using quicktime still makes sense, because there arent enough alternative mp4-capable browser plugins available yet.

[bond]

afaik there even is a freely available mp4 java plugin available (which means you dont need to have an external player, like quicktime, installed)

[smok3]

elbows: ok, i have some weird problems with the embeding code, maybe something to do with mime server settings, dunno...

bond: what applet is that?, google returns nothing but some ibms api.

---

another q would be: realplayer and h264, any clues if they will support that in the near/far future?

[nm]

There is MediaFrame (http://mediaframe.org), but it seems to only support MPEG-4 ASP and not H.264.

Java H.264 implementations were recently discussed here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99672

You could also try VLC (http://www.videolan.org) since you are using technology for which people need to install new programs anyway. VLC is supposed to have an embeddable video player (ActiveX component) for IE and probably a native plugin for Mozilla Firefox. For better H.264 support you'll probably need to use newer builds (http://nightlies.videolan.org/). VLC is also a much better media player than those bloated offerings from Apple and Real.

[bond]

bond: what applet is that?, google returns nothing but some ibms api.mediaframe and the java applet from ibm can do it (dunno about avc)

another q would be: realplayer and h264, any clues if they will support that in the near/far future? no info about what real will do available

[smok3]

yeah, iam sure they would mention h264 if it was there, i have no clue on how to setup firefox+vlc to play mp4 videos automagically, even harder to expect that from audience / or maybe i just didnt do enough reading.

[nm]

The VLC plugin should be installed automatically (http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows-all.html#VLC), or if it is unable to find the Firefox installation path, manually as instructed in chapter 4 (http://www.videolan.org/doc/play-howto/en/ch04.html) of the documentation. The same page contains hints on how to build HTML pages that use the plugin if some special handling is needed. If the automatic installation doesn't work, it may also be broken in the version you tried. Test both the nightly builds and the 0.8.2 release.

The ActiveX component is newer and so far only documented in this README.TXT (https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/file/trunk/activex/README.TXT) in the source code. It should be possible to make a remotely installable component out of it (unless your users know something about security and refuse to install such beasts). It might also work with Firefox on Windows if the ActiveX plugin (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm) is installed. I wouldn't recommend that though.

[smok3]

nm ty, ok the about:plugins will show that vlc is actually installed and should play mp4, mpg4, doesnt happen so thought (quicktime will do it, and yes i disabled the mp4 playback option in qt as well)

the html emebed will force vlc to embed the stream into page (and yes i can see the 1st frame :)) but after some waiting time will crash firefox, this machine is clean xp install.

---

also tested mplayer from cli (on this same xp machine), playback is skippy, slow as hell, after some time i get something like: "this machine is to slow to play the video".

command lines i tested:
mplayer http://page/file.mp4
mplayer http://page/file.mp4 -cache 10000
mplayer http://page/file.mp4 -cache 100

(it does play the file fine offline.)

[nm]

Which version of VLC?

[smok3]

0.8.2

[nm]

Yes, I would be surprised if it worked correctly with AVC streams (if that is what you're trying). You'll need to wait for 0.8.4 or play with the nightly builds.

By the way, the VLC forums are quite active, and perhaps worth a look.

[smok3]

same stuff with 0.8.4 (vlc-0.8.4-test1-20051025-0000-win32), stream type doesnt matter, same with old mov files that were encoded using 3ivx.

---

anyway, i can upload some small (hinted :)) mp4 files somewhere if you ppl feel like playing around to figure out this (i guess we can all learn something..).

[nm]

also tested mplayer from cli (on this same xp machine), playback is skippy, slow as hell, after some time i get something like: "this machine is to slow to play the video".

command lines i tested:
mplayer http://page/file.mp4
mplayer http://page/file.mp4 -cache 10000
mplayer http://page/file.mp4 -cache 100

(it does play the file fine offline.)
Perhaps mplayer and VLC need a proper stream. See question 13 in the MP4 FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=62723).

anyway, i can upload some small (hinted ) mp4 files somewhere if you ppl feel like playing around to figure out this (i guess we can all learn something..).
Sure. I could play with them sometime.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Can you guys check to see whether this (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/StarWars2_512x288.html) sample works please?

It was actually encoded using 720x576 anamorphic pixels but I used QuickTime's "Container Level" adjustment settings to alter the output pixel size to 512x288.


Cheers

[smok3]

SeeMoreDigital: it behaves exactly the same as my test file (btw: your html will only work in ie.) - plays fine in qt, problems in vlc.

edit: hmm, seems to work fine with my script (http://somestuff.org/tmp/qt3.php?moviename=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/movies/x264_720x576_with_2Ch%20AAC-LC_in_MP4.mp4) as well.

[nm]

I can play that stream (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/movies/x264_720x576_with_2Ch AAC-LC_in_MP4.mp4) fine with MPlayer although it doesn't mind the pixel size hints. It starts playing right away with -cache 96 (this is a fast connection, so no buffering needed).

[smok3]

yeah, this is 1,8 megs file, my test file is 35 megs.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Thanks guys... I've been meaning to look into the possibility of getting MPEG-4/AVC with AAC audio in MP4 files, to work in other browsers and with other players/decoders.

If it's any help to you, I will keep that particular sample on my (high-speed) server for as long as you guys need to experiment with it.


Cheers

[smok3]

SeeMoreDigital, tnx, few steps on how you did the file would help as well.

[nm]

I tried a 2005-09-20 build of VLC for Debian Sid and tried the Firefox plugin. This particular build has serious issues with AVC (the picture gets pixelated/blocked beyond recognition) and the actual player stalled on SeeMoreDigital's stream just like smok3 described. However, I got the plugin working (besides the AVC decoding problem) with this:

<embed name="video1" src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/movies/x264_720x576_with_2Ch%20AAC-LC_in_MP4.mp4" />
<br />
<a href="javascript:;" onclick='document.video1.play()'>Play video1</a>
<a href="javascript:;" onclick='document.video1.pause()'>Pause video1</a>
<a href="javascript:;" onclick='document.video1.stop()'>Stop video1</a>
<a href="javascript:;" onclick='document.video1.fullscreen()'>Fullscreen</a>


The qt3.php script (http://somestuff.org/tmp/qt3.php?moviename=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seemoredigital/movies/x264_720x576_with_2Ch%20AAC-LC_in_MP4.mp4) also worked.

[SeeMoreDigital]

SeeMoreDigital, tnx, few steps on how you did the file would help as well.I discovered some time ago that Recode2 seems to do something weird to the MP4 contained encode, which tends to bork "streaming" playback.... I don't know what.

All I do to correct this, is either re-mux the stream with YAMB. Or re-mux the stream in QT7 if I'm adding "Container Level" adjustment settings!


Cheers

[smok3]

nm, yes i used the same code for testing, bigger file is required for testing thought, you can use some apple trailer for example:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/slither/slither_h.640.mov

about qt3.php script, did you test firefox and ie or? (tnx)

---

SeeMore: yamb is just an mp4box gui no? (i used mp4box -hint option as described earlier.., what exactly do you do to remux?)

[nm]

about qt3.php script, did you test firefox and ie or? (tnx)
Only Firefox 1.0.7 with the VLC Mozilla plugin on Debian Sid GNU/Linux.

Here's a sample (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/mikkila/starwreck.html) for you how streaming is supposed to work (only for the VLC plugin). Apparently there is a problem with MP4 (and MOV?) "streaming" in VLC. Avi seems to work just fine.

[smok3]

hehe, so we are back to avi? lmao

this does work very well thought even with mplayer (seems there is no seeking capabilities in vlc - when avi is used.)

[nm]

I updated the page with a Matroska test. VLC can seek that stream, but crashes very easily. Haven't tried with 0.8.2 though.

[smok3]

well, i had to watch the entire movie at the end, funny stuff, very well done as well.

matroska is working fine, seeking is a bit slow but vlc doesnt crash here (on xp).