Can we put ac3 in mp4 without the use of a private stream?

[SeeMoreDigital]

The question is why do you want to have a such stream in MP4 container whereas AAC supports already goodies supply by AC3/DTS...Because it's possible to do!

What we don't want though is this thread turning into yet another one of those "For" and "Against" discussions where people loose their tempers and a moderator closes the thread ;)

Hopefully we all can agree on this... and move on to the point in hand.


Cheers

EDIT: Maybe Zep could change his opening thread slightly by mentioning he would like this topic is a positive "How can it be done?" discussion and not a soap box those "For" and "Against" the idea!

[Drachir]

Because it's possible to do!
Many things are possible to do, but it isn't a wise decision to do everything what is possible.

[bond]

again, it makes no sense to place ac3 in mp4. if you think that the technology used in mp4 is so great (eg better than mkv or mpg) use mov for storing ac3...whats so hard to understand about this?

are you all so anal about the .mp4 extension or what?

[TonyMo]

Well here's a couple of reasons why I would like to have the choice to put ac3 (and/or DTS) inside MP4....

Just picked up an intel MacMini and would really like to use FrontRow as my media centre. I never compress and prefer to have my DVD's in pristine quality... FrontRow INSISTS on using MP4 format, and won't let me use TS as the format at all (dumb I know, but there we are), and I don't want to have to transcode the audio just to comply with the container format. I don't have to with the video so why compromise on the audio...?

Matroska has problems with muxing vobs whenever I have tried, and the last time I tried this, some of my attempts were seriously borked. I don't trust the format for DVD muxing. Further, Matroska is not likely to be recognized by any of the media front ends on either Windows or Mac any time soon...

Finally, it would be great to be able to add cover art to a unified file which could be picked up by the computer desktop like an MP3 file currently can under windows, without installing dodgy plugins...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Come on guys...

If people are going to allow themselves to be baited into further "For" and "Against" discussions we'll never get anywhere with this ;)


Cheers

[bond]

Well here's a couple of reasons why I would like to have the choice to put ac3 (and/or DTS) inside MP4....

Just picked up an intel MacMini and would really like to use FrontRow as my media centre. I never compress and prefer to have my DVD's in pristine quality... FrontRow INSISTS on using MP4 format, and won't let me use TS as the format at all (dumb I know, but there we are), and I don't want to have to transcode the audio just to comply with the container format. I don't have to with the video so why compromise on the audio...?

Matroska has problems with muxing vobs whenever I have tried, and the last time I tried this, some of my attempts were seriously borked. I don't trust the format for DVD muxing. Further, Matroska is not likely to be recognized by any of the media front ends on either Windows or Mac any time soon...

Finally, it would be great to be able to add cover art to a unified file which could be picked up by the computer desktop like an MP3 file currently can under windows, without installing dodgy plugins...there are no specs for placing ac3 in mp4 and therefore also hardly any hardware and software player will support it

you will have far more luck by placing ac3 and avc into .mpg, as thats what also hddvd does (and therefore hardware players will support it)

[chipzoller]

Folks, you are all very intelligent and experienced, and while we or I may not agree with the objective or the merits, can we not treat this as a challenge, an experiment to see how we can accomplish such a task? Surely, it may have some worth in the future, if not immediately so to you, perhaps somewhere down the line if the topic were to be proposed, at least then you could say you've tried it.

Can we at least look into his question without making personal judgements? He is, no doubt, aware of the various opinions on the subject by now.

[bond]

Folks, you are all very intelligent and experienced, and while we or I may not agree with the objective or the merits, can we not treat this as a challenge, an experiment to see how we can accomplish such a task? Surely, it may have some worth in the future, if not immediately so to you, perhaps somewhere down the line if the topic were to be proposed, at least then you could say you've tried it.

Can we at least look into his question without making personal judgements? He is, no doubt, aware of the various opinions on the subject by now.to answer the original question again:
there are no official specs for placing ac3 in mp4 and there never will be one

what this means:
- placing ac3 in mp4 will always be a "private solution"
- therefore there are/will be different ways of storing ac3 in mp4
- therefore and also because of the mess that will be caused, hardly any player will support it (talking about the wide variety of mp4 players around, and not just a few opensource players you can count on one hand with 3 fingers supporting basically everything existing)
- therefore ac3 in mp4 will never ever get a comparable position as aac in mp4

this whole issue is only about people being anal about the .mp4 extension looking cool, as
- a general container also useable for ac3 and avc using the same technologies as mp4 is already existing: mov
- a general container also useable for ac3 and avc using different technologies than mp4 is already existing: mkv
- a container also useable for ac3 and avc + having official specs for both formats + being widely supported (soon with hddvd) with both formats is already existing: mpg

there simply is no sane reason why to place ac3 in mp4

thread closed