How was this encoded?

[Dark Morford]

I recently got an MP4 (H.264/AAC) video from a friend of mine, and while it'll play in VLC, Quicktime X on my MacBook Pro can't decode the video stream—I get a green screen with the correct audio. This, of course, means that I can't transfer the video to my iPhone to watch on the go.

I'm guessing that the video was encoded using a higher H.264 profile or level than Quicktime supports, but I don't know how to tell for certain. Is there some tool (either GUI or command-line) that can tell me what settings were used to encode this video? The profile, level, and bitrate are a must; anything else would be gravy.

[nm]

I'm guessing that the video was encoded using a higher H.264 profile or level than Quicktime supports
Well, it could as well be some technique that's allowed in Main Profile and low levels but is simply not supported by QuickTime. Have you tried without hardware decoding if there's an option for that?

Is there some tool (either GUI or command-line) that can tell me what settings were used to encode this video? The profile, level, and bitrate are a must; anything else would be gravy.

MediaInfo.

[Dark Morford]

If there's an option to disable hardware decoding in QuickTime X, I can't find it. I ran the file (I was mistaken when I posted earlier; it's in a Matroska container, not MP4) through MediaInfo, and here's the info for the video stream:
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1mn 11s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio : 3:2
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
I'm not fully up on what QuickTime supports and what it doesn't, but I assume it at least supports the same Main@L3.1 that the iPad does. So the High profile here might be an issue. Anything else stick out as a compatibility problem? Or is there some other syntax for MediaInfo that will get more relevant details?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Tried QuickTime 7? X is a little odd sometimes :)

You need Perian installed if you want to play MKV in QuickTime.

You'll also need to remux to MP4 if you want it on your iPhone.

Derek