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wiseant
1st August 2013, 01:37
Hi

I am trying to figure out good settings for x264 in order to have smooth playback using Quicktime. I am not a big fan of Quicktime - but I have created some html files with javascript that will playback mp4/avc files using either HTML5 <video>, Flash, Silverlight, or Quicktime. Flash and Silverlight playback for mp4/avc is a lot better than the QuickTime plugin for Windows. I am not a Mac user but I suspect Quicktime playback to be a lot better on a Mac.

I have a number of Quicktime files that I downloaded from Apple a couple of years ago and noticed that most of them had these settings:

CABAC - no; ReFrames : 2 frames;

I'm also under the impression that Quicktime may only support 2 b-frames, and I read recently that Quicktime might have a problem with qpmin=0

Anyway, I did some test encodes
1. using superfast preset with crf 22

2. using default preset with crf 22

The differences being
1. ref=3; me=hex; subme=7; mixed_ref=1; trellis=1; chroma_qp_offset=-2; weightp=2; rc_lookahead=40; mbtree=1; no pb_ratio

2. ref=1; me=dia; subme=1; mixed_ref=0; trellis=0; chroma_qp_offset=0;weightp=1; no rc_lookahead; mbtree=0; pb_ratio=1.30

The encodes I did used the same 1280x720 sources
1. 768x432 resolution [superfast]
2. 640x360 resolution [default]

The problem I noticed was that Quicktime had more problems playing the lower resolution clip - so I am presuming that there are settings in the default preset that QuickTime has problems decoding.

And, I used ffmpeg in "copy" mode
-movflags +faststart

Can anyone shed any light on which options/settings I should use for optimal playback - resolution ranging from 640x360 to 1280x720?

TIA

smok3
1st August 2013, 06:31
If you have some files online (dropbox perhaps?) I could certainly test with safari on mountain lion. Other than that i wouldn't spend to much time on that, (using chrome as primary browser on osx for years now).

wiseant
9th August 2013, 01:52
@smok3 - thank you for offering to test

Sorry I did not get back to you sooner - I had some personal stuff to attend to.

I'll be uploading a bunch of quicktime files to my server tomorrow Aug 9th - they will be either 2 min or 30 sec clips
There will be avc[mp4]/aac, mpg1/mp2, mpg1/mp3, mpg1/aac, mp4v[xvid]/mp3, mp4v[xvid]/aac - all in mov container

wiseant
10th August 2013, 02:48
Hi

Here are the links to some clips. Same clip encoded to mp4 [avc], m4v [XviD], m1v [mpeg1]

The m1v [mpeg1] with either mp3 or m4a [aac] will play - but it may take Windows some time to load - curious to see how Apple handles these two

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.mov.html -> mp4 [avc] / m4a [aac]

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.mpg.mov.html -> m1v [mpeg1] / mp2

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.m1v.m4a.mov.html -> m1v [mpeg1] / m4a [aac]

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.m1v.mp3.mov.html -> m1v [mpeg1] / mp3

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.m4v.m4a.mov.html -> m4v [XviD] / m4a [aac]

http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.m4v.mp3.mov.html -> m4v [XviD] / mp3


I actually have another 24 clips to upload - will try to do later tonight or tomorrow.


Any feedback is appreciated.

TIA

wiseant
10th August 2013, 03:12
Hi

Some more clips:

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.mpg.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.m1v.m4a.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.m1v.mp3.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.m4v.m4a.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/Sintel.m4v.mp3.mov.html

wiseant
10th August 2013, 03:46
Hi

Some more clips:


http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.mpg.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.m1v.m4a.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.m1v.mp3.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.m4v.m4a.mov.html

http://bestimage.x10.mx/LadyWashington.m4v.mp3.mov.html

smok3
10th August 2013, 11:10
testing the 1st few
http://bestimage.x10.mx/TearsofSteel.m1v.m4a.mov.html needs to be preloaded 100% before playback, otherwise ok. All the rest are playing ok.
(Mountain lion, qt plugin says to be version 7.7.1)

Other than that; I don't think you should be using quicktime html code, but <video> tag, so you should rethink all this a bit.

wiseant
10th August 2013, 21:11
@smok3
Thanks for testing. Obviously m1v [mpeg1] video with .m4a audio is problematic.

@smok3, @jq963152

Yes, I am very familiar with html5 <video> - I have been developing html video playlist players for html5, flash, quicktime, silverlight, and windows media. Since Quicktime for Windows is a poor alternative for H.264 [avc] I wanted to see if Apple Quicktime plugin performance was significantly better. I also wanted to find out how the Apple Quicktime plugin handled the m1v/m4v/mp2/mp3 files.