QT6 "Final" is out with improved .mp4 playback

[tanksimpson]

The official release of Quicktime 6 is available today from Apple's website. A quick playback test of .mp4 clips encoded with DivX 5.02 (without B-frames) and Psytel AAC 2.15 (muxed with mp4creator 0.9.4.8) show *great* visual improvement over the QT6 "Preview". My big gripe with QT6 Preview was that .mp4 made with DivX looked washed-out, flat, and too bright. This situation is pretty much fixed - the colors look more rich and natural now. Audio and video stay in sync when "seeking", but playback is choppy for a couple seconds afterward, then becomes smooth again. There is still a flaw, though: when the motion in the video moves vertically, you still get these areas that have a green-purple tint. To be fair though, I sometimes see this artifact when playing back DivX .avi with MPEG-4 decoders other than DivX. The resolution of my test clip was 640x256, BTW. One piece of truly bad news though - my old QT5 Pro key will *not* work to upgrade QT6 Player to Pro :( I realize the first impressions described here are subjective - I am curious what others who try this new player think. Personally I think RealPlayer+Envivio will be the better solution when the "DecoderSpecificInfo" bug is fixed, but that is mostly because I think RealPlayer has a better GUI than Quicktime.

[sherpya]

nice, now works with xvid video, I've tested preview release and no way to play mp4 made with xvid (I think you need to use latest binaries with b-frame support, my previous xvid endcoding makes green video and qt6 crash). AAC audio still not work... (I've played an mp4 video only for now)
I don't known why...

[neo_sapien]

@sherpya
Because Quicktime needs an ADIF header in its AAC audio, and the AAC audio files we've been creating have a similar header, but not ADIF. When you're in AACMachine 0.45, check "Use ADIF Header", then your aac files will be readable by quicktime 6.

As for video with b-frames, Quicktime 6 seems less choppy during playback, but it still seems as though it's playing at 15fps rather than 30fps.

[sherpya]

very nice thing.. but aacmachine 0.45 works badly with wav files... convert it into ac3 and other things... gave me bad sync errors and crc error into the log then output aac is not usable.
The guide for aac says to use 0.3 when using wav but unfortunatly 0.3 has not header option.
Encoding with aacenc command line doesn't produce a suitable aac (maybe I don't known exactly the parameters)

[tiki4]

Just a suggestion:

first do a 'aacenc -h' to get a list of all options, there is one adding that adif header. Then try the following:

'aacenc -if in.wav -of out.aac -normal -adif'

This uses the 'normal VBR preset'. If you don't like that, choose for example 'streaming or internet'. That should pretty much do the job.

tiki4

[Cokes]

Originally posted by neo_sapien
@sherpya
Because Quicktime needs an ADIF header in its AAC audio, and the AAC audio files we've been creating have a similar header, but not ADIF. When you're in AACMachine 0.45, check "Use ADIF Header", then your aac files will be readable by quicktime 6.

As for video with b-frames, Quicktime 6 seems less choppy during playback, but it still seems as though it's playing at 15fps rather than 30fps.
IMHO QT6 doesn't support Advanced Simple Profile (B-frames, GMC, Qpel), only Simple Profile.

[sherpya]

I don't have any problem with video, I have problem with audio:
C:\DVD\Audio\AAcMachine>aacenc.exe -if e:\Test\Mp4\video2.wav -of e:\Test\Mp4\video2.aac -normal -adif

then the mp4:
mp4creator60.exe -c=video.avi -rate=25 new.mp4

mp4creator60.exe -hint -interleave -c=video2.aac new.mp4
Warning: dropped 200 input bytes
e:\Test\MP4\mp4creator60.exe: data in file doesn't appear to be valid audio

@Cokes
I known qt6 doesnt support b-frames, but xvid encode with
old binary dont work.
I've encoded with new binary (koepi) with b-frames to -1 (disabled)
Video works fine (I've tested only video mp4)

[tanksimpson]

Sherpya, here's how I've done my last few dvd-to-.mp4 rips:

1) encode .m2v to .avi using GKnot/DVD2AVI/VirtualDub with either DivX 5.02 (no B-frames!) or XviD-12072002. Do not use older version of XviD.

2) decode .ac3 to .wav with Headac3he-0.23a, then encode .wav to .aac with the special "MPEG-4 only" version of Psytel Aacenc 2.15 (available at Roberto's Rarewares website), using PsytelDrop as a GUI for Aacenc. Do not worry about -adif switch.

3) use mp4creator 0.9.5 (compiled from from CVS, now at version 0.9.5, using WinCVS and Visual C++ 6.0 - there is a guide at everwicked.com on how to do this) like this:

mp4creator60 -H video.avi video.mp4
mp4creator60 -H -I audio.aac video.mp4

4) play the .mp4 with Quicktime 6 and enjoy. The video will not look quite as good as playing the .avi with WMP, but it will look okay. The aac audio will sound great :)

Note: do NOT use version of mp4creator older than 0.9.4.8, and do NOT use any version of Psytel Aacenc 2.15 other than the special MPEG-4 version from Rarewares - otherwise I cannot promise success! Here is the address for Rarewares AAC page:

http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/aac.html

[sherpya]

mpeg4ip tools 0.9.4.9 are fine... (I can't find 0.9.5 cvs binaries)
my problem was pystel encoder... with the mpeg4 version all is ok
file is played correctly with qt6, It was only a test.. I will
try to rip a real movie soon..
tanksimpson, thx for the hint :D

[tanksimpson]

So far I've been working with test videos ripped from DVD one chapter at a time (my favorite test clip is Chapter 15 of "The Matrix" - heh). I have heard of problems with encoding very long audio tracks with Psytel; I have also tried AACMachine GUI which supposedly fixes this problem, but I would be happier if HeadAc3he and PsytelDrop works, too. So I just started encoding the soundtrack to "Gosford Park", which is over 2 hours long, I'll post results soon. If it doesn't work then AACMachine may be the only GUI that works for a while.

Update: There were no problems encoding the whole track in one go. The original stereo .wav was 1,541 MB (running time = 2h 17m 0s), the resulting .aac (encoded at 96 kbps CBR) is 96 MB, and the hinted .mp4 is 110 MB. The .mp4 plays back fine with both Quicktime 6 and RealOne+Envivio.

[DeXT]

I just uploaded the binaries for MPEG4IP 0.9.5, in case you are interested...

www.peque.org/dext

DeXT

[Neo Neko]

Yay new binaries!