MPEG4 Modifier v1.3.4 Released (Updated 2005-Dec-14)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Play the sample file again with WMP11. Then click on: File -> Properties and find out which Video Codec you're using.

Personally speaking, I would not recommend using WMP11 to play any type of media file. It's too limited.

[gatekeeper_007]

-I don't :)

It seems that this app does work, but the 'new' stored info can only be read by certain pc players.
But the thing is that I don't really care much about how it display's on the pc, after all I don't mind to force the aspect ratio via the player so I can watch it.

I was just wondering if I can overwrite the AR info in avi's bitstream permanently so it will display ok on a standalone and I can avoid more quality loss by (re-encode) but if not it's ok -not that big deal.


:thanks:

[SeeMoreDigital]

What stand-alone player are you using... Not all of them are clever enough to understand AR signalling embeded within the MPEG-4 video stream.


Cheers

[gatekeeper_007]

I have 3 but only use 1

LG DNX190H
KiSS DP 508
Silvercrest KH6515/16 HDMI

It may sound funny but the one I mostly use is the Silvercrest, not because of the HDMI (if u ask me HDMI is almost useless is the player doesn't support HD playback).

I can't test it on the Kiss (because is somewhere in the boxes with my old staff, after all it can't read packed bitstreams), but the other two won't display it as I want it to.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Your KiSS player (with Sigma chip-set) is more likely to automatically recognise AR signalling.

The firmware in your Silvercrest player (I have a similar Tevion player) can't automatically detect AR signalling. Neither can most other players fitted with Zoran Vaddis chip-sets.

By-the-way, your KiSS player can read packed bit-stream, as long as only 1B-VOP is encoded. Which is in accordance to DivX's certification.


Cheers

[gatekeeper_007]

I never updated the firmware on any of them except one time on Kiss because of my little sister -(she wanted GR (*.srt )subs).

I don't care about the Kiss anymore I stopped using it a long time ago - since 90% I encode with 2 b_vops and packed bitstream, but I'm almost 100% sure back when I was using it, it wouldn't accept packed bitstreams of any kind 2 and 1 b_vop neither, so there must be a fix/update in a firmware they released.

...out of topic now I think 99% :)

THX again

[Honeyko]

Is there ANY alternative to MPEG4 Modifier that does NOT need .net framework installed? (Gawd I hate that Microsoft bloatware.)

[Moitah]

@Honeyko: Not that I'm aware of, but it runs just fine in Mono (http://mono-project.com/Downloads) even on Windows aside from some cosmetic issues. In fact I just compiled a special version to work around those problems (related to form scaling) in Mono: MPEG4Modifier-1_4_4-MonoFix.zip (http://www.moitah.net/download/byversion/MPEG4Modifier-1_4_4-MonoFix.zip).

EDIT: Now I remember MPEG4 Modifier was ported to Java (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=829175#post829175), it's based on 1.3.4 I think so no OpenDML and no packing.

[Honeyko]

Color me stupid, but is there an intrinsic necessity for .net software in order to alter VOL headers? I'm just curious, is all. (I've been getting along without that stuff for years; the only software I've ever encountered which needs it are some x264 encoding utilities, and this program.)

(The ideal solution here would be a direct volume sector-access hex-edit which doesn't require stream-copying a whole enormous file just to change a few kilobytes. I seem to recall hearing of such a utility already existing awhile back, but forgot the name of it.)

[squid_80]

You can figure out the binary format of a VOL and do a search/replace with your favourite hex editor.

[Moitah]

@Honeyko: The predefined PARs are stored as 4 bits in the VOL, custom PARs use an additional 16 bits (8 width, 8 height). So in certain cases it is possible to modify the file in-place, but not always. Of course it's not necessary for it to be written in .NET, but C# is the language I'm most comfortable with. MPEG4 Modifier is something I did mostly for fun, I didn't really even need it, and for me writing it in C++ would have been more frustrating than anything and I wouldn't have written it at all.

@squid_80: ;)

[Honeyko]

You can figure out the binary format of a VOL and do a search/replace with your favourite hex editor.On the off chance you've already done this, could you help save me some time and tell me what to look for in what part of the file?

(Have hex-editor, and ready to hack....)

[Ruud00]

why is it that when i change the aspect Ratio to 16:9 in the display AR side that it does display the video 16:9 but when i burn the video onto a DVD and play back on my Divx dvd player it display the Aspect ratio before and not the 16:9 that i change to?

Thank you

[Moitah]

@Ruud00: Your DVD player must be ignoring the aspect ratio information stored in the video header. Unless there is a firmware update to support this, you will have to reencode the video to correct aspect ratio.

@Honeyko: It's a pain to do in a hex editor. For example let's say you want to set a custom PAR and insert 2 8-bit values for the width/height. The VOL is a stream of bits and these width/height fields will never fall on byte-boundaries, so it's not as simple as just inserting a few bytes.

[squid_80]

On the off chance you've already done this, could you help save me some time and tell me what to look for in what part of the file?

(Have hex-editor, and ready to hack....)

OK. I'll only describe how to do it for a file using one of the pre-defined PARs, Moitah's already explained why it's a lot tougher if you want to go from predefined->custom or back again so I won't do that (we'd be here all day, the program is a lot quicker).

To start with, search for the first occurrence of (hex) 00000120. That's the VOL start code. Directly after that there's a byte that you don't need to change, just remember its value (in my case it's 0x08). Bits 5-2 in the next byte describe the PAR. The file I'm looking at right now has 0x96 at this byte. In binary this is 10010110, bits 5-2 = 0101 = 5. This stands for 16:9 NTSC, or a PAR of 40:33. Here's the full table:
(1)0001 = 1:1
(2)0010 = 12:11 (4:3 pal)
(3)0011 = 10:11 (4:3 ntsc)
(4)0100 = 16:11 (16:9 pal)
(5)0101 = 40:33 (16:9 ntsc)
(15)1111 = custom
So if I wanted to change the PAR to 12:11, I need to change those four bits to 0010. Which makes the new whole byte 10001010 = 0x8A.
From here you use the hex editor to do a search/replace on all the VOL headers. In this case I'd search for (in hex):
00 00 01 20 08 96 87 FF FB (take the next few bytes as well for good measure)
and replace with
00 00 01 20 08 8A 87 FF FB
If your hex editor reports how many occurrences were replaced it should be equal to the number of I-frames in the file since there's a VOL header stored at each one.

[SwissDude]

Taking inspiration from the Linux ipsr (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=124794) and the MPEG4 Mod programs, a friend has written the attached KiSSconv utility.

The utility will check if the file needs the change in the User Data from DivX503b1393p to DivX999b000p and make the changes on the fly, directly in the avi file.

Run it either from the command line, with the filename (full filename, for example Blahblah.avi) as the parameter (if you want to see how many times it changed the string in the file, which is the output of the utility) or just drop the avi file onto the executable (which will open a cmd window but that will close once it has finished processing the file).

Attached zip file has both source and exe.

WARNING

Use with care as the utility modifies the file in-place, thus as your original file will be directly modified there will be NO backup copy of it. Therefore please make a backup of the avi file before running the utility if needed/unsure/etc. I have been using the utility and it has never corrupted a file, but just in case...

[Koepi]

FIle seems to be clean, approved attachment: http://www.virustotal.com/de/analisis/ef6f6f249709946b74af566e4963eecf

[shae]

Moitah: I've added CQM identification to v1.4.4. Will you be interested in adding it to the next official version, or should I release it as a "branch" of some sort?

[Moitah]

@shae: Yeah, I'd like to take a look at it, can you upload the code somewhere?

[mahendra]

can someone assist me to change the aspect ratio of avi file. i am new to this software & cant find a guide
the problem is when i play this on windows media player, the movie is all stretched up & when i open it with virtualdub & then change the aspect ratio to 16:9 (wide screen), the video looks just perfect. (actually from where i downloded this, there was a note stating "set aspect ratio manually to 16:9")

any help will be much appreciated
& i have a few more files with exactly the same problem but they all have different frame sizes, like one is 512*384 & so on.

These are the screen caps:
http://i41.tinypic.com/1125vmd.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/v76ono.jpg

this is the info from mediainfo:
General
Complete name : E:\abcd.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 699 MiB
Duration : 1h 38mn
Overall bit rate : 988 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.4.1 (build 2178/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2178/release

Video
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Streaming Video@L1
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 1h 38mn
Bit rate : 842 Kbps
Width : 624 pixels
Height : 464 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.097
Stream size : 596 MiB (85%)
Writing library : XviD 1.0.2 (UTC 2004-08-29)

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 1h 38mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 131 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 93.0 MiB (13%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.72 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 273 ms
Writing library : LAME3.90.
Encoding settings : ABR
Language : English

[SeeMoreDigital]

.... (actually from where i downloded this, there was a note stating "set aspect ratio manually to 16:9")..... Midsomer Murders S03-E02 Blue Herrings.aviPlease refer to forum rule 6...

Nobody here can help you with copyrighted files you have downloaded!

[J-Wo]

any updates to this great program since Jan 2007? Love to see batch file support in the GUI (I know you can through command line already). Thanks!

[Ryo94]

Sorry, edited.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Ryo94,

The file mahendra wanted help with was illegally downloaded, so your reply post is in violation of rule 6.

You better remove it before a moderator strikes you!

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

First of all Moitah Thanks for your Tool is a Life Saver ... I have a question, may be someone can help ...

When I use MPEG4Modifier to correct the Playback Aspect Ratio of an AVI ... I happen to check the output AVI with MediaInfo and I noticed that under "Container and General Info" the Writing Application Info now are gone.

Q: Is there a Way that I can Keep that info even after I use MPEG4Modifier tool?

Thanks,

G! :)

[GravuTrad]

Hello.

To update a little bit this post, moitah has updated the tool to 1.4.6 version in 2015:

http://www.moitah.net/

Changes since 1.4.4 version:

1.4.6 (2015-Jan-10):

Marked as system DPI aware to fix blurry UI with high DPI settings.
Changed license to MIT (was GPL v2).

1.4.5 (2012-Sep-02):

Ability to export custom quantization matrix to .cqm file.
Fixed window layout with high DPI settings.
Supports loading on .NET 4.x runtime (not required; still 2.0 compatible).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Whatever happened to Moitah :(