Best MPEG-4 encoding GUI ?

[MaeWanto]

I'm looking for an MPEG-4 encoding GUI based on open source components which allows me to produce standard MP4 files ( ISMA specifications mainly ). It should support AviSynth scripts inputs, MPEG-4 part 2 and part 10 video encoding ( XviD, x264 ), AAC-LC audio encoding ( FAAC ) and MP4 muxing/hinting features ( GPAC MP4Box, MPEG4IP ). I'd also need batch encoding and folder watch features.
Any recommendations ?
Thanks in advance.

[bond]

such an all-in-one tool is not existing till now, you will have to use different tools seperately

[Doom9]

There's a good starting point though, also open source: MeGUI. I will add Mp4 output including audio muxing shortly. If you know any .NET language I'd appreciate if you could help out a little.. adding XviD would be a no brainer (I figure 2-3 hours tops), and once I have added MP4 with audio muxing, audio encoding wouldn't be such a big deal either.

Batch encoding is already in, and it's quite advanced including persistence. There are also persistent profiles.

I don't get what you mean by folder watch feature.

[MaeWanto]

Hi Doom9,

Thanks a lot for your help. I'm not a software developper, so I won't be able to help you regarding .NET :-( But I know MPEG-4 quite well and I would be very interested in helping you on standard issues and GUI's features.
Folder watch feature is when a file is automatically transcoded when put into a particular folder. Sorenson Squeeze provides such feature for instance ...

[Doom9]

Folder watch feature is when a file is automatically transcoded when put into a particular folder. Okay, I neither get the sense of such a feature, nor it is possible to be implemented and used reasonably so that's not something I'd look into. With audio encoding you should have about 60 parameters per session to be configured and there's simply no way you can automate this all. Different sources do require different settings after all (and I'm not talking about the most obvious: bitrate), but stuff like quantization matrices, qpel, etc - basically every parameter you'd change depending on the source. And thus without one setting for all, automated encoding would never be satisfactory.

[Doom9]

btw, how do you figure audio encoding would work anyway? I've never used faac, but reading its help text I figure it only accepts PCM input. And since DVD has AC3 audio and DVB either AC3 or MP2 that's going to be problematic. Looking at the long help, stdin input is possible, but then you need a decoder that writes to stdout. So, how do you encode audio with faac right now?

[MaeWanto]

I've just tried MeGUI v0.16, and it's very close to the GUI I'm looking for :-) It just lacks XviD support, AAC-LC encoding and MP4 mux/hinting features, but the interface is perfect for me.
Regarding the folder watch feature, this is for a very particular project where I need to automatically produce MPEG-4 proxies from MPEG-2 master files of same kind of content ( horse races ). An MPEG-4 proxy file has to be automatically produced at the end of every race in order to be streamed from a Darwin Streaming Server over the LAN ...

[bond]

Originally posted by Doom9
btw, how do you figure audio encoding would work anyway? I've never used faac, but reading its help text I figure it only accepts PCM input. And since DVD has AC3 audio and DVB either AC3 or MP2 that's going to be problematic. Looking at the long help, stdin input is possible, but then you need a decoder that writes to stdout. So, how do you encode audio with faac right now? faac is only an aac encoder, not a decoder of any kind (the same way as lame doesnt support ac3 aso decoding)
have a look at the azid ac3 decoder

[Doom9]

have a look at the azid ac3 decoderHe's looking for open source tools only.. so the question is is there any ac3 open source decoder commandline tool available that can write to stdout rather than a file. And then again, I'm unlikely to include audio encoding, especially not besweet based. I've been considering audio encoding, but looking at the besweet GUIs that already exist, I don't feel like duplicating existing work, especially since there will always be those that want MP3 audio in their MP4 rather than AAC (so I'd have to duplicate large parts of the existing BeSweet GUIs)

[MaeWanto]

Originally posted by Doom9
btw, how do you figure audio encoding would work anyway? I've never used faac, but reading its help text I figure it only accepts PCM input. And since DVD has AC3 audio and DVB either AC3 or MP2 that's going to be problematic. Looking at the long help, stdin input is possible, but then you need a decoder that writes to stdout. So, how do you encode audio with faac right now?

At the moment, I generally use QuickTime Pro to encode AAC-LC, but encoding with faac should be something like this ( http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6720 ) :
faac -m4 -b64 -r48000 -pLC <input_file> <output_file>

Regarding the PCM issue for faac, I'd probably transcode the original AC3 or MP2 audio track to WAV file and use the AudioDub filter of AviSynth in order to provide a synchronized uncompressed audio/video feed to MeGUI ... Do you think it would be possible ???

Regarding a decoder that writes to stdout, I would check FAAD 2 ( www.rarewares.org/aac.html ), but I'm not sure this could fit ...

[Doom9]

Regarding the PCM issue for faac, I'd probably transcode the original AC3 or MP2 audio track to WAV file and use the AudioDub filter of AviSynth in order to provide a synchronized uncompressed audio/video feed to MeGUI ... Do you think it would be possible ???well.. going via WAV is generally a dangerous thing as files > 2 GB tend to cause problems (check the audio forum for specifics.. audio is not my thing). And AviSynth input to faac? I'll bet a couple of my DVDs that that won't work ;) And FAAD2 is an AAC decoder. You're looking at AC3 and MP2 input so you need decoders for that.

It seems ffmpeg supports mp2 and ac3 decoding and mp3 and aac encoding, but it seems those features are missing in mencoder (unless the manpage has me confused).

[MaeWanto]

Originally posted by Doom9
It seems ffmpeg supports mp2 and ac3 decoding and mp3 and aac encoding, but it seems those features are missing in mencoder (unless the manpage has me confused).
Yes, I think you're right :
http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC20

BTW, libavformat seems to also support MP4 file format ( http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/compat.php ) :
"ffmpeg -i <inputfile.ext> <file.mp4>
These command lines will produce MPEG-4 QuickTime files with ISO MPEG-4 video and AAC audio. Note that AAC encoding support is external to FFmpeg and must be configured appropriately."

[bond]

1) azid isnt opensource? azid is imho one of the best ac3 decoders existing, i dont think its a problem using it
2) i wouldnt bet my mother on whether ffmpeg's .mp4 output is spec compliant... i know two problems with it atm and no, packed bitstream is none of them

Originally posted by Doom9
He's looking for open source tools only"he" ^^ :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is nobody interested in creating an VFW AAC-LC/HE encoder?


Cheers

[stephanV]

thats not possible

ACMs scream CBR and i dont think any AAC encoder has a true CBR mode (its ABR). True CBR compression doesnt make a lot of sense anyway...

i believe someone tried it once, and then horribly failed or got fed up with it.

[JoeBG]

@ doom9

If you really create next MeGUI with mp4 container, it´s totally clear that mp4muxer (http://mp4muxer.movie2digital.com/) can support all features. If you decide to mux Audio in, mp4muxer can add everything else: Chapters, more Audio, Subs - all you want. :)

[MaeWanto]

@ JoeBG

I didn't know mp4muxer, it seems a very interesting tool. Thanks a lot !

[Doom9]

azid isnt opensource?If it is, please point me to the sources because they are definitely missing from my sources download page.

[Doom9]

@MaeWanto: if you're serious about getting faac audio encoding as part of a GUI app, it is up to you to come up with a way to do that:

find an open source app that does AC3 -> AAC and that supports two basic features any such conversion would need: delay correction, and volume boost during encoding (without clipping of course). besweet (not open source) does that but it only supports the nero AAC encoder.

[Nic]

I could add FAAC encoding to QuEnc very easily...But would that be of any use? I suppose you could do audio correction in AviSynth from there, but it isn't an optimal solution.

-Nic

EDIT:
ps
I could actually do MP4 with AAC and MPEG-4 Video easily from QuEnc. But couldn't do the hinting (easily anyway) and ffmpeg's MP4 support may not be perfect. But I could add it...not sure if that's what people would want though...

[MaeWanto]

Hi Doom9, Hi Nic,

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I finally think I'll continue to encode audio and video separately and then mux the tracks into MP4. It's not the automated process I'd dream of, but it is providing the more flexibility so far.
Thanks again.

[Doom9]

well, if you can figure out a way to get done what I outlined in my previous post, I might well implement it.. I think the only way to reach a broader audience with my tool is to offer automated encoding and I have already outliend a roadmap to get there.. currently without audio encoding though, but that might come in handy as well.

[MaeWanto]

No, I'm sorry but I don't know such tools ... I don't think ffmpeg supports the features you're describing. I'm using BeLight right know to transcode the audio track to AAC and I really don't know how to integrate it in a more automated process ( and it's not open source as you said ) !!??

[Doom9]

well.. using besweet for aac audio encoding is of course an option. it doesn't use faac, but if the goal is just to get an AAC it doesn't really matter.