GPAC MP4Box Information, Feature Requests & Discussions [No bug reports]

[SeeMoreDigital]

Seeing as though there are a couple of good muxing (and de-muxing) tools based around MP4Box I thought it might be helpful to have a discussion about it and what it offers.

Plus, if you have any suggestions regarding implementations you would like to see incorporated in future versions of MP4Box, it might useful to discuss them in one thread rather than all over the forum!

Please Note
From time to time, you may find that various posts in this thread have been moved (split out) to create new threads elsewhere on the forum. This is done so that any new MP4Box implementations can be discussed in more detail. This will most likely happen after Jean Le Feuvre (jeanlf) adds a major new implementation to MP4Box.

Please refer to the "Summary" box below for new thread links :D


MP4Box
MP4Box is continuously being developed by Jean Le Feuvre (aka: jeanlf), over on SourceForge.
For the most up to date news information, please look here (http://gpac.sourceforge.net/news.php).
For the most up to date source code information and discussions, please look here (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpac).
For monitoring (and posting) bugs, patches and feature requests, please look here (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=84101).


MP4Box (GPAC Release 0.4.0 / Dated: 2005-07-28 ) Basic offerings: -

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/5369/gpac040released03aug055ir.png


MP4Box (GPAC Release 0.3.0 / Dated: 2005-06-21) Basic offerings: -

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/29/gpac030released20jun058vu.png


MP4Box (GPAC Release 0.2.4 / Dated: 2005-03-31) Basic offerings: -

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2310/gpac024released30mar054hd.png


MP4Box Basic functionality: -

http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/7322/mp4boxinfo1oc.png


MP4Box Compiles
Thankfully some very generous forum members have taken the time to generate some compiles of MP4Box for us all: -

MP4Box.exe compiles by Celtic Druid :)
Latest Build: MP4Box 0.4.0.x (http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/gpac) - Dated: 03/08/2005 11.16.03 355K
Celtic Druid's Development Builds (http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/gpac/dev)

MP4Box.exe compiles by Sharktooth :)
Latest Build: Link removed

MP4Box.exe compiles by defunkt :)
Latest build: Link removed


MP4Box GUI's
And.... for some really excellent MP4Box GUI's (front ends) created by some of our very own Doom9 Forum members, please look here: -

MP4BoxGUI. Has been created by Mezzanine :)
Forum Thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89465
Latest Build: MP4BoxGUI v0.14 (http://c.1asphost.com/mezzanine/MP4BoxGUI0.13.7z)

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2041/mp4oxgui3bx.png


YAMB (Yet Another MP4Box GUI). Has been created by Kurtnoise13 :)
Forum Thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=93927
Latest Build: http://yamb.unite-video.com/download.html

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/6663/yambyj6.png



MP4Box Request Summary
Ability to import elementary .m1v and .m2v streams - DONE
Ability to add/change MetaData language track information - DONE
Ability to add/change delay audio/video sync - DONE
Ability to import / parse NeroDigital subtitles (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1227952&group_id=84101&atid=571741) - Requested by Doom9 - DONE
Ability to de-mux MPEG-4 SP/ASP to RAW .m4v
Ability to change PAR of MPEG-4 SP/ASP and AVC streams in MP4 (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=571741&aid=1311055&group_id=84101) - Requested by Kurtnoise13 - DONE

MP4Box Implemented Summary10/06/05:
- added -lang option to MP4Box to change track language
- added -delay option to MP4Box to change initil media delay - ALTHOUGH 100% STANDARD, THIS MAY NOT BE SUPPORTED BY SOME PLAYERS

Latest CVS Changes 12/06/06
- added MPEG-1/2 raw importing (extensions: .m1v and .m2v).
- cleanup of gpac/src/Makefile: no more recursive makes for libgpac

New Forum threads: -
Language Option (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95700)
Audio Delay Option (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95701)
MP4Box Splitting - Revisited (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96158) and MP4Box Splitting - Speed (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96148)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Cheers

[Elias]

I'm curious about the non MPEG-4 codecs, like mp3, ogg etc. Are these muxed into the mp4 container in a standard ISO compliant way, or are they just muxed in some "home-made" way by GPAC? From what I've read, mp3 is allowed in mp4 by MPEG, but I've never heard anything about ogg and other codecs.

[SeeMoreDigital]

If you have ever taken the time to read bond's MP4 FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62723), you would have come across the following: -To create MP4 files you should preferably use audio/video formats covered by the MPEG-4 Standard: -

MP4 video formats:
MPEG-4 SP/ASP: XviD (http://www.xvid.org/), DivX5 (http://www.divx.com/divx/), 3ivx (http://www.3ivx.com/), ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net)/ffvfw (http://cutka.szm.sk/ffvfw/), Nero Digital (http://www.nerodigital.com)... and MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73022#post461589), MPEG-2, MPEG-1 (not DivX3/MS Mpeg-4, WM9, RV9 or VP6)

MP4 audio formats:
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC): Quicktime (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/)/iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/), Nero (http://www.nero.com/), Psytel (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Audio/aacenc_v215.zip), FAAC (http://sourceforge.net/projects/faac)... and MP3, MP2, MP1, CELP (speech), TwinVQ (very low bitrates), SAOL (midi), ALS (lossless)

MP4 subtitle/text format:
MPEG-4 Timed Text

MP4 picture formats:
JPEG, PNGAs you can see MP3 audio streams are perfectly compliant.

As for audio streams within the .OGG container... Just ask yourself (or find out) what these streams are?

[Elias]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
If you have ever taken the time to read bond's MP4 FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62723), you would have come across the following: -As you can see MP3 audio streams are perfectly compliant.

As for audio streams within the .OGG container... Just ask yourself (or find out) what these streams are? I've read that FAQ. I know mp3 is compliant in mp4 and that's why I wrote that mp3 is allowed by MPEG. My question was: Are these muxed into the mp4 container in a standard ISO compliant way, or are they just muxed in some "home-made" way by GPAC?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Now... there would not be much point in "MP4Box" muxing audio streams, such as MP3, in a non-compliant way, because that would severely limit their playback ;)

As for .OGG audio stream muxing... it's still in the experimental stage!


Cheers

[bond]

all mpeg streams gpac supports are of course muxed into .mp4 the iso compliant way :)

[Elias]

Originally posted by bond
all mpeg streams gpac supports are of course muxed into .mp4 the iso compliant way :) Good, I was just checking to be on the safe side. I tried muxing a jpg file into mp4 with the latest MP4Box cvs. It did not play in QuickTime (of course), and the latest haali splitter couldn't parse it either. VLC was the only player able to parse it. Is JPEG in experimental stages too, not muxed ISO compliant, or is it just QT/haali that can't parse jpg in mp4 correctly?

[JoeBG]

In the first sheet is explained, that mp4 box muxes every mpeg4 *.avi into mp4. Is this correct? I thought it can´t do AVC.avi? Have I missed a step in mp4box development?

[Doom9]

Have I missed a step in mp4box development?No you have not. I have made a feature request for that, it was turned down. So mp4box won't be able to process AVC in AVI in the future.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Doom9
No you have not. I have made a feature request for that, it was turned down. So mp4box won't be able to process AVC in AVI in the future. I take it that this is because AVC in avi is very incompatible?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've been experimenting with the de-muxing and muxing features MP4Box (in conjunction with YAMB).

With regard to Mpeg2 streams, I was surprised that its possible to input full .VOB files - ie: Mpeg2 with multiple AC3 audio streams. MP4Box is able to drop all the AC3 streams and mux the video element perfectly!

Plus, once the Mpeg2 (or Mpeg1) streams are in the MP4 container, MP4Box allows you to de-mux them to an elementary .m2v (or .m1v) stream :)....

Although according to YAMB, it's "Extracting MPEG-2 Visual streams to H264": -

http://img236.echo.cx/img236/6004/mpeg2extract2ii.png


With MP4Box being able to de-mux Mpeg1 to .m1v, Mpeg2 to .m2v and AVC to .h264, I wonder whether the developers could make it possible for Mpeg4 to be de-muxed to .m4v.... And for .m1v and .m2v streams to be muxed?


Cheers

[Elias]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
With MP4Box being able to de-mux Mpeg1 to .m1v, Mpeg2 to .m2v and AVC to .h264, I wonder whether the developers could make it possible for Mpeg4 to be de-muxed to .m4v.... And for .m1v and .m2v streams to be muxed?If I'm not wrong, there's no difference between m4v and an mp4 file containing MPEG-4 Part 2 only. Just rename it to m4v if it has no audio. And this isn't really a standard thing, I believe Apple 'made up' m4a/m4v just to differentiate between MPEG-4 audio and video.

[Drachir]

@Elias
Here m4v is used for RAW Mpeg 4 Video

[Doom9]

I take it that this is because AVC in avi is very incompatible?No. Here's the full scoop: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1189633&group_id=84101&atid=571741

[SeeMoreDigital]

But it looks like future versions still be able to offer AVC in .AVI de-muxing to .H264?


Cheers

[Doom9]

But it looks like future versions still be able to offer AVC in .AVI de-muxing to .H264?Why remove what is working? In fact if somebody were to make a patch combining the demuxing feature with the import feature... any volunteers?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Another useful MP4Box feature would be the ability to mux (and de-mux) VOB-subs (as created by Recode2).

Currently, if you generate an encode with Recode2 that contains VOB-subs and wish to add or delete say, some chapter-point information or audio streams, MP4Box is unable to create a new encode :(


Cheers

[Kurtnoise]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
if you have any suggestions regarding implementations you would like to see incorporated in future versions of MP4Box, it might useful to discuss them in one thread rather than all over the forum!
I would like to have the possibility to edit some specific atoms for each tracks contained into mp4 file (especially for the language ;))....Dumpster is good but under mp4box it'll be great.


btw, :goodpost: SMD. Maybe could you specify that the GUI are for win32OS only and that MP4BoxGUI requires the .NET FrameWork. Thereas Yamb needs nothing... :D

[Elias]

Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
I would like to have the possibility to edit some specific atoms for each tracks contained into mp4 file (especially for the language ;))....Dumpster is good but under mp4box it'll be great.Yes, don't forget the component name in the handler reference atom. Very cool feature :) Too bad it's limited to 23 letters though. Also, in QuickTime Pro, there's an option to change the track name in get movie properties>sound/video track>general>change name. It would be cool to have this feature in MP4Box as well.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
btw, :goodpost: SMD. Maybe could you specify that the GUI are for win32OS only and that MP4BoxGUI requires the .NET FrameWork. Thereas Yamb needs nothing... :D Thanks... and "job done" :)


Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
Yes, don't forget the component name in the handler reference atom. Very cool feature Too bad it's limited to 23 letters though. Also, in QuickTime Pro, there's an option to change the track name in get movie properties>sound/video track>general>change name. It would be cool to have this feature in MP4Box as well.Agreed it would be useful. And sadly MP4Box seems to loose any existing MetaData information during muxing...

That said, the other day I was wondering whether it might be more useful to have separate (purpose built) "MP4 MetaData Editor Plus" type tool....

....It's a times like this I really wish I had the skills to make these sorts of things myself :(

[Kurtnoise]

You should post these requests on SF I think...:) It's a better place to contact the devs.

[Elias]

Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
You should post these requests on SF I think...:) It's a better place to contact the devs. I couldn't register.

[Stacey Melissa]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Another useful MP4Box feature would be the ability to mux (and de-mux) VOB-subs (as created by Recode2).
Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
I would like to have the possibility to edit some specific atoms for each tracks contained into mp4 file (especially for the language ;))....Dumpster is good but under mp4box it'll be great.
Originally posted by Elias
Yes, don't forget the component name in the handler reference atom. Very cool feature :) Too bad it's limited to 23 letters though. Also, in QuickTime Pro, there's an option to change the track name in get movie properties>sound/video track>general>change name. It would be cool to have this feature in MP4Box as well.
Those were gonna be my three suggestions. You guys all beat me to the punch. :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Kurtnoise13
You should post these requests on SF I think...:) It's a better place to contact the devs. Yep... that's one of the purposes behind this thread :D

I thought it would be helpful to us all if we discussed our MP4Box issues, hopes and dreams in one place first before making a "unified" request on SourceForge.

Plus it makes it easier for any of the MP4Box developers to look in one place on Doom9... should they ever want too!


Cheers

[JoeBG]

Originally posted by Kurtnoise
I would like to have the possibility to edit some specific atoms for each tracks contained into mp4 file (especially for the language )....Dumpster is good but under mp4box it'll be great.

Originally posted by Elis
Yes, don't forget the component name in the handler reference atom. Very cool feature Too bad it's limited to 23 letters though. Also, in QuickTime Pro, there's an option to change the track name in get movie properties>sound/video track>general>change name. It would be cool to have this feature in MP4Box as well.

I really think, that the next step should be names for the tracks. Has someone made a request?

[Elias]

Somewhat Off Topic. Most of you guys may not be using Wikipedia. I do, and I created this article, so if anyone here feels like helping me maintain it, feel free to give me a helping hand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4Box

[Kurtnoise]

Originally posted by JoeBG
I really think, that the next step should be names for the tracks. Has someone made a request?
I don't think so...but SMD is the man for that. :D

[Elias]

Why don't we just notify the MP4Box developers about this thread?

[bond]

Originally posted by Elias
Somewhat Off Topic. Most of you guys may not be using Wikipedia. I do, and I created this article, so if anyone here feels like helping me maintain it, feel free to give me a helping hand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4Box you miss the most important things mp4box does and thats mpeg-4 systems, x3d aso support
i mean muxing strea,s into .mp4 and extracting them again is only kiddie stuff compared to the things mp4box can do with mpeg-4 systems

Originally posted by Elias
Good, I was just checking to be on the safe side. I tried muxing a jpg file into mp4 with the latest MP4Box cvs. It did not play in QuickTime (of course), and the latest haali splitter couldn't parse it either. VLC was the only player able to parse it. Is JPEG in experimental stages too, not muxed ISO compliant, or is it just QT/haali that can't parse jpg in mp4 correctly? jpg, png muxing is also compliant of course
have a look at my sticky, it lists all streams that are officially standardised for placement in .mp4


Originally posted by Elias
I take it that this is because AVC in avi is very incompatible? i assume because its a pita to make a conversion from avi
eg look at mkvmerge, it also isnt able to make a avc-in-avi -> native-avc-in-mkv conversion, it only writes it in the "avi/vfw mode"

[stephanV]

Originally posted by bond
i assume because its a pita to make a conversion from avi
Shouldnt be more difficult than muxing raw AVC to MP4

eg look at mkvmerge, it also isnt able to make a avc-in-avi -> native-avc-in-mkv conversion, it only writes it in the "avi/vfw mode"
and guess what? mkvmerge doesnt support muxing raw avc into mkv.

i think doom9 answered that question more than sufficiently.

[Elias]

I don't know why I haven't mention this earlier, but *.mov compliance would be nice. That is, extract tracks from *.mov files. I'm mostly thinking about the new Apple MPEG-4 trailers encoded to the *.mov format instead of *.mp4 and, since *.mp4 is based on *.mov this shouldn't be that hard to implement, or am I wrong? Anyway, would be nice to be able to extract AVC/SP/ASP/AAC from the *.mov format.

[bond]

guys, lets not start wishing stuff just for the sake of having it

you can extract tracks from .mov with lots of other tools, lets not bug jeanlf with such non-issues keeping him only away from the important stuff

[Kurtnoise]

hey,

There are some new commands in the last mp4box. But I'm little bit confused with the syntax. :o Does anyone have succeed with -add-item arguments ?

http://kurtnoise.free.fr/meta_mp4box_options.gif

[JoeBG]

hey,

There are some new commands in the last mp4box. But I'm little bit confused with the syntax. :o Does anyone have succeed with -add-item arguments ?

http://kurtnoise.free.fr/meta_mp4box_options.gif

Do you think this can help for the tracknames?

[Kurtnoise]

nope...

[Kurtnoise]

Celtic_Druid has made a new compile concerning mp4box and GPAC framework package : http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/gpac/dev

changelog from the CVS :

03/06/05:
- fixed MPEG-2 aac importing and info dumping
- fixed 3GPP text display bug when stoping and changing an animationStream using a 3GPP text object.
- fixed AVC/H264 HP parsing
- added BIFS track visual size info at BT/XMT encoding stage
- MOVED FFMPEG INCLUDE FILES TO LATEST CVS VERSION to support AVC/H264 HP decoding
- added meta self reference item for dual-headed files
- commit MPEG-4 LATM Audio hinting patch and added rtp aggregation. RTP reassembler NOT UPDATED YET
- fixed bugs in TeXML parser
- fixed bt/xmt to MP4 encoding for IOD with single BIFS ESD.URLString set
- fixed SVG outline handling and SVG/SMIL anim on appearance/geometry
- fixed svg_loader compilation on winCE (ARM binaries and include to follow in next release of gpac_extra_libs)
- commit of SVG fixed-point version
- Fixed MP4Box spliter crash introduced by MetaBox support.
- Merged MP21 and MP4 handling, added meta support in MP4Box (creation/extraction - cf MP4Box -h meta)

FROM THIS DAY ON, ALL WORK ADDED TO GPAC IS COPYLEFT ENST


And FYI, I submitted a new feature request (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1213504&group_id=84101&atid=571741)....;)

[JoeBG]

Celtic_Druid has made a new compile concerning mp4box and GPAC framework package : http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/gpac/dev

changelog from the CVS :




And FYI, I submitted a new feature request (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1213504&group_id=84101&atid=571741)....;)

Thanks, very nice :)

[vortex_hl]

is mp4box support audio delay function?
i want to mux h.264 video stream and mpeg4 aac stream but i should add 200ms delay to audio. how can i do this?

video: 1280x544 h.264 video made with x264
audio: 6 channel Mpeg-4 LC AAC made with foobar+nero
both are not raw

[Stacey Melissa]

is mp4box support audio delay function?
i want to mux h.264 video stream and mpeg4 aac stream but i should add 200ms delay to audio. how can i do this?
You have to set the delay when encoding the audio. mp4box won't set the delay.

[berrinam]

@Elias Just saw your post and your wikipedia article. Looks good :D. It's good to have a compilation of the information from Doom9 on Wikipedia

[Kurtnoise]

Can anyone confirmed that 2 videos and more into a mp4 file muxed with mp4box last compile crashes during the playback with Osmo4 ?

btw it seems to play fine with mpc...





/me goes back to Yamb dev right now... ;)

[Drachir]

Osmo4(CVS)@Linux don't crash here with a Mpeg 4 Systems presentation with two video stream or with an ISO Media File with two video stream.A Mpeg 4 Systems presentation make more sense if more then one video stream is used.

[yaz]

just found
08/06/05:
- updated configure for opengl disabling and fixed-point configuration
- misc fixes in ffmpeg decoder and MP4Box ISMA for amorphic video (PAR!=1:1)
- misc updates in MP4Box meta handling for item extraction.
- fixed MPEG-2 aac importing and info dumping
- fixed 3GPP text display bug when stoping and changing an animationStream using a 3GPP text object.
- fixed AVC/H264 HP parsing
- added BIFS track visual size info at BT/XMT encoding stage
- MOVED FFMPEG INCLUDE FILES TO LATEST CVS VERSION to support AVC/H264 HP decoding
- added meta self reference item for dual-headed files
- commit MPEG-4 LATM Audio hinting patch and added rtp aggregation. RTP reassembler NOT UPDATED YET
- fixed bugs in TeXML parser
- fixed bt/xmt to MP4 encoding for IOD with single BIFS ESD.URLString set
- fixed SVG outline handling and SVG/SMIL anim on appearance/geometry
- fixed svg_loader compilation on winCE (ARM binaries and include to follow in next release of gpac_extra_libs)
- commit of SVG fixed-point version
- Fixed MP4Box spliter crash introduced by MetaBox support.
- Merged MP21 and MP4 handling, added meta support in MP4Box (creation/extraction - cf MP4Box -h meta)

FROM THIS DAY ON, ALL WORK ADDED TO GPAC IS COPYLEFT ENST
u know where to go :D
happy wrapping !

the bests
y

[SeeMoreDigital]

It looks as though Celtic Druid has generated a new MP4Box.exe compile for us all.....

MP4Box.7z 09/06/2005 15.56.06 326K (http://www.aziendeassociate.it/./cd//gpac/dev/MP4Box.7z)


Many thanks

[Elias]

This is all very nice. Anyone knows where I can get the latest source code for Linux? I want to start using this pwnage software on Linux :)

[Sharktooth]

cvs co :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/gpac gpac

[Kurtnoise]

Osmo4(CVS)@Linux don't crash here with a Mpeg 4 Systems presentation with two video stream or with an ISO Media File with two video stream.A Mpeg 4 Systems presentation make more sense if more then one video stream is used.
10x...I updated the GPAC framework and it works great now. :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Sounds good Kurt.......

A few days ago, I also sent a message to Jean Le Feuvre, informing him of this very thread, here on Doom9...Comment Sent: 2005-06-04 13:57

Hi jeanlf,

Just thought I would let you know that we have started
an "GPAC MP4Box Information and Discussions"
thread over on the Doom9 forum. Which can be found
here: -

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=94874

If you have any time to spare we would be happy to
welcome your presence and any comments you can
offer.

Kind regards
SeeMoreDigital

------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment Received: 2005-06-09 13:21
Sender: jeanlf

Good job, and already some interesting discussions. Hope I'll
have time to post there - once I get back in sync with all my
late gpac mails...

Oh, and keep spreading the news :)

jean.So it looks like we might be gaining a new forum member :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Celtic_Druid has generated a new MP4Box. exe compile: -

MP4Box.exe 11/06/2005 4.56.14 327K (http://mirror05.x264.nl/celtic_druid/mp4box.7z)


Many thanks again

[Kurtnoise]

It seems there are some changes according to the changelog :

14/06/05:
- Preparing 0.3.0 release
- fixed bug in SDP playback without RTSP session attached (live casts)
- added language and delay selection at import time (cf MP4Box -h import)
- made -lang able to change all tracks languages by default !erase language specified at import time!


btw, Many thanks to Bond for the request. ;)