µ-lau mulaw problem h.264 mp4 QT HD720p kodamov z812 z1253

[chinamanblue]

HEY - I did the due dilligence and searched for ulaw, mulaw, quicktime, h.264, .mov, kodak, z812/z712 movies... and found other people with problems but not specifically with this new camera. The older cams were not doing the current .mov HD files of 1280x720 30 fps quicktime h.264 with the mulaw / ulaw codec.... for some reason... the audio of the files play fine under quicktime, and media player classic.... but the video is too much... 100% CPU so frame droppages.
Trying VLC is nothing short of AMAZING... the detail level seems the same - yet only approx 16% cpu usage?!? WTF!!!
Unfortunately, audio is does not come through... every few seconds (5-8 seconds) there is a loud scratching distorted hissing noise - rather than the audio that should be there.
this is repeatable over and over and sounds consistent with the other posters problems with ulaw/mulaw back in the old h.263 videos back to 2004 in my searches on here.

my setup - across multiple machines (all xp unfortunately)
0.8.6d - latest version I could find
also several earlier (but recent) versions did this too.

some machines I had the kazaa lite codec pack installed - but others I didn't.
some machines upgraded to the latest quicktime 7.0 I believe... but others I didn't.
this problem is consistent across four or five machines (all XP) but with different versions of VLC and diff versions of quicktime...

Anyone have any ideas?
one gentleman in an earlier post seemed to resolve it - resulting in a change in the source that he was able to recompile successfully.
Is there a reason the working version hasn't adopted this in the latest version?
Thank you very much, in advance for your help and for such an awesome program!
Best Regards,
Chinamanblue


Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

So, let's start again.
VLC does a great job for video decoding but suck at decoding the audio ?

Have you tried the development versions ?

[chinamanblue]

yeah man, that's about the gist of it - with respect to muLaw incorped into a weird quicktime mp4 h.264 file... I guess.

I'm sorry if I rambled - was just SO AMAZED at the quality and efficiency of code for HD video rendering of VLC.
Dev versions are a great idea - but I was concerned ... if 0.8.6d was released recently to shore up security vulnerabilities (that existed as recently as 0.8.6b) wouldn't the security fix be missing from even recent dev versions?

AND

if this problem is old, has been ongoing and only affects a rarely used mulaw codec (potentially only in conjunction w/ quicktime mp4 file wrappers) I doubt a dev version would be hosted that addresses this.

It's worth a try though. I'll report back.
Thanks for the input! I appreciate anything at this point - this is the only thing stopping me from full adoption of VLC.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Development versions are built every day, so are pretty up to date about bugs.

Go to take a NB and report.

[chinamanblue]

0.9.0-svn-20080117-1004 Grishenko
no success - audio doesn't work...

read somewhere someone else was having a problem transcoding this type of a file into something else - believe that the issue they reported was that the ffmpeg library linked to was an older version, but that ffmpeg (new version) was able to handle this.

I'm wondering if installing latest FFDshow might update some codecs? potentially mulaw?

[grayner]

Hello,

I have a Kodak V1253 camera that takes great HD video with stereo audio encoded in Mu Law. The Video portion of the file plays great, but audio is broken with a second or so of hissing every 5-6 seconds and no normal sound. I have seen many other people say that they have similar problems with VLC. I'm using VLC 0.8.6d Janus (Intel). Other windows users report the same issue.

Included is an example file (plays correctly on quicktime) at http://homepage.mac.com/rayner4/FileSharing2.html

I (and many others) would be so jazzed if we could get this feature (Mu Law audio playback) working. It's probably a real simple fix.

Gary.

[chinamanblue]

The codec Kodak used is ffodivx, not the more efficient H.264 (AVC).


Video Playback
The ffodivx ".mov" video files play back at 1280x720 resolution using vlc, totem, xine or mplayer.
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10, the default video player (totem) does a very good job (both audio and video work fine by default).

The audio runs too fast and breaks up in xine, on both the 3.4GHz P4 box and the iMac. Not sure why, yet.

Playback with mplayer and the -vo xv flag tends to jam up after playing back for a little while. When playing back using mplayer with the -vo x11 , the video doesn't jam, but of course the video can't go full-screen when using the -vo x11 flag. An alternative, if you have OpenGL support on your graphics card, is to use the -vo gl2 flag, which works quite smoothly. The audio is OK in mplayer.

You can try video playback on your system using this sample video from the review article.

To get the video playback to look as smooth as real 720p from ATSC sources, you have to hold the camera very steady. If you are doing any "panning", you have to do it quite slowly, to avoid slight jagged jitters during playback.

[chinamanblue]

BugFix: u-Law stereo support for Kodak MOV files
MP4Cam2AVI is MPEG4/MJPEG to AVI converter/joiner for MPEG-4 camcorders and digital photo cameras.


Download MP4Cam2AVI



It makes MPEG-4 camera clips DivX/XviD compatible and playable with any DVD-MPEG4 player like regular MPEG-4 movie.

MP4Cam2AVI supports *.MP4, *.MOV, and *.AVI input (MPEG-4 AVI's from Casio P505/Z750 cameras are not DivX-compatible). MJPEG *.MOV's from photo cameras are supported as well.

MP4Cam2AVI doesn't recompress video, that means no quality loss and fast operation (5-20x realtime, depending on audio settings). Audio can be stored in source format, or converted to MP3 (best for DVD-MPEG4 players) or PCM (best for editing).

Unlike many converting apps, MP4Cam2AVI doesn't require QuickTime or any codecs to work, it performs all the job itself.

Features of MP4Cam2AVI 2.51 :

With MP4Cam2AVI, you can:
- Convert and join MPEG-4 clips from your camera to single DivX-compatible MPEG-4 movie (to watch on PC or DVD-MPEG4 player);
- Batch convert many clips to edit with any avi editing app;
- Correct audio/video lag in some cameras like Minolta A200
- Make sound 'softer' with configurable lowpass filter (great for Sanyo Xacti C1)

From version 2.20 MP4Cam2AVI supports MPEG-4 AVI files from cameras like Casio EX505/750, Casio S500, Pentax Optio s5n. Files from these cameras are not DivX-compatible, most DVD-MPEG4 players won't play them. Repacking with MP4Cam2AVI solves this problem.

Tested cameras :

• MPEG4 camcorders: Sanyo/Fisher C1/C4/C5, Olympus C770 Movie, Sony DSC-M1, Pentax Optio MX/MX4, Samsung V40/50/70, Samsung V700, Casio EX P505/Z750, Casio S500, Pentax Optio s5n.
• Photo cameras with MOV MJPEG video: Kodak LS753, Minolta A2, Minolta Dimage Z3, Nikon Coolpix 5200, Nikon 8400, Nikon E8800, Panasonic FX7, Panasonic FZ-1, Pentax 750Z, Olympus C-5000/C-5050/C-8080, Olympus mini digital, Pentax Optio X, Sanyo Xacti J1.
• Other cameras: Kodak DX4530 (H.263 video)

Changes in MP4Cam2AVI 2.51 beta :

• TimeLine and XviD encoding are working in Beta mode. XviD encoding didn't work due to incorrect error message, ver. 2.50 replaced with ver. 2.51
- Internal video preview for MJPEG and MPEG-4 ASP (using xvidcore.dll)
- MPEG-4 ASP coding feature (xvidcore.dll) - for MJPEG -> MPEG4 ASP conversion, including configurable XviD options and pre-defined profiles (Beta yet)
- New TimeLine mode for basic video editing (Beta yet)
- 3 Program modes - Beginner, Advanced and Expert (in Beginner mode, only basic options are available)
- Updated user manual
- BugFix: Canon S70 AVI files
- BugFix: better audio track detection for Nero mp4 files
- BugFix: u-Law stereo support for Kodak MOV files- BugFix: - set manually - mode for target file/dir
- BugFix: XviD encoding didn't work due to incorrect error message, ver. 2.50 replaced with ver. 2.51

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I'll try to get a look at this mulaw bug.

[chinamanblue]

Hi peliopoulos

Thanks for answering on this old subject.

I have not installed quicktime, as I dont like it very much. Never really did... I have instead VLC media player, so maybe thats why the codec is messing up. VLC plays MOV, but I dont think it looks very good. On the other hand, Im not sure of the quality of the files in the first place. I just tried to find a codec, but maybe I have to install Quicktime?

I'll have to go out now, and cool down... he he, but will try the Mencoder later. Thanks again!
_________________
Regards Chryslerdude

(Who stongly advises ppl NOT to buy Kodak digi-cams if they like ordinary MPEG file output=

[VLC_help]

VLC can't use external codecs nor does it install any codecs so VLC doesn't mess your system nor do other players/codecs mess you lovely VLC.

[chinamanblue]

mp4cam2avi works great... converted files have full audio...
but this totally sucks if we have to convert every kodak file before vlc can play them.

[grayner]

Hi All,

Thank you for the thorough responses. Unfortunately it is my wife that mostly plays back the movies on our big-screen TV for friends, so she would not be able (or interested) to do the 'extra step' of doing a file conversion before playing back each file. Quicktime is not an option for us, because it cannot play the Kodak .MOV files in realtime - averages 5-20 frames per second on out Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 Ghz Mac mini, even though Audio is fine. VLC blast through the video at full frame rate and only 20% CPU usage, so if Mu Law audio worked this would be our one and only (and we love VLC - default player) solution.

If there is a fix for Mu Law on VLC, we would be extremely appreciative. Thank you for offering to look at it.

Gary.

[chinamanblue]

thats odd, my friends new mac mini, the 13incher has core 2 duo also and consistently plays back these at 30fps, maybe other things running?

[grayner]

Yes, I can play back H.264 no problem at 720P and even at 1080P on my Mac Mini, provided it is H.264. It seems that Apple optimized Quicktime for its H.264 decompression.

The problem is that the Kodak camera uses ffodivx, not the more efficient H.264 (AVC). This is a different profile of MP4 which Apple has not spent the time to optimize - hence the slow frame-rate playback. My guess is that if you have your friend play back my test file at http://homepage.mac.com/rayner4/FileSharing2.html that they will also experience choppy video playback on Quicktime.

Of course it is very tantalizing that VLC plays these files at full frame rate with only ~20% CPU usage. If only the mulaw sound would work!

I have a top-of-the-line 2.8 GHz Mac Book Pro (used only for work) which can play the test file at 30fps, but it still gets choked up on quite a bit of Kodak video I try to play with it - gets choppy and slow often times with Quicktime - but it is definitely better than my 2GB RAM 2.16GHz core 2 duo Mac Mini, which really is completely unusable for watching 720P ffodivx video using Quicktime. So I guess the point I'm making is that getting a faster computer to fix Quicktime is not an available option today, nor one I could really afford. I'd be SO stoked if we could fix VLC to play Mu Law companding audio!

Gary.

[opel70]

I know that this is old, but I am wondering if anyone has come up with a better VLC solution than converting every movie I make with my camera.

[VLC_help]

Have you tried VLC 1.1.0 nightly builds?
http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/?C=M;O=D (trunks are 1.0.0)