DiviX, Xvid, and Mp4 Compatibility

[Guest - Dave]

Windows 32 Binary:

Right now, if you transcode an mpeg TS or program stream to DiviX or Mp4 and use the Avi file format as a container, the resulting files will play OK on VLC, but will not play on any of the other players. At least in the windows world, the DiviX and Mp4 codecs are not usually encoded with an Mp4 file extension.

I've also tried transcoding mpeg streams to the Mp4 file extension. It plays back fine with VLC, but will not play back with Nero, the only other mp4 compatible software player I have.

I'd like to see these issues fixed in a future version of VLC. Great app - gets better with every release!

[PhoenixMT]

/vote

Specifically transcoding of mp4 audio to ogg format.

[The DJ]

ATM we highly advise against using VLC to create transcoded files. The resulting files are not yet valid and require more work in the future. The main purpose of VLC's transcoding abilities is for streaming over the network.

[Guest - Dave]

OK - that's all I need to know! Sure wish this had been mentioned in the documentation. At least if it is there, I haven't found it. You can't imagine how much time I've spent beating on the transcoded files to get them to work with other playback apps.

[hans-jürgen]

There are much more software players that support standard-compliant MP4 files than VLC and Nero:

http://www.audiocoding.com/modules/wiki ... -4+Players

You didn't specify which formats you used for the video and audio tracks in the MP4 file when transcoding with VLC. The usual combination would be MPEG-4 Video (Simple Profile is understood by all available players, e.g. QuickTime 6.x) and AAC audio (LC is the most used profile here). When using VLC for producing such files, you have to use FAAC as the audio codec, so you either have to compile a Windows version with FAAC included or download a binary if it's available. The Mac OS X binary of VLC comes with an included FAAC codec, as far as I know.

And don't use MPEG-4 Video and AAC Audio in an AVI file, because that's the opposite of a standard-compliant file, and hardly any other players than VLC are able to decode it.

[Guest]

Hans,
Thanks for the reply and info. I'm using the daily Win32 binaries. The choices for audio transcoding are:
MPEG Audio
MP3
MPEG 4 Audio
A/52
Vorbis
FLAC
Speex
Dummy

I'm not sure which codec is being used for MPEG 4 Audio, but that's the choice I've been using. Sounds like there is quite a difference between the MAC and Windows versions.

[hans-jürgen]

I'm not sure which codec is being used for MPEG 4 Audio, but that's the choice I've been using. Sounds like there is quite a difference between the MAC and Windows versions.

If you didn't get an error message when choosing MPEG-4 audio, it seems that the FAAC encoder is already included in your Win32 binary of VLC, so you are using AAC for the audio track. I don't know why the Nero player wouldn't play these MP4 files then, but maybe the reason is the video track (incompatible settings etc.), not the audio.

[The DJ]

Also, VLC is not known to be a good fileconverter. Both are mp4 and avi containers aren't 100% correct. Our MPEG, ASF and OGG creaters are good though..

[hans-jürgen]

Also, VLC is not known to be a good fileconverter. Both are mp4 and avi containers aren't 100% correct.

OK, but there's still the possibility that Dave used e.g. XviD's "packed B-frames" setting for the AVI container and tried to simply remux it to MP4 which doesn't work with the usual MPEG4IP tool mp4creator (if you use that one in VLC). He could also try to install the 3ivx DS filters if he has Windows Media Player or other DS players on his PC, because their MP4 file splitter is the only one that can deal with that stuff (not sure about GPAC/MP4Box though).

[Teetrinker]

MP4Box (GPAC) can deal with it .

http://gpac.sourceforge.net/news.php

September 3rd 2004 - GPAC Release 0.2.0
After several months of chaotic development, GPAC leaves the 2D world! Many new things in this release:

Rendering plugins for 2D (stable) and 2D/3D via OpenGL (quite basic, under development). The 3D renderer supports:
All 2D primitives, Box/Cone/Cylinder/Sphere/IndexedFaceSet/IndexedLineSet, texture mapping and material
Frustum culling, basic viewpoint handling.
No lights (except headlight), no user interactions.
Osmo4 now available under linux through wxWidgets 2.5.2
MP4Box: stable avi B-Frame parser (packed and unpacked bitstreams), support for UTF-16 BT and XMT documents, simple Flash (.swf) to BT/XMT/MP4 converter.