Searching for a Realistic MPEG-4 Solution?

gmezero asks: "Over the last year I have been listening to the trumpet of MPEG-4 being sounded, and I am eager to take up the charge and implement it within my company for our corporate communications. In the past we have used MPEG-1 because to it's commonality. However, due primarily to size limitations (among many other issues that have evolved over the last year), I am getting pressure to move us to WMV for it's perceived 'compatibility' as all of our staff have Media Player on their systems. Unfortunately, nobody seems to realize the fact that WMVs may be Media Player version dependent as well and lock us into future upgrade issues. I can not demand for our GIS group to roll out a stand alone player (eg: DIVX), and I am getting down to a deadline of next week to finalize this platform selection. My pitch to sell MPEG-4 within my company boils down to one major issue, and that brings me to my question. How do I create a MPEG-4 file that will be player independent, short of the player pulling down a new codec for their existing installed media player (QT, WMP, Real)?"

Comments

QuickTime Pro H.264

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend purchasing QuickTime Pro and converting your files to H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10). It's a standard and provides wonderful quality for fast-moving transitions. Also, once you move to a QuickTime container, you'll be able to move to future formats without a problem in the future using QuickTime Pro (I have old videos from a camera that Mplayer can't even decode). QuickTime player is also free of charge and Linux users can use Mplayer.

It all depends on the codecs available

[Burz]

However if you want to generate "plain plain" MPEG4, then you can have ffmpeg do it. You can get it from Sourceforge. Just make sure to specify an output file with ".mp4" extension.

Variants of MPEG4 are DIVX, XVID, MSMPEG4 and I think H.264. In some cases they are competely interchangeable for playback if you change the FOURCC tag at the beginning of an AVI file, for instance. You caan do this with transcode's "avifix -F" command. Many players react badly to "MP4" tagged AVI files for some reason, yet all of them apparently have no problem with "DX50" (which is DIVX) so I often change those MP4 AVI files to DX50.

Re:It all depends on the codecs available

[gmezero]

Ah! I think this may be exactly what I was looking for to test with. I would be the only person pulling down the encoder, so I don't see that this would impact what the project is doing. Especially if it truely gives me an plain vanila MPEG4 file that will load under all of the primary players.

Thanks!

Be careful of the royalties

[cookd]

While MPEG-4 is cool and all, don't forget that in many cases you have to pay royalties to use it. This is often above and beyond what you paid for the encoder and the player. The MPEG-4 codec is covered by patents and is NOT public domain.

WMV is not (currently) subject to any content royalties as long as you're using a licensed encoder and player. And it comes pre-installed with Media Player 9 or later, and is available for earlier players in a simple codec pack.

OGG is probably free of all royalties, but comes with its own installation and distribution complexities.

QT..

[_LORAX_]

can play mp4 out of the box. Just remeber to tag your files as FOURCC mp4v ( -vtag mp4v under ffmpeg ). You can also transcode .avi files to .mov with the -vocdec copy -vtag mp4v -acodec copy -f mov under ffmpeg as well.

realistic?

[Ahaldra]

What is a "realistic" solution? I wasn't able to glance any parameters from your text (encoding quality requirements, computer speed and graphics constraints etc.)
I have no clue wether or not this is standard behaviour, but my windows friends can play my quicktime encoded home videos (in mpeg 4 format, encapsulated with .mp4, not .mov) just fine - So at least their windows is 100% mpeg-4 compatible. mp4 files can be played on all the players, after all it is an industry standard and that is the whole point of having one.
On the other hand have I yet to find a wmv that plays well on my mac. And you can tell your bosses that the guy from the intarnets said although the Windows media player exists on other platforms, at least on the mac it is an annoying piece of crap.
As for a solution: I would take a good long look at the vlc streaming server, which not only offers raw data streaming but also extremely good transcoding options. take a look here what it has to offer. Even the single client can stream or transcode to any location, including files.
One question remains: did you even bother to encode an mp4 file with quicktime and try to play it in every player before posting to slashdot? You know "that guys from teh intarwebs forum told me (X) therefore you must believe me (Y) is true" is not a very convincing strategy if you want to make a pitch. Show them you did actually work on it ;-)

H.264

[BrookHarty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264.

I think people are right when they say H.264, HDDVD and Blue ray will both use it, use quicktime pro, and your good to go for all platforms, even video ipod and psp.

Mission Impossible

[Wildclaw]

You want to use a new and better codec, but you aren't allowed to download a new and better codec, and neither are you allowed to choose the player they use? And you aren't allowed to install anything? You are basically screwed, more screwed and yet again screwed. Did I mention that you are screwed.

I would avoid wmv, rm and mov like the plague. They are all properitary container formats. For a container format use you are probably stuck with avi. It is supported by most players. It's main problem is that it is becoming somewhat outdated, which can cause problem with modern codecs.

If you actually had some possibility to install something I would have recommended Videolan. A single stand-alone platform independant player that doesn't use external codecs but instead includes its own. A player like that should be easy to support and cause minimum codec problems. An avi or mkv container with an mpeg-4 codec (xvid, divx, etc.) and aac or mp3 for sound should work perfectly in Videolan and you wouldn't have to worry about having trouble playing it in the future.

Ok, time to quite dreaming. The video codec market is a patent minefield so it practically impossible for a commercial entity to use open source video tools in USA. Good look with wmv :)

Compatibility Information

[agraupe]

I had a similar problem recently, with the exception that I do this strictly as a hobby. To be MPEG-4 compliant (and thus able to play on all MPEG-4 players), you must have a compliant codec (the easy part: XviD or DivX will do fine) in the MPEG-4 container format. This is the major sticking point I found using mplayer, as the support for the mp4 container is problematic currently (playback works, as does encoding with -oac copy -ovc copy, but it cannot do it while encoding). FFMpeg might work, but I've had problems with it in the past. There are also some other MPEG-4 related OSS programs like MPEG4IP that I haven't tried. Commercial solutions such as Quicktime Pro should handle it with no problems.

In terms of codecs, something like XviD or DivX will probably be your best bet, along with either AAC or MP3 audio. The reason for this is that the MPEG-4 standard has many different parts, and not all players are required to support all parts. Most players will support, at the very least, Advanced Simple Profile video, which is what XviD and DivX are compliant to (MPEG-4 part 2, if you're interested). AAC is the "official" audio codec of the MPEG-4 standard, although most, if not all players will support MP3. I'm not sure how WMP (Windows Media Player) supports AAC (or any part of MPEG-4) by default. H.264 video (MPEG-4 part 10) is also part of the standard, but is less supported and more CPU intensive. OSS support leaves a bit to be desired, although mplayer currently supports it fairly well if you aren't afraid of compiling from CVS. As far as playing the resulting videos, I know mplayer can do this with no trouble, even as far back as the last stable version, although I'm not sure if WMP can handle it. Quicktime Player, obviously, supports H.264 playback with AAC, and Quicktime Pro will encode it with no trouble. I'm not sure about WMP support, but H.264 definitely has higher playback requirements in terms of CPU power.