"H264+ACC" MP4 "homemade" videos

[tugatosmk]

Is it possible for a video with h264/AVC video codec encoded with Virtualdub 1.7.7 and AAC audio codec can be played (or if there are future plans to implement it) in the recent HD home players with a MP4 container. (I have the idea that HD standard uses h264 video codec and AAC audio, is it not?)

I read in "deaththesheep x264 VFW guide" (http://gabextreme.googlepages.com/De...VfW_guide.html) that there can be "Main Profile" or "High Profile" for AVC, the latter being unable to be played by some PC video players (let alone those HD players, I'd imagine). The "High Profile" can supposedly be made if options "8x8 Transform", "8x8 Intra Search" or "Trellis" are selected.

My idea was to encode some old cartoon/anime I still have stored in VHS in order to record less DVDs than if I recorded directly in DVD, SP format (Standard-Player, 2 hours for 4.7 GB). I chose AVC video codec because it's so damn eficient.

Could someone shed some light on this matter, please?

[tugatosmk]

But first, I'll bother myself and say that the search function is hardly an efficient tool. Everytime I've tried to search for anything, even in the "advanced search option", it usually gives too many post or threads to find, so I find myself losing as much time looking in those as if I searched all threads (in this case, the Tech Support) manually.

Besides, in this case, I looked at the first page's existing topics and none pointed out any clue about HD players compatibility, the main reason for writing my thread. I could be wrong, though.

And if I were wrong, if a moderator or even someone else sent me a message warning me about this, it'd be ok, I'd accept it.

HOWEVER, apparently someone had the trouble of giving me a bad reputation note saying "how about using search?" I find it hard to be from a moderator: why hide?

Does creating a supposedly already existing thread earn the "right" to be "fined"? I always thought, in these cases, the standard procedure would be to merge my topic with the other one. That still hasn't happened as yet, so I don't know if the moderators have even read my thread...

I also always thought that bad reputation came from great misconduct, like doing the following several times in the forum: insulting someone, mocking someone, using excessive cursing all the time or writing with caps lock permanently on.

I always try to be as polite, refined and cool-tempered as possible in this and any other forum. There might have been this one occasion in "The Official Football Thread" 3 years ago, where I was more hot-headed in a comment, which I regret now, but it was just once! I'm not perfect. Still, only once in 3 years...

And now I get a bad reputation about THIS?! A thread that might be of someone else's interest, even if (and I don't believe so) slightly "unoriginal"? This is my "reward"? As if I do this all the time!

For quite some time (several months), I have refrained myself from exposing my feelings that hardly anyone probably cares for what I post and that I'm looked down in the forum. Is is because I write few post/threads? Because I don't participate avidly in recent series discussion? Because I don't have a cool avatar or signature?

But after this, I can't contain myself any longer. The only reason I haven't left this forum is because this is a distinguishable anime forum, probably the best, where I have seen some of the best and well-written topics and comments from the most different matters.

And to think that, just a few days ago, I even ask for my username to be changed from "tug" to "tugatosmk" as a way to start a new period of me entering new forums on the internet... What a disappointment...

I probably won't leave so soon. But you probably won't hear anything else from me again, as no-one seems to care.

[Ledgem]

I was going to reply to your original question, but realized that I could only give you some vague answers and wasn't sure. I'll give you them anyway.

I believe both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will be making use of the H.264 codec, but I'm not sure what container it'd go in. MP4 is a good bet. Unfortunately that's the extent of my help - if you use software like DVD Studio Pro 4 (for Mac OS X) or maybe Adobe Premiere Pro they have settings for HD video, designed for HD players, I presume. That would handle it for you automatically.

With regard to your feedback, sorry to hear about it. As the saying goes, don't take things too personally on the internet. Usually when I find myself taking things on this forum too personally, I take a long break from it - could be a few weeks, could be a month, could be a year. I don't know who gave you a negative, but they may have been referring to running a search on Google. That would still be odd, as it seems that you did your own research as well. Either way, don't let it get to you.

Just a tip about forum searches: the search function isn't that great, as you've probably discovered. That, or it may have a higher learning curve than one would expect. The way that I search these forums is to use a site-specific Google search. Are you familiar with it? Here's how you'd use it. Anywhere in the Google search bar, enter this as a term:

site:forums.animesuki.com

That's all one term. As I said, it can go anywhere in the search box - beginning, end, or in between other search terms. Google will then apply your search only to the website listed. Note that you could also use site:animesuki.com which search everthing in the AnimeSuki domain - the forums and the main torrent site. It's a very useful feature.

[Nicholi]

If H.264+AAC in MP4 ever does become popular, it will not be with VfW mode. So you won't be able to encode with x264 VfW in VirtualDub. You will have to use the command-line app itself (or with a GUI).

Neither HD DVD or BD have the AAC codec in either their required or optional audio codecs, so you can't really expect those players to play your videos. Also neither of those have anything to do with MP4. HD DVD uses eVOB and BD uses M2TS. However H.264+AAC in MP4 does have quite a few other hardware players which could play it, and supposedly they will be everywhere if you believe the "zomg industry standard!!!" people. Obvious examples would include almost any Apple products or the Xbox360/PS3, which will play H.264+AAC in MP4.

As to the profile and level you encode your video at, that depends on the device you want to play on. So first you need a device that can actually play H.264 video, then next you need to read what profile and level it can decode. If you had an Xbox360/PS3, both of these can be encoded to High Profile@4.1. Apple products are much lower and have weird requirements because they do not really follow the "zomg industry standard" as they should be. The few other high priced home theater systems I have seen which do support H.264 video (and also AAC and MP4 of course) typically have the same abilities as the Xbox360/PS3. High Profile at Level 4.1 (sometimes 4.0, sometimes even 5.1). So for a safe bet, if you don't have anything now would be to just go for High Profile at 4.1. Also this will give you the most optimal quality, you won't really need a level above 4.1. If anything you can still always play them on your PC at the least.

So really you'll need a device that plainly says it supports H.264 video, AAC audio, and the MP4 container. The HD DVD and BD formats (also DVD) have nothing to do with AAC/MP4 so do not expect those to play AAC in MP4. However of course much like DVD players nowadays you can get one which support tons of things outside the DVD format. DivX+MP3 in AVI, Windows Media, Ogg Vorbis (audio only), JPEG pictures, etc. Just look fro the HD DVD/BD player which states it plays MP4 files which have H.264+AAC.

P.S. Don't forget about Overscan when you are encoding. Making shit for hardware players is so much fun, there are so many limitations and restrictions just to get shit displayed on your TV...yay!

[martino]

this seems to be like one of the players that pretty much has support for any level of H.264 stream and AAC as well, given that it plays HE-AAC, which neither the XBOX360 or PS3 do. So I'd agree with Nicholi, any hardware player (in this case I don't mean portables -- like PSP, etc) capable of playing H.264/AAC in MP4 should be capable of at least what the PS3 and 360 can (apart from those previously mentioned Apple devices and perhaps some other ones -- not like there are that many of them). Which can pretty much lead you to using the search function, which while not being the "best" and most "intuitive" feature to use, it does still give decent results; if you know what to search for that is...

Examples (using Ledgem's approach since the vB search facility isn't that great):
try1
try2
try3

[tugatosmk]

Thanks for your replies, guys. You really helped me here.

And I think I'll take your advise, Ledgem. I'll be off animesuki for some undetermined time. But I might be back.

So, until then, cheers.

[tugatosmk]

This is getting so weird I'm finding it amusing...

(And yet another bad reputation note saying "/wrists"... What is that? "Slap in the wrist", maybe? Can't a guy say nothing here? Someone must me on to me... but who could it be? Hmm... *makes a pondering gesture*

I sure wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!... lol

Signing off...)

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by tugatosmk

This is getting so weird I'm finding it amusing...

(And yet another bad reputation note saying "/wrists"... What is that? "Slap in the wrist", maybe? Can't a guy say nothing here? Someone must me on to me... but who could it be? Hmm... *makes a pondering gesture*

I sure wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!... lol

Signing off...)

That would be "slash wrists".

not that I agree with the sentiment.

[tugatosmk]

I'm back! lol

During this period, I continued my quest for the best way to produce a very compatible h264 video stream.

Originally Posted by Nicholi

If H.264+AAC in MP4 ever does become popular, it will not be with VfW mode. So you won't be able to encode with x264 VfW in VirtualDub. You will have to use the command-line app itself (or with a GUI).

I usually use YAMB 2.0, a MP4 toolbox I discovered, to open/create/edit/extract streams from mp4 file. In this particular case, I have this mp4 with a h264 video stream. The description given is "Intel H.264".

I have followed your advice and experimented with the MeGUI x264 (mode 0.2.2.5) that came with the x264.exe I installed. Unfortunately, it only works with avisynth scripts, which is most unfortunate because not only I like using Virtualdub's filters like "temporal smoothing" but also I'm a complete noob when it comes to avisynth script language. :S. Anyway, YAMB's description with the new file is just "H.264".

Does the WFW factor change so many technical characteristics of the outputted h264 stream that'd make it so different from the h264 used on fansubs, for example? Isn't h264 always supposed to be h264?

EDIT: Also, what is the "type" of h264 codec used by fansubbers: the "original" h264 or the ope-source x264?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by tugatosmk

EDIT: Also, what is the "type" of h264 codec used by fansubbers: the "original" h264 or the ope-source x264?

During the time that I fansubbed (now ~2 years ago) we were using x264. As far as I know, you can't simply put H.264 onto your system as a codec for encode as it doesn't come as a VFW codec, and thus you can't use it with VirtualDub. X.264 is, to my knowledge, the only VFW H.264 codec around.

[tugatosmk]

Do you, as a fansubber, use VirtualDub? If not, then you must use avisynth to use filters in your videos, right?

I also hear people at doom9 and even at animesuki saying "ooh, x264-vfw is bad, is hacked, ooh, dreadful!" or similar, so I wonder if the x264 you use is also vfw.

[martino]

x264 is the encoder application, and H.264/AVC is the video codec name. x264 can be both used in VfW (DeathTheSheep's builds), which as you found already is a bad thing to use, also as a command line utility (most x264 builds comes in this form -- www.x264.nl for example) and as DirectShow, which Haali has dug up somewhere on his webspace if you know the link to it. Command line is definitely the safest and easiest way to go (out of the former two anyway).

Also, if you like VirtualDub's Temporal Smoother, AviSynth has a similar internal function as well (not sure how similar they are and how they compare to each other though). VirtualDub isn't the best option for video filtering, almost everyone (hopefully) uses AviSynth for that since it is much more powerful. VirtualDub is usually only used for encoding from the AviSynth script into a lossless codec, Xvid or what have you.

[tugatosmk]

Thank you all once more for your help, you've been great.

I guess the only thing left for me to ask (I forgot the last time, sorry) is about the command line. MeGUI is a graphic interface that uses the installed x264, right?

Well, when I downloaded the x264-vfw I also downloaded an MeGUI (version 0.2.2.5.) Today, after installing a recent x264, I realized it didn't bring a newer MeGUI, so I had to download one (version 0.3.0.0). Unfortunately, it needs a newer version of the .NET framework.

The funny thing is, after uninstalling the x264-vfw, the old MeGUI still worked. Do all MeGUI access the currently installed x264?


(Sorry for not letting go of this thread, but I'm a noob when it comes to comand lines and such. )

[martino]

MeGUI, as you mentioned is nothing more but a graphical user interface for x264 and other, usually, command line encoding libraries (it can do other stuff as well, but that's out of this topic). The VfW x264 that you installed/unistalled will not be used by MeGUI, because it uses the command line one (x264.exe) which was either downloaded by MeGUI, or that you as the user downloaded manually.

IIRC as default, MeGUI will download a copy of x264 that is downloaded from some repository into a subdirectory of where it is installed and that's what will be used, unless you specify otherwise in the settings.

[tugatosmk]

Thanks again, both for your help and your readiness.

I think I have no more questions regarding this topic. Now the only thing for me left to do is learn avisynth's language, but that I'll do on my own.

Meanwhile, this thread should be abandoned by myself.