dicianno.org/blog » video http://dicianno.org/blog notes about computers and lifestyle Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:09:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Creating stream-able video http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/19/creating-stream-able-video/ http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/19/creating-stream-able-video/#comments Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:20:51 +0000 armando http://www.dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/19/creating-stream-able-video/

I spent much to much time trying to figure out the right combination of video/audio encodings that would would from an RTSP streaming server (went with a RealServer demo, for now) to a variety of clients (QuickTime Player, VLC, various phones, etceteras.)

First, VLC is a champ. Every time I tried a new streaming server, VLC could play the stream with video and audio. QuickTime Player was not so kind. Even the phone we were streaming to — the Nokia N95 (tech specs) — could play streams that QuickTime Player could not.

I tried a variety of tools, from the venerable ffmpeg to QuickTime Player’s export functionality to create stream-able videos (mainly for QuickTime, since it was being very picky). The tools I used were the following:

Here is a simple bash loop I made to iterate over .mov’s in the current directory and create MPEG4 video, MPEG4 audio (AAC LC), in an MPEG4 container that was hinted. You should set FRAMERATE and SIZE (as “WxH”) as environment variables. Note that the first line has -ac 1 which sets the audio to mono. Also, edit the -qscale to your liking (or remove it).

  1. for i in `ls *mov –color=never`; do
  2.   ffmpeg -i $i -ac 1 -vn "$i.wav"
  3.   faac –mpeg-vers 4 –tns -o "$i.aac" "$i.wav"
  4.   ffmpeg -re -i "$i" -pass 1 -passlogfile "${i}pass" -vcodec mpeg4 -r $FRAMERATE -s $SIZE -qscale 8 -an "$i.m4v"
  5.   rm -f "$i.m4v"
  6.   ffmpeg -re -i "$i" -pass 2 -passlogfile "${i}pass" -vcodec mpeg4 -r $FRAMERATE -s $SIZE -qscale 8 -an "$i.m4v"
  7.   mp4creator -c "$i.m4v" -optimize -rate=$FRAMERATE "$i.mp4"
  8.   mp4creator -hint=1 "$i.mp4"
  9.   mp4creator -c "$i.aac" -interleave -optimize "$i.mp4"
  10.   mp4creator -hint=3 "$i.mp4"
  11.   mp4creator -list "$i.mp4"
  12. done
]]> http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/19/creating-stream-able-video/feed/ 0 MPEG4 Streaming woes http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/mpeg4-streaming-whoas/ http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/mpeg4-streaming-whoas/#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:33:23 +0000 armando http://www.dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/mpeg4-streaming-whoas/ I should right a whole post about the lack of robust video streaming servers, but I’ll save that for another day. For now, I’ve settled on RealServer (RS) (which is the commercialized version of Real’s open source Helix Server), and video actually streams to a plethora of apps, including: QuickTime Player (QT), VideoLan Client (VLC), various phones, etceteras.

So, what’s the deal with MPEG4 streaming?

I’ve tried a virtual cornucopia of tools to transcode to MPEG4 as well as package and hint the MPEG4 files. The list includes:

  • ffmpeg
  • QuickTime Player export functionality
  • MPEG4IP tools
  • GPAC tools
  • mplayer / mencoder

Creating an MPEG4 video track and an MPEG4 audio track inside an MPEG4 container has always been fairly straight forward. Generating this type of file from ffmpeg results in a playable video file, and more importantly, playable in all players I’ve ever tried.

The issue at hand is correctly adding hint tracks to the MPEG4 container. MPEG4IP tools, especially the notable “mp4creator” seems to work just fine for the video track, but SEGFAULTs when trying to hint the audio track. I probably need to read up a lot more on MPEG4 containers, but at the moment, I’m confused if the tracks need to be interleaved or not; part of me thinks they must, as files (encoded as above) I’ve streamed from RS have played just fine in VLC, but fail to have audio in QT. Inspecting the stream’s info in the QT Player only shows the video track. Very intriguing.

At the moment, I’m trying a new set of MPEG4 tools, this time from the GPAC project. I’ll report back, when — not if! — things are working.

]]> http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/mpeg4-streaming-whoas/feed/ 0 built-in iSight on my MBP can’t record video http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/built-in-isight-on-my-mbp-cant-record-video/ http://dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/built-in-isight-on-my-mbp-cant-record-video/#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:02:30 +0000 armando http://www.dicianno.org/blog/2007/06/15/built-in-isight-on-my-mbp-cant-record-video/ Somehow, my MBP’s install is messed up, and the built-in iSight camera cannot be read from in video mode — but yet, still pictures work. I discovered this, as I could not get QuickTime Broadcaster’s preview view to show any video (or for it to broadcast). Then, I discovered that iChat cannot initiate any video chats with anyone.

I have no clue how this problem started. Part of me wants to blame Darwin Streaming Server. I have it turned off, so I no it’s not a conflict with it running, but part of me wonders if just installing it messed something up.

I really don’t want to reinstall OSX. *sigh*

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