H.264 in MP4 containers (inc. Nero Digital MPEG-4 AVC)

now that ahead is really turning up the heat on there mpeg-4 technology and finaly realeasing there iplementation of the new mpeg-4 avc standard (which i beta tested) it would be very cool if you guys started looking to support this codec.

i know that xbmc can play neros mpeg-4 asp without any real problems apart from not supprting the chapter and subtitle information which is minor.

i know that you can only support the technology if there is an open source decoder that you can use for this i know that there is one made by the x264 team. the only downside is that it canot at the moment decode b frames and weighted prediction but thats not a problem.

the vlc media player that uses this codec can play back media files i have created with this new exciting technology without any problems apart from the features the codec does not support.

please read this post (link), it explains who (and how) you need to ask for new codec support/features/functions, (ag approach ffmpeg for this)

"ball is in ffmpeg's court" on this one unfortunately.
we can't support it until mplayer does.
mplayer can't support it until ffmpeg does.

is it not possible for mplayer to use the x264 decoder the same way it uses xvid to decode videos with the xvid fourcc. if thats the case then i need to bug the mplayer devs.

in fact looking at ffmpeg there is support for h.264 mpeg-4 avc.

in fact looking at mplayer itself it can play h.264 in an avi container but the splitter spazes out when playing an mp4 with avc/h.264, if this can be fixed then we are on our way.

whats the best way to get mplayer devs attention through there irc channel or mailing lists.
dont they have a forum?

(chilledoutuk @ dec. 05 2004,18:29 Wrote:whats the best way to get mplayer devs attention through there irc channel or mailing lists. dont they have a forum?

they don't have a forum (+ they don't like requests or bug-reports to their dev-mailing-list) so use mplayer's bugzilla and/or users-mailing-list

...on the flip side you can try to also report the issue to nero digital (link) who might be willing to fix it and send code patch to mplayer/ffmpeg

(gamester17 @ dec. 06 2004,12:50 Wrote:...on the flip side you can try to also report the issue to nero digital (link) who might be willing to fix it and send code patch to mplayer/ffmpeg

i wrote an email to german nero organisation with this topic. hope to get answer soon.

fyi; looks like ezar replicated the problem and submit a bug report to mplayer here (link), you can submit additional comments there.
(however do not report any issues seen in xbmc there, you must only inform them on issues tested with mplayer for linux/windows)

ps! don't give draw the conclusion that this is a mplayer bug/problem, it maybe still be a ffmpeg or nero issue so report to them too

tried to ask ffmpeg/mplayer about this, and this is the result:

Quote:(pike) what's the gameplan for full h.264 support in ffmpeg/mplayer ?
(+dirtysheep) isnt h264 decoder in libavcodec almost complete?
(+dirtysheep) theres x264 too
(+dirtysheep) x264 is optional but not directly part of mplayer
(+dirtysheep) and for h264 status either wait
(+dirtysheep) or write to ffmpeg-users

i'm not much wiser after those answers..

oh and i also chatted with the videolan people, and they also wait for ffmpeg to do something, since vlc doesnt support these encodings either. nero is not to blame here, ffmpeg is

Quote:it's not the same issue : vlc isn't a directshow player, so it can't use nero digital direct show filter to decode properly the video. it has instead to use ffmpeg, which is able to decode avc / h264, as far as b-frames & weighted prediction aren't enabled.

on the other hand, wmp, being a direct show player, can read .mp4 files filled with avc / h264 ( and so can mpc, zoom player, bsplayer & the like, which are far better than wmp, imho ), whatever the features enabled in the encoding.

concerning ffmpeg, the b-frames decoding seems to be on its way. weighted prediction may come later.

interresting... (copied from doom9 forums)