[X4U] Help with MPEG-4 and iMac

[B.ru c-e € K1u-tch-k0]

On 12/8/04 10:39 AM, "Michael Winter" <winter at mac.com> wrote:

> On Dec 8, 2004, at 9:15 AM, B.ru c-e €K1u-tch-k0 wrote:
>>  I can play back the video on the Mac using VLC, which has the MPEG-4
>> codec that QuickTime doesn’t.
> 
> If its MPEG-4, QuickTime should handle it unless its in some funny kind
> of wrapper. First thing I would do is start playing it in VLC and
> select "Info" from the "Window" menu. I'm guessing there should be two
> streams, one audio and one video. Both need to be something Quicktime
> can handle (preferable both mp4 based).

Playing the file in VLC results in Stream 1 video codec M4S2 and Stream 0
Audio. 
 
> If it looks like it is a legitimate MPEG-4 file, my next questions are
> what happens when you try to get QuickTime Player to play it and what
> three letter extension (if any) is on the file? If the file doesn't
> have an .mp4 on the end of the filename, try putting one there and see
> if it will now play in QuickTime Player.

The file extension is .asf. The camera manual describes the encoding as
MPEG4. Changing the extension to .mp4 causes Quicktime to attempt to open
the file, but results in an error message : Either "IMG001.mp4" contains no
'moov' atom, or the file has been corrupted. The file plays well in VLC if
the extension is .asf.

>>  I’d prefer to make a VCD, as I don’t have a DVD writer on my ancient
>> iMac, so I’d like to convert it to another format. The quality of the
>> pictures (limited pixels, low sensitivity of the camera) means that
>> itonly has VHS or VCD quality anyway.
> 
> I use Toast 6 to do this. Ironically, it seems to handle some video
> files that QuickTime Player balks on.

I'll give Toast a try, but I'm not certain what would happen if I burn an
MP4 file to a VCD.

-- 
B-r-u -c-e