Nero decoders can't play .mov, infected computer

[lgmayka]

Sprint PCS cell phones (that have video cameras) create .mov files. (The video is probably compressed with MPEG-4.) Quicktime 7 and RealPlayer 10.5 play these files well. Nero Showtime distorts these files into unintelligibility and uselessness. (I would like to provide a sample but this forum's upload mechanism doesn't seem to be working for me.)

But unfortunately, simply setting Quicktime or RealPlayer to be the default program for .mov files does not solve the problem. Even after doing so, various programs throughout the computer continue to assume that the Nero decoders know how to play .mov files. In particular, Ulead VideoStudio 9 is clearly using Nero to play such files. (The unintelligible gibberish is identical.) Windows Media Player also relies on Nero for such files, and its output is therefore also quite distorted (although not so badly as in Nero Showtime itself).

I suppose I could uninstall Nero Showtime, but (a) it has some capabilities I need, and (b) there is no guarantee that doing so would solve the problem correctly. (It might leave VideoStudio unable to play .mov files at all!)

The more general question is: How do people administer all the video and audio decoders on their computers? The ones listed in Device Manager are clearly not all of them, because Nero Quicktime Audio Decoder and Nero Video Decoder are clearly mentioned by Windows Media Player even though not mentioned in Device Manager.

[lgmayka]

Perhaps this is a sample: 17964602373.mov

[celtic_druid]

Well Nero uses dshow filters, Quicktime and Real Player do not, therefor any other app that uses dshow also uses Nero's filters.

If you uninstall Nero, but don't have any other filters then Ulead, etc. will simply no longer accept the files.

Decodes fine via libavcodec (using mplayer) here though so you could try installing ffdshow. Really though Nero Digital's decoder should handle it fine.

[lgmayka]

First, here is another example: 21145800709.mov. But I think you're saying that you, too, see the problem in Showtime.

Thank you for the suggestion of ffdshow. I'll look into it.

[lgmayka]

Bleechh! ffdshow has its own fatal flaw: When active, Windows Media Player 10 is unable to correctly determine the pixel dimensions of a video clip! Take a look at this clip:

kitchen.mp4

Quicktime 7, RealPlayer 10.5, and even Nero Showtime know very well that this clip has dimensions of 640x480. But Windows Media Player 10 thinks that the clip is only 320x240! Ahhh! That's totally unacceptable, obviously.

Ironically, ffdshow actually did help somewhat with the earlier-mentioned .mov files. The playback still wasn't nearly as good as on Quicktime and RealPlayer, but it was almost acceptable.

So unless someone has a way to immediately fix this fatal flaw in ffdshow, it goes into the Recycle Bin where it belongs.

[celtic_druid]

Actually I think your mp4 might be faulty. Plays 320x240 in Osmo4 and mplayer, but plays back fine when remuxed via mp4box.

[lgmayka]

Thank you for investigating. The MP4 was created exactly as is by the Sanyo-Fisher FVD-C1 camcorder. It plays correctly in all players (Quicktime 7, RealPlayer 10.5, Windows Media Player 10, Showtime) except after ffdshow is installed. I must obviously consider ffdshow to be the problem.

Perhaps both your mplayer and Osmo4 use the same faulty ffdshow library?


Ironically, PowerDVD 6 Platinum (after uninstalling ffdshow) also plays back the video just fine, but gives no sound.

[lgmayka]

I just downloaded a binary compilation of Osmo4 from rarewares.org. It's utterly useless, and perhaps worse than that.

1) I tried to have it play some of these MP4 files from my camcorder. Osmo4 displays only black! It gives no video whatsoever. And yet, when I click on Properties, Osmo4 admits that these clips have a 640x480 Video Object with Average Bitrate 3000000 bps, etc.

2) It is of concern that in Properties, Osmo4 says:

Media Codec XviD 1.0

I do not want to use this codec. (PocketDVD 1.1 warns not to use it.) I hope that this codec does not start popping up elsewhere goofing things up.

Note that this is with the default settings of Osmo4. For video decoding it was using the GPAC Decoder Package. When I switched to OpenDivX, Osmo4 promptly crashed.

I am rather surprised that you were able to get Osmo4 to play my MP4 file at all.

[lgmayka]

I just downloaded Mplayer (binary for Windows) and used that to play one of my MP4 files. Mplayer did seem to play my file properly, but the log looks weird:
---
>mplayer ..\..\100SANYO\VCLP0050.MP4
MPlayer 1.0pre7-3.4.2 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Pentium 4/Xeon/Celeron Foster (Family: 8, Stepping: 9)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.

c:/windows/fonts/arial.ttf doesn't look like a font description, ignoring.
Cannot load font: c:/windows/fonts/arial.ttf
Playing ..\..\100SANYO\VCLP0050.MP4.
ISO: File Type Major Brand: ISO/IEC 14496-1 (MPEG-4 system) v2
QuickTime/MOV file format detected.
--------------
MOV track #0: 21 chunks, 314 samples
MOV: Found MPEG4 movie Elementary Stream Descriptor atom (69)!
Image size: 320 x 240 (24 bpp)
Display size: 320 x 240
Fourcc: mp4v Codec: ''
--------------
MOV track #1: 21 chunks, 490 samples
Audio bits: 16 chans: 2 rate: 48000
MOV: Found MPEG4 audio Elementary Stream Descriptor atom (51)!
Fourcc: mp4a
--------------
MOV track #2: 1 chunks, 0 samples
Generic track - not completely understood! (id: 2)
--------------
MOV track #3: 1 chunks, 0 samples
Generic track - not completely understood! (id: 3)
--------------
MOV: longest streams: A: #1 (490 samples) V: #0 (314 samples)
VIDEO: [mp4v] 320x240 24bpp 29.970 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [faad] AAC (MPEG2/4 Advanced Audio Coding)
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [faad] afm:faad (FAAD AAC (MPEG2/MPEG4 Audio) decoder)
================================================== ========================
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
================================================== ========================
Checking audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le...
AF_pre: 48000Hz/2ch/s16le
AO: [dsound] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bps)
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 640 x 480 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [directx] 640x480 => 640x480 Planar YV12


Exiting... (End of file)
---

You can see that this tool is a real piece of work (and I don't mean that in the good sense):

1) It fails to detect that my Pentium 4 has SSE and SSE2. (Oh yes it does.)

2) It sees a problem in my Arial font. (My Arial is just fine, thank you.)

3) It initially thinks my MP4 file is 320x240. It later corrects itself to 640x480.

4) It often replays a snippet of sound, as if it doesn't know how to deal correctly with DirectSound's buffer.

I think the lesson of all this is that:

1) Commercial MPEG-4 software is imperfect.

2) Free MPEG-4 software is useless.

Pardon my bluntness.

[celtic_druid]

That osmo4 compile is hopelessly old, I used a compile from maybe 2 days ago and mplayer would detect SSE/SSE2 if you weren't running it under windows. For some reason SSE/SSE2 has to be disabled under windows.