Audio encoding problems with Quicktime 7

[BeardFan]

This is a continuation of my other thread

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=270822

and this guy seemed to have the same problem

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=271009

Audio encoding will randomly hang itself up, some files convert, the suddenly a file (of excactly the same type) will be hanging in the audio conversion and never finish. This happened to me after I upraded to Quicktime 7. Never happened before. After I downgraded to Quicktime 6.5.2 again everything runs fine.

Same problem will probably happen to Tiger users as it comes with Quicktime 7.

So does the ffmpegx audio encoding (the part that transforms the original audio to .wav) call some Quicktime routines that have been changed? And my additional question would be, why ffmpegx converts to .wav first and the the .wav to .ac3. When using the direct movie audio to ac3, everything works (and this looks like it doesn't create a .wav first).

[major]

Some Quicktime audio formats are not recognized by ffmpeg. For that reason, audio may be extracted first as WAV by directly calling the Quicktime routines. If you think that this does not work on Tiger, please email me to major4@mac.com with sample file, process output and settings so as I can find a fix.

[BeardFan]

Sorry, now I'm back on Quicktime 6.5.2 (I don't have Tiger, just Panther 10.3.9), and with that the error won't happen. And I didn't save the logs.

It seemed to me, that the problem happened randomly, as some files worked and some files of the same type not (mpeg4/divx/xvid avi with mp3 audio).

But I've taken a closer look at the files that didn't work, and it seems that all those files hat audio data rates greater than 128 kbps. The files that worked being in the same batch had rates less or equal 128 kbps. Maybe chance, maybe not.

The logs didn't show an error, they just would halt and stay at the audio stream mapping, a 4kb empty wav would be produced and the process would stay at 100% unfinished until you quit it.

I will upload a file that didn't work with Quicktime 7 and mail you the link.

[nnoidone]

I have the same problem & the same 4kb wav file. I'm using Tiger, so can't go back to qt6.5.2 because that only works on osx up to 10.3.9...no error message in the progress info, just stops encoding anything after video is completed...even if it runs for another 6 hrs. I don't have audio if I play original avi file in qt7.01 but DO have audio if played on VLC 0.8.1
here's the progress text with avi name removed for privacy

Encoding started on Tue Jun 21 14:46:50 EDT 2005
Input #0, avi, from 'title_name.avi':
Duration: 01:58:21.6, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1203 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 512x384, 29.97 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 192 kb/s
Output #0, rawvideo, to 'folder/title_name.avi.ff.mpv':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video (hq), 720x480, 29.97 fps, q=2-20, 4000 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
bench: utime=15161.299s
video:3467518kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%

[major]

I don't have audio if I play original avi file in qt7.01

That could be the reason. Try to install the latest divx.com codecs for OSX and check again.

[nnoidone]

thanx but I'm using the latest divx codec for mac (5.2.1) & when I checked the divx website forums, all they could say was "We don't support QuickTime 7 with DivX 5.2.1. We are working on it." so i guess I'm stuck til divx comes out with a new codec for qt7.01?

[major]

Or you may try to disable both "Decode with Quicktime" and "Normalize audio" in ffmpegX.

[nnoidone]

Or you may try to disable both "Decode with Quicktime" and "Normalize audio" in ffmpegX.

thanx but decode with quicktime was disabled when I tried it...I'll try disabling normalize audio, too, and see if that works...I just hate spending another 9 hours doing this btw, I tried that other suggestion of encoding the audio seperately then muxing the audio & video, but that didnt work, either - the audio encoding took about 2 seconds, so obviously nothing got encoded...hopefully divx will get the new codec out soon thanx for your help.

[FatFreeVW]

so in conclusion, there is no way to get h.264 to work on quicktime 7?

[major]

This has nothing to do with the issue reported in this thread. Quicktime 7 is already able to encode H264 on its own. ffmpegX uses mencoder to encode H264 and it is for now limited to AVI containers, not readable by Quicktime 7 but readable by Mplayer and by VLC.

[Dipster]

But the QT 7 Pro H264 encoder results in an interlaced file. How do I get rid of that??

[nnoidone]

update: tried disabling both decode eith qt & normalize audio & it worked!

thanx!