Adapting Avermedia MP4 to play natively on iPhone 6?

[Losbenitos]

I'm using an Avermedia Gamecapture HD II device to capture MP4 videos from an HDMI source and wanted to be able to watch these on an iPhone 6 running iOS 8.1.3.

While the audio plays back, the video doesn't so the phone isn't liking the video stream for some reason.

Currently I'm running ffmpeg via linux on Synology NAS to recode the files, which does the trick, although with the Synology's Atom CPU this is a slow process:

Stream mapping:
Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 -> libx264)
Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac -> libfaac)

Can anyone here see a better way to make these files iOS compliant without having to recode them?

A sample video:

General
Complete name :150223-2238.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 71.0 MiB
Duration : 58s 700ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 10.2 Mbps
Description : AverMedia_c285_001.001.006
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Writing application : Lavf53.3.0
Comment : Quality_GOOD

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 58s 700ms
Bit rate : 10.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 50.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.097
Stream size : 70.1 MiB (99%)
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 58s 667ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 917 KiB (1%)
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

[jman98]

Your frame rate is likely too high for the phone to support. 1080i at 50 fps is double the frame rate that BluRay supports and while I don't have an iPhone 6, I'd be willing to guess that the frame rate is too high for it. It needs to be 25 fps. Again, just a guess.

[Losbenitos]

That was my thinking but I did stumble across an article online that stated the iPhone 6 supported playback of H264 up to 60fps. How accurate this is I'm yet to confirm it.

[Losbenitos]

Ahh here it is, taken from Apple's specifications page:

Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High Profile level 4.2 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640x480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280x720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format.

It would seem it treats the video as MPEG-4 and not H264, but my reading up the Advance Video Codec of these videos suggests it is another name for H264.

It's almost like a flag needs to be set in the header to help the iPhone identify it as H264 and not basic MPEG-4.

[Cauptain]

Try on Iphone 6 this remux video: 150215-2149_track1.mp4

I used YAMB (Freeware) to DEMUX and REMUX using default settings.

General
Complete name                  : C:\Users\Cauptain\Dropbox\Videos\150215-2149_track1.mp4
Format                         : MPEG-4
Format profile                 : Base Media
Codec ID                       : isom
File size                      : 38.0 MiB
Duration                       : 21s 0ms
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 15.2 Mbps
Encoded date                   : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:21
Tagged date                    : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:21
Writing application            : Yamb 2.1.0.0 [http://yamb.unite-video.com]

Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 2 frames
Codec ID                       : avc1
Codec ID/Info                  : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                       : 21s 0ms
Bit rate                       : 15.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate               : 21.5 Mbps
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                     : 25.000 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Interlaced
Scan order                     : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.290
Stream size                    : 37.7 MiB (99%)
Encoded date                   : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:21
Tagged date                    : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:22

Audio
ID                             : 2
Format                         : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                 : LC
Codec ID                       : 40
Duration                       : 20s 927ms
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 128 Kbps
Maximum bit rate               : 135 Kbps
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode               : Lossy
Stream size                    : 327 KiB (1%)
Encoded date                   : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:22
Tagged date                    : UTC 2015-03-07 12:54:22

Claudio

[Losbenitos]

Try on Iphone 6 this remux video: 150215-2149_track1.mp4

Alas I get the same result syncing this onto the iPhone 6, it plays sound only.

[poisondeathray]

Try re-wrapping into a MOV with ffmbc

ffmbc -i INPUT.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy OUTPUT.mov

[newpball]

What is the point using 1080p for an iPhone 6, the maximum resolution is: 1334×750

[Cauptain]

This file work flawless on my LG G3.

[Losbenitos]

Try re-wrapping into a MOV with ffmbc

ffmbc -i INPUT.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy OUTPUT.mov

Cheers I'll give that a try and report back when I get some time.

What is the point using 1080p for an iPhone 6, the maximum resolution is: 1334×750

I agree, 1080P is a bit of an overkill for the job in hand, however the Avermedia GCHD2 gives no control of the capture resolution, only the bitrate.

That said I might try dropping the video source down to 720P from 1080i to see if that improves compatibility....

[Losbenitos]

Try re-wrapping into a MOV with ffmbc

ffmbc -i INPUT.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy OUTPUT.mov

It seems I'm gonna have to compile ffmbc to run it on the Synology which is a fair bit of work just to test it out.

Has anyone got it up and running already willing who to run the sample file through it so I can see if it will work before I invest the time installing it? [emoji106]

[poisondeathray]

ffmbc rewrap is attached

you can download precompiled static windows ffmbc binaries from various places. There is a thread here as well

[Losbenitos]

Thanks. I'll give it a go tomorrow. I need a version of ffmbc that runs under linux as that's what's the Synology NAS is running as the idea is it will run a batch file to convert the files.

[Losbenitos]

ffmbc rewrap is attached

Thanks for that, disappointingly the ffmbc rewrapped version still plays only sound

I did have some success reducing the resolution of my source to 720P however, I carried out a 3 hour recording that weighed in at 12GB, this appears to play when synced up through iTunes (without conversion).

I'll post spec differences when I get a chance for those who are interested to see them.