VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 17 of 17
Thread
  1. I want to convert a Flash file, which has H264 video and AAC audio tracks into an MP4 file without transcoding. The problem is that whenever I select any of the MP4 or H264 options and select 'Passthrough' for both video and audio the output format defaults to AVI, which isn’t what I want. Also, when I select 'Passthrough', I sometimes get a message saying 'AppleScript Error. Can't make "" into type number. (1700)'. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
    Quote Quote  
  2. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    You could also try avidemux for mac os, open flv, under audio and video choose copy, save as mp4.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Thanks for the suggestion but avidemix doesn’t work at all on my machine running 10.7.2. Even the Open menu is greyed out...
    Quote Quote  
  4. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    I want to convert a Flash file, which has H264 video and AAC audio tracks into an MP4 file without transcoding.
    MP4Box command line can do that.
    Code:
    MP4Box -add source.flv target2.mp4
    Replace "source.flv" with the path and filename of your source file and replace "target2.mp4" with the path and filename of the destination file.
    You can even use the MP4box from within ffmpegX.
    Code:
    /Applications/ffmpegX.app/Contents/Resources/mp4box -add ~/Desktop/source.flv ~/Desktop/target2.mp4
    Originally Posted by raywhite
    The problem is that whenever I select any of the MP4 or H264 options and select 'Passthrough' for both video and audio the output format defaults to AVI, which isn’t what I want.
    This is a limitation of the GUI. Passthrough in the GUI does not create MP4 files.

    Originally Posted by raywhite
    Also, when I select 'Passthrough', I sometimes get a message saying 'AppleScript Error. Can't make "" into type number. (1700)'. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
    Possibly one of the required fields (such as framerate) couldn't be detected automatically, and was left empty. The app then is unable to create a command line behind the scenes because of missing information.
    This error can also happen if "Video Bitrate" (in the Video tab) is the selected field on some specific conversion where the bitrate is not relevant. When setting the focus on another field, this error may not happen.
    Last edited by Case; 12th Jan 2012 at 13:03.
    Quote Quote  
  5. Many thanks for that Case, although I was hoping for a non 'command line' solution. It's such a pain that there are so many so-called software solutions for converting video files but most of them create even more problems...
    Quote Quote  
  6. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    Many thanks for that Case, although I was hoping for a non 'command line' solution.
    I once made an AppleScript app that interfaced with MP4Box for some specific operation, where the user only had to select the source file. Maybe I can do something similar for this? I will have to look into it again.
    Quote Quote  
  7. That would be very useful. Thanks!
    Quote Quote  
  8. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Here is my little app. It writes "output.mp4" and will overwrite any file of the same name if it exists in the same folder as the input file. It will also try to download and install MP4Box if it doesn't find it on your system.
    Image Attached Files
    Quote Quote  
  9. Many thanks, but not too successful with me, I'm afraid. First of all it said 'error: cannot create the usr/local/bin MP4Box', so I installed MP4Box manually. That fixed that problem, but it doesn’t seem to convert at all. It says 'unknown input file type: corrupted data in file stream' with three Flash FLV files, including the bars and tone file at http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/flash/video/tutorial/example-flv.html
    Quote Quote  
  10. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    Many thanks, but not too successful with me, I'm afraid. First of all it said 'error: cannot create the usr/local/bin MP4Box', so I installed MP4Box manually. That fixed that problem.
    Thanks for the report. I'll have to add a check for that.

    Originally Posted by raywhite
    but it doesn’t seem to convert at all. It says 'unknown input file type: corrupted data in file stream' with three Flash FLV files, including the bars and tone file at http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/flash/video/tutorial/example-flv.html
    Bars and Tone: On2 TrueMotion VP6 video ("VP6F") with mp3 audio. MP4Box has no support for On2 VP6.
    Windy 50s Mobility Scooter Race: On2 TrueMotion VP6 video with mp3 audio. MP4Box has no support for On2 VP6.
    Windy 50s Mobility Scooter Race (56K): On2 TrueMotion VP6 video with mp3 audio. MP4Box has no support for On2 VP6.

    Sorry, these files are not the H.264 videos I was expecting.
    Quote Quote  
  11. Ah, well spotted on those. I don't even know what VP6 is!!!

    Here's a report from another file that also doesn’t work:

    * * * Media Inspector 0.7.443 file analysis report.
    * * * Media Inspector is ©2011 by Diego Massanti - http://mediainfo.massanti.com
    * * * MediaInfoLib by Jerome Martinez - http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net
    Created on: 15 Jan 2012 15:15:33 GMT
    Report for file: david bowie fame starman monoslapper bootleg mix.flv

    General / Container Stream #1
    Total Video Streams for this File.................1
    Total Audio Streams for this File.................1
    Video Codecs Used.................................AVC
    Audio Codecs Used.................................AAC LC
    File Format.......................................Flash Video
    Play Time.........................................3mn 35s
    Total File Size...................................20.1 MiB
    Total Stream BitRate..............................782 Kbps
    Video Stream #1
    Codec (Human Name)................................AVC
    Codec (FourCC)....................................7
    Codec Profile.....................................Main@L 2.1
    Frame Width.......................................480 pixels
    Frame Height......................................360 pixels
    Frame Rate........................................25.000 fps
    Total Frames......................................5375
    Display Aspect Ratio..............................4:3
    Scan Type.........................................Progr essive
    Color Space.......................................YUV
    Codec Settings (Summary)..........................CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
    Codec Settings (CABAC)............................Yes
    Codec Settings (Reference Frames).................3
    Video Stream Length...............................3mn 35s 0ms
    Bit Depth.........................................8 bits
    Audio Stream #1
    Codec............................................. AAC
    Codec (FourCC)....................................10
    Audio Stream Length...............................3mn 34s 947ms
    Number of Audio Channels..........................2
    Audio Channel's Positions.........................Front: L R
    Sampling Rate.....................................44.1 KHz

    Thanks again for your efforts!
    Quote Quote  
  12. PS: Are you saying that MP4Box requires the Flash to contain H264 data, not even AVC or AAC?
    Quote Quote  
  13. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    Here's a report from another file that also doesn’t work:
    Video Codecs Used.................................AVC
    Audio Codecs Used.................................AAC LC
    File Format.......................................Flash Video
    Could you point me to such a file, as I had no luck in finding such a file myself, i.e. one that has these properties _and_ failed.

    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    PS: Are you saying that MP4Box requires the Flash to contain H264 data, not even AVC or AAC?
    Not exactly.
    H.264 and AVC (and MPEG-4 part 10) are commonly used to mean the same thing (Wiki): a video codec.
    AAC is an audio codec, also part of the MPEG-4 specification.

    MP4Box can handle the various raw formats (codecs) and containers (file formats) as described in the documentation. H.264 is just one of them, although probably the most important one.

    Maybe such a file needs to be split first into a separate video stream and audio stream, but I would need to do some testing with a proper sample file, to be sure.
    Quote Quote  
  14. Report for file: david bowie fame starman monoslapper bootleg mix.flv
    Probably this one
    (Google spits this out )

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgaACOnwkvY&list=FLy3xnSnyhJCXiIuMvQ5KAvA&index=81&feature=plpp_video
    Quote Quote  
  15. Thanks, Case. I thought they were the same thing, but wasn’t too sure!

    Thanks poisondeathray, that's the one, so if you fancy looking at it Case, there it is! I've looked at this:

    http://gpac.wp.institut-telecom.fr/mp4box/mp4box-documentation/

    and it doesn’t mention .flv as a container file that MP4Box can handle, so perhaps that's the problem...
    Quote Quote  
  16. Explorer Case's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Middle Earth
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by raywhite View Post
    That's the one, so if you fancy looking at it Case, there it is!
    I couldn't get MP4Box to work on that FLV, so I tried a new, pre-compiled ffmpeg, as the older binaries were not so good at muxing MP4. (This was one of the reasons why the developer of ffmpegX uses mp4box internally.)
    Code:
    ffmpeg -i foo.flv -vcodec copy -acodec copy foo.mp4
    That resulted in this MP4 file: [download from WeTransfer].
    Could you check if that file works for you?
    Quote Quote  
  17. Sorry about the slow reply. Yes, the new ffmpeg fixes the problem completely. In fact, I wrote this AppleScript script to convert selected files, based on it:


    tell application "Finder"

    set theSel to selection

    repeat with theFile in theSel

    set theName to name of theFile
    set theName to strings 1 thru ((offset of "." in theName) - 1) of theName

    set theFile to theFile as text
    set theFile to POSIX path of theFile

    set outFile to path to desktop
    set outFile to POSIX path of outFile
    set outFile to outFile & theName & ".mp4"

    do shell script "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i " & quoted form of (theFile) & " -vcodec copy -acodec copy " & quoted form of (outFile)

    end repeat

    end tell

    Many thanks for your help!
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!