Packed Bitstream unpacking

[teaonmars]

Hi,
Some XviD files are encoded with the "Packed Bitstream" options. This causes trouble on some Mpeg4-DVD players. Is there a possibility in ffmpegX to remove that without re-encoding the movie ?

I found a little windows tool which can do that www.moitah.net but i want to do this on my mac of course

Thanks!

[major]

You may try to re-encode it again to "mencoder XviD". I have no faster methods for now.

[teaonmars]

yes, re encoding works.
but perhaps there is another tool for mac that can do this without reencoding?

[runningdave]

I have this problem with my DVD Player, too. Are there any Unix Tools, that can unpack 'packed bitstream' XVIDs. Maybe they can be ported to darwin. I have found only Win tools for now.

[major]

I don't know of any of them right now, but will followup on this matter.

[runningdave]

http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

seams to be a nice tool. they have an os-x forum, but noboddy is offering a prebulid version. i will try to built one with darwinports.

[major]

Thank you. I will check it for possible addition.

[delos]

Hi teaonmars can you explain me what this option is about or just link some sources to study?
Thank you

[major]

i'm looking now into this "packed bitstream" option. Anyone could provide me to my email major4@mac.com with a link to download a <50MB clip encoded on a PC with such option? Thank you

[bucho]

Has their been any advances on this front? I'd really like a native OS X solution for this.

[major]

This item required too much time and I downgraded it in my to-do list since I had only 3 requests for it in one year.

[jpschuck]

Has their been any advances on this front? I'd really like a native OS X solution for this.

You can unpack them with Mpeg4Modifier CL.
This is a command line only utility using the .NET framework. You must first install "Mono" which will allow MacOS X to run such applications.
This is totally not Mac-user-friendly but it's working pretty well.

[bucho]

I saw that option, but it looked like I need to compile the app from source. Am I wrong?

I also found that AviDemux can unpack a packed bitstream avi, but there's still no native Intel version (not that running the PPC version is that bad if all you want to do is unpack the avi), and it requires X11. It's still not as sweet as being able to do this from within ffmpegX.

In any case, here's a link for those who'd care to follow it's progress (or can help!):
http://www.avidemux.org/pun/viewtopic.php?id=2585

[jpschuck]

I saw that option, but it looked like I need to compile the app from source. Am I wrong?

The archive already contains a binary file for convenience. First download and install the Mono framework. Then download and unzip MPEG4 Modifier CL. The archive contains a mmcl.exe which is the pre-compiled binary file.

Next open a new terminal window, type "mono", then drag mmcl.exe in this window. Next choose a video clip to process (using drag&drop) and select your options as explained there. Don't forget to set a name and a location for the destination file (default destination is your Home folder). Hit return, et voilà.

For example :

mono /Applications/mmcl.exe --unpack /users/jpschuck/desktop/sample.avi sample_unpack.avi

In green you have the source file which is on the desktop, in red you have the destination file which will be in my "Home" folder as I didn't set any specific path. Orange is the path where mono should search for MMCL (Applications folder in this example).

[bucho]

The archive already contains a binary file for convenience.

I took one look at the .exe and assumed (incorrectly ) that it was a win32 binary.

Thanks for the tip!