ffmpegX 0.0.9u released

[major]

http://homepage.mac.com/major4/
ffmpegX 0.0.9u - Dec 1, 2005

What's new in this version:

- Added "iPod h.264" preset for super-fast (up to 7 times faster than other h264 methods) video encoding for the video iPod. The preset uses 320 width H.264 video and AAC audio. It encodes a feature movie into about 200MB.
- Added "iPod for TV" preset for super-fast video encoding for the video iPod, optimized for playback on TV in high resolution, through the audio/video output of the iPod. The preset uses 480 width mpeg-4 video and AAC audio, and It encodes a feature movie into about 500MB. A maximum width of 720 may be used if your movie aspect is 2.35:1, or 640 if it is 16:9. You may also use a width of 320 for iPod-only playback, and encoding much faster than h.264.
- Added x264 encoding engine for encoding to mpeg-4 h.264. Encoding options are similar to mencoder h.264 and in addition the following options are available: Trellis quantization, i4x4 analysis, Decode with Quicktime, AVC level (1.3 for iPod, you may use 5.1 to match mencoder h264 default). Note that Quicktime is not quite compatible with b-frames so you may want to avoid them.
- Fixed further sound sync issues with mencoder h264.
- Disabled forced bitrate change when the image size is modified.
- Fixed bug with Author tool not taking into account text encoding and fonts when authoring selectable subtitles.
- Known issue: the current ffmpeg inverts the order of VOB audio tracks. So if you have 3 audio tracks numbered 0, 1 and 2, and the 2 should be italian, ffmpeg will find it in track 0 instead.

[drparent]

Excellent! Glad to hear the sync issue with mencoder H264 was fixed.

Having x264 is great, too, but is there a reason why the 'Two-pass encoding' checkbox is always disabled for the x264 codec?

[major]

Yes, the reason is that I need some sleep before adding more features later. Please note that for iPod encoding at 320x240 the benefits of two pass are very limited.

[kaz219]

It seems like a debug funtion as not been deactivated in x264. When I use it inthe terminal, I get a lot of [debug] stuff.

Otherwise, the ipod presets are simply great. Really good idea!

kaz

[thehand]

is the new x264 faster than mencoder H.264?

[alph]

The "DVD ffmpeg" preset prduces this error:

/Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/ffmpeg: unrecognized option '-hq'

Is this by design?

Thanks you,
Alph

[major]

The High quality option has been removed from ffmpeg as it does no longer increase quality. I must also remove it from the GUI.

[TheBum]

Excellent! Glad to hear the sync issue with mencoder H264 was fixed.

Unfortunately, the issue appears to only be improved and not solved. I just finished encoding Star Wars Episode 3 (NTSC FILM) in H.264/AAC and toward the end of the movie there's a 1/4-second or so video delay. It was close to a second in the previous version. Oh well...back to XviD.

[major]

Possibly, using "Decode with Quicktime" could improve the sync even more.

[major]

ffmpegX v0.0.9u r2 bugfix release Dec 4, 2005
http://homepage.mac.com/major4/download.html

(If you already installed 0.0.9u, just replace the Application. 0.0.9u r1 is still available at http://homepage.mac.com/major4/ffmpegX_0.0.9u_r1.dmg

- Improved handling of MOV/MP4 sources by mencoder MP4 H264, including audio normalization
- Improved handling of MOV/MP4 sources by iPod H264, including audio normalization
- Improved information gathering in the summary tab for MOV/MP4 files
- Improved handling of AAC sound in source movies
- Fixed incorrect aspect ratios in some presets
- Fixed additional minor bugs

[theGimpiest]

Were there any issues of sound sync problems from AVI to DVD in r1? Because I just spent 3 days converting 13 files with the new version and all seem to have audio sync problems in the DVD?

[major]

If you think you found a bug and want to report it, send an email to major4@mac.com with the following:
- information about your source file and your destination format (which preset was used, did you change any options from the preset, etc).
- a copy of your process output (blue "i" icon in the Progress window),
- and eventually send your source clip as well by using yousendit.com if it is a big file, so as I can test it, spot the problem, fix the problem.

[theGimpiest]

I just wanted to know if that is something the fix corrects. The audio is late by about 1sec in parts. I can't say that the problem is actually ffmpegX. I used Toast to transfer it to disc with menus - I couldn't see a problem with the ffmpegX output (though it may be present) but I did with Toast's output - it's just hard to notice on the computer screen, but obvious on the TV.

I tend to think the problem lies with Toast's remuxing considering they seem to ignore this issue every time it gets posted in their forums. I only brought this up because your update note mentioned sound fixes.

Thanks.

[thehand]

why do have the checkbox enable in the audio pane there when I uncheck it, it encodes it anyway. can't you fix that?

also I can't change the codec.

why give these choices, when they are ineffective and null?

I think I mentioned these problems before.