MP4 plays choppy using Quicktime player but ok in everything else

[larryc]

I have a large number of videos I encoded to MP4 a few years back. (These were video clips I took with my camera). I've now found that while the videos play perfectly fine using Directshow (Windows Media Player), VLC, and MPC, they are choppy and distorted when using the quicktime player. (I use Windows 7 x64 with the Shark007 Codec pack)

Yes, I know the simple answer is 'don't use quicktime player' but my issue is I organize all my personal photos and videos using Picasa, and Picasa seems to insist on rendering MP4 files using quicktime, not directshow. So right now I'm out of luck if I want to view the video in Picasa.

I'm wondering if there is any way to fix this short of re-encoding the videos. (eg, would re-muxing them help?) I have some newer videos I encoded to MP4 (using Handbrake) and these play fine in Quicktime/Picasa, so I wonder if the older videos are slightly out of spec?

I also tested the file on my wife's laptop as well as my son's macbook and each had the same quicktime problem.

Here's the Mediainfo information for one of the files in question. Is there anything here that looks off?


General
Complete name : C:\Users\larry\Pictures\2007\summer 2007 trip\MVI_0736.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Nero Digital Standard Profile
Codec ID : ndss
File size : 19.8 MiB
Duration : 47s 554ms
Overall bit rate : 3 489 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:41:03
Tagged date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:42:14

Video
ID : 1
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : 20
Duration : 47s 500ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 405 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 850 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.369
Stream size : 19.3 MiB (97%)
Writing library : em4v 4.1.6.5
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:41:03
Tagged date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:42:14

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 47s 554ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 79.8 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 86.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Stream size : 463 KiB (2%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:41:03
Tagged date : UTC 2007-09-15 01:42:14

[jagabo]

Quicktime doesn't use any of Windows' video acceleration features so it's a very poor media player. I don't think its h.264 decoder is even multihthreaded. But a 640x480 MPEG 4 part 2 (Xvid/Divx) MP4 file shouldn't have any problems unless you have a 100 MHz Pentium 1 processor.

[larryc]

Here's the original file if someone would be so kind as to try it on their system:
http://drop.io/bbp1oha/asset/mvi-0736-mp4

[Baldrick]

Have you tried remux them? try mp4muxer.

[jagabo]

There's something a little odd about that file. I was able to play it with MPCHC (internal MP4 splitter and Divx decoder) but it was a little jerky -- like it was skipping every other frame. KMPlayer did this too. VLC played it smoothly. After remuxing into na MKV container all three players played it smoothly.

[larryc]

@Baldrick, I tried mp4muxer but it seems to only want to create h264 files, and this file is MPEG4 ASP, not h264. I couldnt get it to create a working file.

What other tool could I try re-muxing it with?

[Baldrick]

mp4box or gui for it like yamb or mymp4boxgui.

[jagabo]

I didn't mention it before, but when I used yamb to remux the video it didn't play any better.

[larryc]

I seem to be having problems with some of these remuxing programs. YAMB doesn't seem to create valid files, and mymp4boxgui is crashing. I also tried megui, which seemed to sucessfully remux it, but the new file still played choppy in quicktime.

@jababo, what tool did you use to remux to MKV?

[jagabo]

I used MMG.EXE from MkvToolNix to remux into MKV.

[larryc]

Guys, I think you've put me on the path to a solution. While there doesn't seem to be a fix for the quicktime problem, based on your suggestions I have an alternative solution.
If I remux to MKV I can completely avoid quicktime as Picasa uses directshow to render MKV files (which play fine)

[mkozal]

I get choppy playback on Quicktime when the video is variable. When it is constant bit rate, there is no problem.

Playback on VLC is totally fine for both type.