Change the tag of a mp4 file

[kevindevine]

hi all,
i have a problem with my tv. the usb support doesn't read h264 files, just dvix and the problem is 98% of all my files are h264 coded.
this guy on an ubuntu forum says he made it work just changing the video tag to divx

it turns out that I just needed to trick the TV into thinking it was the DivX codec when it is really the xvid codec, by changing the video tag (or FourCC to DIVX)

anyone know how can i make it on windows?

thank you and excuse my english, i'm still learning

bye!

[Hoser Rob]

I believe that avconv is available for windows as part of libav ... I've used it in linux. It's used in some programs as a replacement for ffmpeg, which has been deprecated.

However, I don't see how what he's doing there (it's on askubuntu, which isn't actually their user forum) is going to help you at all.

You have to understand that what he was doing is just changing the headers. The video format (which has to be MPEG 1 or 2 and MPEG-4 SP or ASP for his TV) doesn't change.

The format (the specification for the video information itself) is different from the codec (the program that actually codes and decodes ... divx and xvid are codecs) which is different from the container (which is what tells the software what to expect in the file).

The files you're talking about are h.264 format, and can have an .mp4 extension, just like those old mpeg-4 SP or ASP files can. But if your TV can't handle the h.264 format you can't just change file header info. You'll have to convert the file.

[kevindevine]

thank you very very much for the clear explanation. as you saw, the whole thing was not so clear to me.

so basically what i need to do is to convert the codec in XVID or DIVX? what's the best way to do it without losing too much quality?

thank you again!
happy new year!