What is "Fast Start" option?

[Videogamer555]

For MPEG4 video, there's a "Streaming - Fast Start" option in XMedia Recode (which I believe is just a GUI for FFMPEG, so Fast Start must be an FFMPEG feature). Does this have any effect for videos playing on one's own computer? Or does it just change how it streams when playing on the internet?

[Detmek]

Fast start is for internet streaming as it puts header at the begining of the file. When you play file from HDD it doesn't matter.

[Cornucopia]

"Fast Start" is an MP4 feature, based on the identically-named feature available in Quicktime MOV files. Both refer to a combination of:

1. Putting most headers (particularly track listing, indexing & offset metadata) at the beginning of the file
2. Flattening (resolving references) and defragmenting asset resources in the file
3. Interleaving the audio + video stream(s) so there is as little delay as possible in realtime processing of combined & synchronized packets

In order of (descending) importance it is 1, 3, 2. In order of operation prep to saving, it is 2, 3, 1.

Scott

[FIEDZIA]

Here is mentioned:

To convert an MPEG file to a VOB file suitable for DVD authoring, you can use the following command in Linux:
ffmpeg -i input.mpg -c:v libx264 -profile high -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart output.vob
Here's what each of the parameters does:

`-i input.mpg`: specifies the input file to convert.
`-c:v libx264`: sets the video codec to H.264, also known as MPEG-4 AVC.
`-profile high`: sets the profile to high, which is suitable for high-definition video.
`-pix_fmt yuv420p`: specifies the pixel format as YUV420P, which is a widely used format for digital video.
`-c:a aac`: sets the audio codec to AAC, which is a widely used and efficient audio codec.
`-b:a 128k`: specifies the bitrate for the audio codec as 128 kbps.
`-movflags +faststart`: adds the "-faststart" flag, which instructs the MPEG2 video writer to create a compatible DVD-Video file, and allows the DVD-Video authoring tool to use the video data immediately after the file is created.
`output.vob`: specifies the output file name and extension.

Once the conversion is complete, you can author the resulting VOB file using your preferred DVD authoring software.