<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title>11.7. Using MEncoder to create QuickTime-compatible files</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" type="text/css"><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.75.2"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="MPlayer - The Movie Player"><link rel="up" href="encoding-guide.html" title="Chapter 11. Encoding with MEncoder"><link rel="prev" href="menc-feat-video-for-windows.html" title="11.6. Encoding with the Video For Windows codec family"><link rel="next" href="menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html" title="11.8. Using MEncoder to create VCD/SVCD/DVD-compliant files"><link rel="preface" href="howtoread.html" title="How to read this documentation"><link rel="chapter" href="intro.html" title="Chapter 1. Introduction"><link rel="chapter" href="install.html" title="Chapter 2. Installation"><link rel="chapter" href="usage.html" title="Chapter 3. Usage"><link rel="chapter" href="advaudio.html" title="Chapter 4. Advanced audio usage"><link rel="chapter" href="cd-dvd.html" title="Chapter 5. CD/DVD usage"><link rel="chapter" href="tv.html" title="Chapter 6. TV"><link rel="chapter" href="radio.html" title="Chapter 7. Radio"><link rel="chapter" href="video.html" title="Chapter 8. Video output devices"><link rel="chapter" href="ports.html" title="Chapter 9. Ports"><link rel="chapter" href="mencoder.html" title="Chapter 10. Basic usage of MEncoder"><link rel="chapter" href="encoding-guide.html" title="Chapter 11. Encoding with MEncoder"><link rel="chapter" href="faq.html" title="Chapter 12. Frequently Asked Questions"><link rel="appendix" href="bugreports.html" title="Appendix A. How to report bugs"><link rel="appendix" href="skin.html" title="Appendix B. MPlayer skin format"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-why-use-it" title="11.7.1. Why would one want to produce QuickTime-compatible Files?"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-constraints" title="11.7.2. QuickTime 7 limitations"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-crop" title="11.7.3. Cropping"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-scale" title="11.7.4. Scaling"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-avsync" title="11.7.5. A/V sync"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-bitrate" title="11.7.6. Bitrate"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-example" title="11.7.7. Encoding example"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-remux" title="11.7.8. Remuxing as MP4"><link rel="subsection" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-metadata" title="11.7.9. Adding metadata tags"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">11.7. Using <span class="application">MEncoder</span> to create <span class="application">QuickTime</span>-compatible files</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="menc-feat-video-for-windows.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 11. Encoding with <span class="application">MEncoder</span></th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="sect1" title="11.7. Using MEncoder to create QuickTime-compatible files"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7"></a>11.7. Using <span class="application">MEncoder</span> to create <span class="application">QuickTime</span>-compatible files</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.1. Why would one want to produce QuickTime-compatible Files?"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-why-use-it"></a>11.7.1. Why would one want to produce <span class="application">QuickTime</span>-compatible Files?</h3></div></div></div><p> There are several reasons why producing <span class="application">QuickTime</span>-compatible files can be desirable. </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p> You want any computer illiterate to be able to watch your encode on any major platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Unices …). </p></li><li class="listitem"><p> <span class="application">QuickTime</span> is able to take advantage of more hardware and software acceleration features of Mac OS X than platform-independent players like <span class="application">MPlayer</span> or <span class="application">VLC</span>. That means that your encodes have a chance to be played smoothly by older G4-powered machines. </p></li><li class="listitem"><p> <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 supports the next-generation codec H.264, which yields significantly better picture quality than previous codec generations (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 …). </p></li></ul></div></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.2. QuickTime 7 limitations"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-constraints"></a>11.7.2. <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 limitations</h3></div></div></div><p> <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 supports H.264 video and AAC audio, but it does not support them muxed in the AVI container format. However, you can use <span class="application">MEncoder</span> to encode the video and audio, and then use an external program such as <span class="application">mp4creator</span> (part of the <a class="ulink" href="http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/" target="_top">MPEG4IP suite</a>) to remux the video and audio tracks into an MP4 container. </p><p> <span class="application">QuickTime</span>'s support for H.264 is limited, so you will need to drop some advanced features. If you encode your video with features that <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 does not support, <span class="application">QuickTime</span>-based players will show you a pretty white screen instead of your expected video. </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p> <span class="bold"><strong>B-frames</strong></span>: <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 supports a maximum of 1 B-frame, i.e. <tt class="option">-x264encopts bframes=1</tt>. This means that <tt class="option">b_pyramid</tt> and <tt class="option">weight_b</tt> will have no effect, since they require <tt class="option">bframes</tt> to be greater than 1. </p></li><li class="listitem"><p> <span class="bold"><strong>Macroblocks</strong></span>: <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 does not support 8x8 DCT macroblocks. This option (<tt class="option">8x8dct</tt>) is off by default, so just be sure not to explicitly enable it. This also means that the <tt class="option">i8x8</tt> option will have no effect, since it requires <tt class="option">8x8dct</tt>. </p></li><li class="listitem"><p> <span class="bold"><strong>Aspect ratio</strong></span>: <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 does not support SAR (sample aspect ratio) information in MPEG-4 files; it assumes that SAR=1. Read <a class="link" href="menc-feat-quicktime-7.html#menc-feat-quicktime-7-scale" title="11.7.4. Scaling">the section on scaling</a> for a workaround. <span class="application">QuickTime</span> X no longer has this limitation. </p></li></ul></div></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.3. Cropping"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-crop"></a>11.7.3. Cropping</h3></div></div></div><p> Suppose you want to rip your freshly bought copy of "The Chronicles of Narnia". Your DVD is region 1, which means it is NTSC. The example below would still apply to PAL, except you would omit <tt class="option">-ofps 24000/1001</tt> and use slightly different <tt class="option">crop</tt> and <tt class="option">scale</tt> dimensions. </p><p> After running <tt class="option">mplayer dvd://1</tt>, you follow the process detailed in the section <a class="link" href="menc-feat-telecine.html" title="11.2. How to deal with telecine and interlacing within NTSC DVDs">How to deal with telecine and interlacing in NTSC DVDs</a> and discover that it is 24000/1001 fps progressive video. This simplifies the process somewhat, since you do not need to use an inverse telecine filter such as <tt class="option">pullup</tt> or a deinterlacing filter such as <tt class="option">yadif</tt>. </p><p> Next, you need to crop out the black bars from the top and bottom of the video, as detailed in <a class="link" href="menc-feat-enc-libavcodec.html#menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-example-crop">this</a> previous section. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.4. Scaling"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-scale"></a>11.7.4. Scaling</h3></div></div></div><p> The next step is truly heartbreaking. <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 does not support MPEG-4 videos with a sample aspect ratio other than 1, so you will need to upscale (which wastes a lot of disk space) or downscale (which loses some details of the source) the video to square pixels. Either way you do it, this is highly inefficient, but simply cannot be avoided if you want your video to be playable by <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7. <span class="application">MEncoder</span> can apply the appropriate upscaling or downscaling by specifying respectively <tt class="option">-vf scale=-10:-1</tt> or <tt class="option">-vf scale=-1:-10</tt>. This will scale your video to the correct width for the cropped height, rounded to the closest multiple of 16 for optimal compression. Remember that if you are cropping, you should crop first, then scale: </p><pre class="screen">-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1</pre><p> </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.5. A/V sync"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-avsync"></a>11.7.5. A/V sync</h3></div></div></div><p> Because you will be remuxing into a different container, you should always use the <tt class="option">harddup</tt> option to ensure that duplicated frames are actually duplicated in the video output. Without this option, <span class="application">MEncoder</span> will simply put a marker in the video stream that a frame was duplicated, and rely on the client software to show the same frame twice. Unfortunately, this "soft duplication" does not survive remuxing, so the audio would slowly lose sync with the video. </p><p> The final filter chain looks like this: </p><pre class="screen">-vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup</pre><p> </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.6. Bitrate"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-bitrate"></a>11.7.6. Bitrate</h3></div></div></div><p> As always, the selection of bitrate is a matter of the technical properties of the source, as explained <a class="link" href="menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4.html#menc-feat-dvd-mpeg4-resolution-bitrate" title="11.1.5. Choosing resolution and bitrate">here</a>, as well as a matter of taste. This movie has a fair bit of action and lots of detail, but H.264 video looks good at much lower bitrates than XviD or other MPEG-4 codecs. After much experimentation, the author of this guide chose to encode this movie at 900kbps, and thought that it looked very good. You may decrease bitrate if you need to save more space, or increase it if you need to improve quality. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.7. Encoding example"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-example"></a>11.7.7. Encoding example</h3></div></div></div><p> You are now ready to encode the video. Since you care about quality, of course you will be doing a two-pass encode. To shave off some encoding time, you can specify the <tt class="option">turbo</tt> option on the first pass; this reduces <tt class="option">subq</tt> and <tt class="option">frameref</tt> to 1. To save some disk space, you can use the <tt class="option">ss</tt> option to strip off the first few seconds of the video. (I found that this particular movie has 32 seconds of credits and logos.) <tt class="option">bframes</tt> can be 0 or 1. The other options are documented in <a class="link" href="menc-feat-x264.html#menc-feat-x264-encoding-options-speedvquality" title="11.5.1.2. Options which primarily affect speed and quality">Encoding with the <code class="systemitem">x264</code> codec</a> and the man page. </p><pre class="screen">mencoder dvd://1 -o /dev/null -ss 32 -ovc x264 \ -x264encopts pass=1:turbo:bitrate=900:bframes=1:\ me=umh:partitions=all:trellis=1:qp_step=4:qcomp=0.7:direct_pred=auto:keyint=300 \ -vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup \ -oac faac -faacopts br=192:mpeg=4:object=2 -channels 2 -srate 48000 \ -ofps 24000/1001</pre><p> If you have a multi-processor machine, don't miss the opportunity to dramatically speed-up encoding by enabling <a class="link" href="menc-feat-x264.html#menc-feat-x264-encoding-options-speedvquality-threads"> <code class="systemitem">x264</code>'s multi-threading mode</a> by adding <tt class="option">threads=auto</tt> to your <tt class="option">x264encopts</tt> command-line. </p><p> The second pass is the same, except that you specify the output file and set <tt class="option">pass=2</tt>. </p><pre class="screen">mencoder dvd://1 <span class="bold"><strong>-o narnia.avi</strong></span> -ss 32 -ovc x264 \ -x264encopts <span class="bold"><strong>pass=2</strong></span>:turbo:bitrate=900:frameref=5:bframes=1:\ me=umh:partitions=all:trellis=1:qp_step=4:qcomp=0.7:direct_pred=auto:keyint=300 \ -vf crop=720:352:0:62,scale=-10:-1,harddup \ -oac faac -faacopts br=192:mpeg=4:object=2 -channels 2 -srate 48000 \ -ofps 24000/1001</pre><p> </p><p> The resulting AVI should play perfectly in <span class="application">MPlayer</span>, but of course <span class="application">QuickTime</span> can not play it because it does not support H.264 muxed in AVI. So the next step is to remux the video into an MP4 container. </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.8. Remuxing as MP4"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-remux"></a>11.7.8. Remuxing as MP4</h3></div></div></div><p> There are several ways to remux AVI files to MP4. You can use <span class="application">mp4creator</span>, which is part of the <a class="ulink" href="http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/" target="_top">MPEG4IP suite</a>. </p><p> First, demux the AVI into separate audio and video streams using <span class="application">MPlayer</span>. </p><pre class="screen">mplayer narnia.avi -dumpaudio -dumpfile narnia.aac mplayer narnia.avi -dumpvideo -dumpfile narnia.h264</pre><p> The file names are important; <span class="application">mp4creator</span> requires that AAC audio streams be named <code class="systemitem">.aac</code> and H.264 video streams be named <code class="systemitem">.h264</code>. </p><p> Now use <span class="application">mp4creator</span> to create a new MP4 file out of the audio and video streams. </p><pre class="screen">mp4creator -create=narnia.aac narnia.mp4 mp4creator -create=narnia.h264 -rate=23.976 narnia.mp4</pre><p> Unlike the encoding step, you must specify the framerate as a decimal (such as 23.976), not a fraction (such as 24000/1001). </p><p> This <code class="systemitem">narnia.mp4</code> file should now be playable with any <span class="application">QuickTime</span> 7 application, such as <span class="application">QuickTime Player</span> or <span class="application">iTunes</span>. If you are planning to view the video in a web browser with the <span class="application">QuickTime</span> plugin, you should also hint the movie so that the <span class="application">QuickTime</span> plugin can start playing it while it is still downloading. <span class="application">mp4creator</span> can create these hint tracks: </p><pre class="screen">mp4creator -hint=1 narnia.mp4 mp4creator -hint=2 narnia.mp4 mp4creator -optimize narnia.mp4</pre><p> You can check the final result to ensure that the hint tracks were created successfully: </p><pre class="screen">mp4creator -list narnia.mp4</pre><p> You should see a list of tracks: 1 audio, 1 video, and 2 hint tracks. </p><pre class="screen">Track Type Info 1 audio MPEG-4 AAC LC, 8548.714 secs, 190 kbps, 48000 Hz 2 video H264 Main@5.1, 8549.132 secs, 899 kbps, 848x352 @ 23.976001 fps 3 hint Payload mpeg4-generic for track 1 4 hint Payload H264 for track 2 </pre><p> </p></div><div class="sect2" title="11.7.9. Adding metadata tags"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="menc-feat-quicktime-7-metadata"></a>11.7.9. Adding metadata tags</h3></div></div></div><p> If you want to add tags to your video that show up in iTunes, you can use <a class="ulink" href="http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/" target="_top">AtomicParsley</a>. </p><pre class="screen">AtomicParsley narnia.mp4 --metaEnema --title "The Chronicles of Narnia" --year 2005 --stik Movie --freefree --overWrite</pre><p> The <tt class="option">--metaEnema</tt> option removes any existing metadata (<span class="application">mp4creator</span> inserts its name in the "encoding tool" tag), and <tt class="option">--freefree</tt> reclaims the space from the deleted metadata. The <tt class="option">--stik</tt> option sets the type of video (such as Movie or TV Show), which iTunes uses to group related video files. The <tt class="option">--overWrite</tt> option overwrites the original file; without it, <span class="application">AtomicParsley</span> creates a new auto-named file in the same directory and leaves the original file untouched. </p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="menc-feat-video-for-windows.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="encoding-guide.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">11.6. Encoding with the <code class="systemitem">Video For Windows</code> codec family </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 11.8. Using <span class="application">MEncoder</span> to create VCD/SVCD/DVD-compliant files</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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