H.264 and Quicktime

hello everyone,
i'm currently under the process of converting all my videos from home movies to dvds, movies, through with h.264. I have recently found out through the Mpeg industry forum head Gary Sullivan that the "main" profile was a profile that was implemented on a semi-temporary basis until they came up with the "high" profile. now as many of you know, the high profile doesn't exist in QTPro or FCP. I also found out that at the same bitrates "high" has better algorithms than "main" and "main" better than "baseline" so perceived visual quality is better at the same bitrate. Obviously it would be advantageous if I could encode all my videos using the "high" profile. So on to my questions:
1. What is the best/most widespread application to convert your videos to the "high" profile for h.264?
2. If I have videos encoded in the high profile, will QT natively support them and play them back or not?
3. Is it worth going with "high" over "main"?
4. What is the difference when encoding in h.264 to using a .mp4 container or a .mov container?
Thanks everyone.
Nick

The "best" application for mass conversion of video would be either Apple's Compressor 3 or Telestream's Episode Pro since both have high quality codecs and feature batch encoding. There may be a problem with cost however since Compressor is only available as part of Final Cut Studio ($1300) and Episode Pro is $895. I use both (I'm in post-production) and they're pretty equal. The econo way to go is QT Pro.
None of what you had about Gary Sullivan, et al. made much sense to me although I've been working with H.264 since early 2005. What I can tell you is this:
Unless your library of movies, etc. are of spectacular quality, you needn't be concerned with "high" quality issues. H.264 has been touted as "half the filesize of MPEG or twice the quality" and I see that as true. In my experience that "medium quality" H.264 is quite presentable. It will usually compare favorably with 25Mbps DV-NTSC at a bitrate of less than 2Mbps.
H.264 is technically MPEG-4, layer 10. It is also called AVC (Advanced Video Codec) and AVC/HD. Which wrapper QT chooses to isn't important. In the mid-term future, you will see H.264 infiltrate pretty much all forms of video from 3G to 4K. The one place you won't find it is in conventional video DVD. You can write H.264 to DVD-ROM as data, but if you intend to produce conventional Video DVDs of your library, you'll be encoding as MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 since those are the only allowable formats by DVD standards.
Good luck.

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Turbo.264 and Quicktime Broadcaster

Anyone know if these two are compatable?
Trying to speed up my encoding speed on live streams on my xserve g5.

Much thanks for the feedback.. I was hoping it might've been a possibility (since I like the concept of being able to do h264 640x480 encoding without hiccups without having to use a macpro)
I did leave them some email with a few questions, so hopefully I'll hear some good news I put a post on a different board about compressor support too, since I figured that would be pretty helpful as well if it was compatable there.

DV clips look bad, good when converted to H.264 in QuickTime and reimported

Still a problem after 7.0.1:
DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> looks bad when playing and exporting/sharing
DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> "reveal in finder" -> clip opened in QuickTime -> looks good -> export as H.264 -> re-import to iMovie 08 -> looks good when playing and exporting/sharing.
In plain words: Importing DV clips from my DV camera into iMovie gives bad results when playing and exporting/sharing. Have tried everything, but the clips look blurry and not sharp at all. The actual DV clip in the events folder looks sharp and clear.
If I take the very same DV clip from the events folder ("reveal in finder"), open it in QuickTime, export it as H.264 and then re-import to iMovie 08, it looks brilliant, retaining the quality the DV clip in the events folder has.
Why can't the DV clips look good in the first place? What is it that iMovie 08 does to these poor clips? Some have suggested re-encoding, re-rendering and so on, but if I do just that in QuickTime and re-import it to iMovie 08, it still looks razor sharp and crystal clear. No reason that iMovie 08 shouldn't handle the DV file in the same manner.
Some have suggested that this is because iMovie 08 internally re-encodes to AIM or H.264, enabling edits with different kinds of formats, but if I do this myself in QuickTime before importing to iMovie 08, the problem isn't there!
If this is difficult to achieve, why not add the option of importing from a DV camera as H.264 and not DV? That would make my day!
(I have posted this to Apple using the feedback menu item in iMovie 08.)
(Background here in these threads:)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1088568
Sample clips in Apple TV format here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5173005

iMovie '08 stores rendered projects in H.264 form. This happens when you render to the Media Browser. The rendered file(s) (you can have several different sizes) are in the iMovie '08 project package. The original flies in your Events folders stay in whatever format they were in.
Yes, the movies exported to the Media Browser use the H.264 format, the same as iMovie HD 5/6 did when we exported using the presets Email, Web, Web Streaming and CD-ROM. They were all H.264 too. Apple is obviously putting the (powerful) H.264 to good use to prepare movies for Web pages and other purposes.
As you know, the Full Quality export in 5/6 was to the project's native format, which varied according to the type of project. For DV projects, that was DV video. Everything was converted to DV when imported into the project, and to preserve the original quality we could export to a Full Quality DV movie.
There is nothing like that in iMovie 7, at least that I've seen. As you said, nothing is converted to a "native format" when imported to the project. (Still images are added to the project's single Apple Photo - JPEG "Still Images" movie, which is a nice twist.)
So I think of iMovie 7 as having no "native" format, but a nicely-designed path for using H.264 as the delivery format. The Media Browser — a virtual library of movies with no shared place — is a nice invention.
When I export slideshow movies in DV format out of FotoMagico I always select 'Best' and it DOES make a difference in iDVD.
I think of iMovie 7's problem with DV as more profoundly flawed. Exporting ANY DV video that's in the project to DV or ANY OTHER format is messed up. It's the handling of the DV inside iMovie that's messed up, not just the export to DV.
My guess is — and it's only a guess — that FotoMagico's Best setting adjusts the content of the image delivered for iDVD. Put another way, it prepares an image that works best with iDVD's own encoding algorithms.
One long-standing diappointment I've had with iLife is that Apple has never coordinated the image it prepares for iDVD with what(ever) iDVD does best. It's as if the programmers never talk to each other. iMovie engineers have never asked the iDVD engineers how best to deliver the image to deliver the best quality on the DVD.
Given Apple's emphasis on H.264, one would think that iDVD would be written to embrace any H.264 video and deliver great quality on the DVD. It doesn't. And with iLife '08 it doesn't even embrace iMovie's own DV exports!
I suppose Blu-Ray will change all that, but for now we're stuck with a version of iLife that can't deliver a quality DVD of our home movies.
Karl

Video Playback in iTunes (and Quicktime) All White

Since I updated iTunes and Quicktime, playback of all videos in them is now white, with a few dots of colour and just audio playing through.
Is there a solution to this yet?
Thanks - Dan.

The iTunes store writes, "All TV shows and other video content are now available in 640-by-480 resolution." And, QuickTime Tech Specs page, says the following.
For viewing videos purchased from the iTunes Store:
(Windows)
2.0 GHz Pentium-class processor or better
512MB of RAM
32MB video RAM
QuickTime 7.1.3
Windows 2000 or XP
For viewing 640x480 standard definition (SD) H.264 video:
(Windows)
2.0 GHz Intel Pentium class or better processor
At least 512MB of RAM
64MB or greater video card
Windows 2000 or XP
I don't know how much VRAM you have on your terminal, but it looks like you need a faster machine as far as CPU is concerned.
Good luck
MacHouse
180 video tutorials for Mac users

H.264 and Q7 Plugin Woes

I have posted in the Quicktime forum but have not gotten any response so I thought I would try here. I have several videos that I have compressed with H.264. They play perfectly via Q7 player, but when trying to play them via Firefox or IE, they crash the browser with a plugin error. The weird thing is that sometime they do play, but they crash the browser about 8 out of 10 times. Is anyone else seeing this? I have tried playing these on multiple computers, so I am pretty sure it is not a browser configuration problem as other videos play just fine. Only the ones encoded with H.264 seem to cause this crash. A final note, they didn't crash the browser when Q7 for Windows was in beta, only after the final release.
One of the videos in question: http://seanlperkins.com/movies/friends.mov
Again, sometimes it plays, try it several times, or other videos from my site....

thanks for the input. i understand the differences between various hardware setups/monitors/profiles causing variability in how images look, but the issue lies in that i am viewing the same video on the same compouter with the same monitor just with different software and it's being displayed differently. i have a hardware calibrated monitor (i am also a photographer) so i undestand color management with ICC profiles from a photographic perspective. unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a direct equivalency for video that i am aware of.
here is an example:
http://bold-creative.com/images/3.jpg
top left is youtube on chrome
top right is youtube on safari
bottom left is VLC
bottom right is quicktime X
see how desaturated safari and quicktime are vs chrome and VLC? chrome and VLC match FCP.
i thought it was maybe just how safari handled the video, but other youtube videos were identical when viewed next to each other on chrome and safari. this leads me to believe that it must be my file that is somewhow the culprit.

I received .mov via email and iMessage and quicktime tells me it can't open and to click tell me more for help

I tried to open .mov from an email and imessage and quicktime says it cant open and to click tell me more but then it doesnt give any information. Ive never had a problem opening videos made from an iphone and emailed before. These arent long clips.

i downloaded Quicktime 7 on my imac but it still wont open?
MOV refers to the file container. (MOV is the generic Quicktime file container.) Unfortunately, there cam be many different problems here.
1) People with different system configurations can place audio and/or video data not compatible with your system into MOV files, send them to you, and they will not play if you do not have the proper codecs installed for the QT 7 player to play them. Therefore, it is normally recommended that you determine what audio and video compression formats were used to create the original file. If the files do not open in either the QT X or QT 7 players, then you can check the file's "Get Info" window to see the the Mac OS X Finder recognizes the compressed data format(s). If it doesen't, them you can try opening the file in an alternate media player like VLC (free download) to see if that play can open, play, and/or tell you the compression formats. Lastly, if an app like VLC can't help you, you can download a generic media information app like MediaInfo (also a free download) to examine the file.
2) Once you know the compression formats use in the file and the Mac OS X version, and QT player being used, it is usuall a simple matter to determine if the compression format is supposed to be compatible with the QT player used for your Mac OS X or IOS device. This will tetermine whether or not the file can be played natively or must be converted to a different compression format for playback
3) In a very small percentage of cases, it may turn out that the file sent to you is either correpted or violates a security update installed on your system that prevents plaback. In the case of a corrupted file, about the only thing you can do as request the file be resent to you and hope for better results. In the case of a security problem, the file may be playable and/or convertable by a third-party application that gets around Apple's security trapping that prevents playback.
4) In the future, if you have problems opening or playing a file, please be more specific as to the nature of the problem. Specify the specific modal message you are getting or describe whether the player quits without a message, crashes, or will not open under one user account but does open under another.
and how would you resolve this issue on your iphone but updating quicktime player?
Your original message did not indicate that you were trying to play the file on your iPhone. Since the QT 7 player better handles the playback of "legacy" compression formats—especially under Mavericks—many users are advised to install the QT 7 player to handle compression formats no longer playable by the new AVFoundation software embedded in Mavericks. In addition, the QT 7 player is supported by an older 32-bit structure embedded in the Mac OS X v10.6, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 operating systems which can still access third-party codecs if your system is configured for their use—another reason for keeping QT 7 installed on a computer system. Unfortunately, such options will not fix blayback problems on an IOS device where it is normally easier to convert unsupported compression formats to natively supported compression formats—primarily H.264 video with AAC audio in MOV, MP4, or M4V file containers.

Encoding to high profile h.264 with quicktime (7 pro) export

Is there anyway to encode high profile h264 with quicktime export ?
Been using a canon HF100 for years now, and my goal is to edit and export my movies to h264 with the least quality lost. I can edit(trimming and merging) without quality loss. My endresult is in AIC codec, but when I export it to H264 in quicktime, in the highest settings, I can still see quality(or actually, color depth) loss in low light scenes.
Even with a bitrate which is almost identical to the AIC file...
I have a 130.2Mb (52.7Mbps) h264 main@Level 5 with 2 reference frames/second clip that looks worse the the original AIC file(56.9Mbps) of 143.8Mb
The canon HF100 records in high profile at level 4.0 (high@L4) with 17Mbps. It does 2 reference frames per second and CABAC.
So in theory exporting my projects at 17Mbps should be enough, if only the right settings where available in quicktime export.
Is there anyway to convert AIC to High profile settings, CABAC(available in main profile but not used bij quicktime in h264 output) on the MAC ?
My workflow:
1. I use shedworx VoltaicHD to convert my AVCHD files to AIC (pretty much lossles)
2. I use Imovie 6 to create a new Project in the following structure: HDV1080i
3. I don't import the AIC files with iMovie but I dump them with Finder in the "media" folder of the Imovie project.(This way I can maintain the 1920x1080 resolution, with importing it gets 1440x1080)
4. Then I open the project in Imovie, open the trashcan and see my movie clips.
5. Then the trimming, cutting and merging begins, no use of effects(adding effects creates 1440x1080 video)
6. Time for export with quicktime h264 codec.

Hi MartinR,
Some answers on your thoughts:
"You have an AVCHD camcorder. Where did you get the technical information that it records HiProfile/Level 4/2 ref frames per sec/CABAC?"
-I'v dropped some original mts files from my camera on a program called "mediainfo" from sourceforge net.
"VoltaicHD's conversion isn't exactly 1920x1080, either. Open one of your AIC files in QT Player, do Window > Show Movie Inspector and tell us what it says for format and fps. 1440x1080? 1888x1062?"
-Both mediainfo and quicktime (7 pro and the new quicktime) show in their info that the movie format from voltaicHD file is 1920x1080.
But I can remember I've seen the 1888x1062 resolution in the info in the past. Maybe things where changed by a new version of voltaic or an update by quicktime ?
" certainly understand your efforts to get the results you want with what you have on hand. However you will be better off with iMovie11 and/or Final Cut Express 4 or Final Cut Studio 6. FCP 6 by the way supports ProRes which, if you are very driven for the highest technical qualities, would be the way to go."
I thought about buying imovie 11 in the app store. For 11,99 euro's it's a bargain!
But a little search on the forums kept me from buying it.
My camera puts out interlaced files, even when I record progressive. This is done by most camera manufacturers for compatibility on blu ray players and older lcd and plasma tv's.
Now it seems that if you use effects in imovie 11, it drops half the fields, resulting in 960x540 resolution...In that case imovie 6 with 1440x1080 supported effects is still better.
The same 1440x1080 limitations seems to exist in Final cut express 4.
I know the backdoor in imvie06 works, you can see the 1920 to 1440 resolution drop with your own eyes when effects are added. The drop is only visible in the frames that contain a special effect, the rest of the exported movie is untouched and still 1920.
I did some thinking, and what bothers me the most is that exporting the movie results in loss of color depth/detail. I could imagine that if I could use Prores422 instead of AIC, which is only available in FCP (999Euro's!). That the end result is better, but I'm not sure.
Could be that the colors of the original movie file are spread more over the range because it supports 10 bit sample depth instead of 8. Even when that is true, I am not sure if the h.264 codec will tread it different and maintains some more color depth.
And for fact the avchd files are 4:2:0 and not 4:2:2.
Do you or anyone know if there is any different in quality in an exported to h.264 pro resolution file or an AIC file. Even when the source is 8 bit 4:2:0 ?

Sluggish m4v playback in itunes and quicktime

hi all
spent a while searching for an answer to this question.
i purchased a tv series through itunes (as m4v files) and downloaded them to my computer. no problems there.
when i went to playback the files i ran into some trouble. there was sluggish video/audio feed when playing the files either through quicktime or itunes. the audio and video were not off "sync" with eachother, its just they played sluggish as a whole.
for example, about three seconds would play, then both audio and video would pause. then, a few more secs would play and so on.
i have tried codecs, but still dont' know, and it is really agrivating. im running a windows xp computer, 1gb ram, 1.7ghz processor, pentium 4. no problems with computer speed in general.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
-matt

The iTunes store writes, "All TV shows and other video content are now available in 640-by-480 resolution." And, QuickTime Tech Specs page, says the following.
For viewing videos purchased from the iTunes Store:
(Windows)
2.0 GHz Pentium-class processor or better
512MB of RAM
32MB video RAM
QuickTime 7.1.3
Windows 2000 or XP
For viewing 640x480 standard definition (SD) H.264 video:
(Windows)
2.0 GHz Intel Pentium class or better processor
At least 512MB of RAM
64MB or greater video card
Windows 2000 or XP
I don't know how much VRAM you have on your terminal, but it looks like you need a faster machine as far as CPU is concerned.
Good luck
MacHouse
180 video tutorials for Mac users

Compressor and Quicktime crippled

I am sitting here rather bewildered about the lack of speed in Compressor and Quicktime Pro 7 in regards to outputting a file to an iPod file at 640 x 480. 4 hours or more to compress 43 minutes of video? This is crazy considering that these applications are supposed to be "Native" to the intel chip now. I am using a new core2duo 17 inch laptop.
Talk about slow...I bought new equipment and software for this type of speed. I cannot help but wonder if th speed to the iPod setting was crippled so that we would buy more iPod TV episodes from iTunes.
Anybody have any methods for faster compression? I have tried the export from FCP to a self-contained movie. I then tried the compressor mode for the iPod, but changed the movie into a 640 x 480 standard. That is a little faster, but not much. I also tried the same thing in Quicktime, but that seemed just as slow.

The reason why it takes so long, is because H.264 is extremely demanding. 4 hours for 43 minutes sounds pretty normal to me.
What you could do, is to use MPEG-4 instead of the default iPod preset which uses H.264. Just select the iPod preset and change the codec from iPod for H.264 to MPEG-4.
iPod can play the following video formats:
H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
H.264 video, up to 768 kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/creatingvideo.html

I am traveling with my macbook pro and I forgot to install final cut express and quicktime pro before I left. How can I in a way download them for free on my laptop from where I am

I am traveling with my macbook pro and I forgot to install final cut express and quicktime pro before I left. How can I in a way download them for free on my laptop from where I am? I need them and don't want naturally to buy them again!!!
Thank you

Assuming you purchased QT Pro, you can always download it again at no extra charge by logging in to your Apple account.
Regarding FCE, there is no way to download & install the product. You need an original FCE install disk and your FCE serial number.
Final Cut Pro X (aka FCPX) can be purchased & downloaded from the App Store.

ITunes and Quicktime will not launch

I cannot get my iTunes or Quicktime to launch. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, upgraded, and tried several fixes that I found on this discussion board. No Luck! I'm using XP Pro SP3. When I first installed iTunes, it worked, but then quit working about 4 weeks later. I'm using the latest versions of both iTunes and Quicktime.

The error message you are getting suggests that you do have one of the problem codec packs installed on your system or you have had in the past.
Quicktime does not install Quicktime.cpl in the system32 directory.
It is possible that one of them was installed without you knowing with other software, I think Storm may get installed with other things although I can't name anything.
You must look for the things on my list and uninstall them if you find them. Check in Add/Remove programs to see if there is an entry there.
When you have uninstalled the problem items go on to the next stage. If you can't find anything you had better go on as well.
Download the stand alone Quicktime (the one without iTunes):
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html
Now Remove Quicktime using the method in this article (just Quicktime):
XP
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925
Vista
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923
When you come to your C:\Windows\system32\ folder you can delete any file or folder with Quicktime in the name.
Restart you computer
Install the stand alone Quicktime and check if it starts.
If it does you are in a position to find out if iTunes is OK.

ITunes and QuickTime will not work..Yeah, another one

Despite my best efforts to try to solve my problem on my own and not both you kind people, I've been working on and off at trying to get my iTunes working, with no positive results at all. It's honestly been so long, I don't recall what might have sparked the issues, but every time I try to open iTunes or QuickTime they will begin to open but fail, bringing up the common windows error message:
iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
QuickTime Player has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
So far, I have totally deleted both iTunes and QuickTime twice from my computer- first just through Add/Remove Programs pathways, then more in depth with Registry Crawler to try to remove any traces of the programs- all before re-installing the two programs. Both times have failed, still leaving me unable to open either program, so I've broken down and come here- hoping to find anyone willing to lend a hand to help fix this issue so that I can finally listen to my music the way I used to.

Perfect information, thanks.
That combination is almost always caused by some application stashing old QuickTime componentry down in your system files. (Codec packs and video converters are the usual suspects, although some Games might do it too.)
Let's go looking for the old stuff.
1. Open My Computer from the desktop or Start menu.
2. In the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab.
4. In the "Advanced settings" pane under "Hidden files and folders" make sure that the "Show hidden files and folders" option is selected, and the "Hide extensions for known file types" option is unchecked.
5. Click OK.
Now in My Computer, open your C drive.
Open the "Windows" folder.
Open the "system32" folder.
What files and/or folders can you see in there with QuickTime in the file/folder name? (In a standard installation of QuickTime, you should see precisely two files ... QuickTime.qts and QuickTimeVR.qtx ... and no QuickTime folders whatsoever.)

ITunes and QuickTime will not open

I upgraded to iTunes 7.0.1 and the installation went fine. However, when I try to open iTunes by double-clicking on the desktop icon, a page pops up for less than a second and then goes away. I think the page might have something to do with a license agreement. I get no error messages. I also tried to open QuickTime to see if it works, but it does not. When I try double-clicking on the desktop icon, a page (different than the one that pops up for iTunes) comes up for less than a second. No error messages for QuickTime come up either. What can I do to get my iTunes and QuickTime to work?
Dell Dimension 8200 Windows XP

... i think i might have already replied to you in a different thread, BNT ...
... but just in case i haven't, those are classic symptoms of a Qoologic adware infestation on a PC. the free trial version of Ewido has been catching and killing that for most folks:
ewido anti-malware download

Itunes and quicktime will not open properly

My itunes freezes when opening and quicktime say there is a run time error. I have uninstalled everything and quicktime does not go away. then re-installed both and they still do not work. not sure what to do.

I have uninstalled everything and quicktime does not go away
what's the precise wording of the message that you're getting when you try to launch itunes?
what is the wording on the message that you get when you try to uninstall QuickTime?
(include error message numbers if you're getting any.)

ITunes and Quicktime Error after automatice Apple update, need help!!!

So I currently have a new labtop with windows vista. I have been runining iTunes for the pass 3 months already no problems. The Apple automatic update has never caused any problems till now. Quicktime needed to be updated today, and I accecpted the update, prior to that iTunes and Quicktime was working properly. Once the quicktime update was complete, it restarted my computer like usual. Then when I tried to open iTunes this error came up:
"iTunes cannot run because it has detected a problem with your audio configuration"
Now I checked the audio configuration and nothing was changed or anything, that has not been touched at all, so I still think it had to do with the update. The next error was came up when I tried to open Quicktime and it read:
"Runtime Error!
Program C://ProgramFiles/QuickTime/QuickTimePlayer.exe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information"
So as long as I have been using Quicktime and iTunes I have never encountered this, I tried to re-install but the error kept coming up after it was installed. Please help me out!

try doing following the steps in these articles
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31115
and
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93976
hope this helps

H.264 and Quicktime

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