Package H.264 as ISMV or ISML (via MFCreateFMPEG4MediaSink?)

Question

Hi all,
I have an application that outputs content (dynamically generated with Direct3D) to mp4 via Media Foundation. This code has been working well, and now I'm looking for a way to stream that content with as little latency as possible to a Smooth Streaming publish
point (Azure Media Services in this case). I've successfully created video-only fragmented MP4 files with MFCreateFMPEG4MediaSink and IMFSinkWriter, but I can't find a way to create f-MP4 files that are compatible with the Smooth Streaming Protocol.
The files I can currently output have a ftyp indicating a major brand of "mp42" and compatible brands of "mp41" and "isom". For smooth streaming, this needs to be "isml" with compatible brands "piff" and
"iso2". Also, it looks like every frame is a keyframe, whereas Azure expects key frames every 2 seconds. This may be because the encoder is generating a file where MF_MT_MPEG2_PROFILE is set to the H.264 Simple profile-- and I can't get it to produce
anything else. I tried setting the Main profile on the media type I pass to MFCreateFMPEGMediaSink, but it doesn't seem to affect the file output:
hr = mediaTypeOut->SetUINT32(MF_MT_MPEG2_PROFILE, eAVEncH264VProfile_Main);
Again, setting this or any other profile doesn't seem to have any effect on the output.
I believe the actual H.264 output is correct (and of course the fragmented mp4 video files do play back properly), but need to ensure it is packaged properly. Is there any way to do this with Media Foundation?

Answer 1

kryten2002 wrote:
I have quite literally hundreds of files in HD H264 that I want to use as source, and I really don't want to have to transcode the lot of them.I realise FC isn't happy working natively with H264's, but since this appears to be an issue that crops up so often I was hoping somebody out there had found a workaround either via process or via a plugin.It's the one thing that Premiere does so well, but I'm not ready to stop using FC because of that one (annoying) thing.Thanks all.
Looking back over the development of and the popularity of H.264 and comparing that against the history of NLE product releases, I see that FCP is way behind the curve. Who knows why? The current version of Adobe's suite benefits from many years of FCP's history of failing to meet the needs of a certain niche of users. Perhaps the decision to put all development energy into FCPX at the expense of adding advanced codec handling functions to FCP7? It's a bummer for lots of us that FCP7 came up so short and has now been effectively killed.
Only time will tell if people like you and me will switch to acquire functions we need now or adopt the new paradigm and see if things evolve.
bogiesan
bogiesan