How to convert mov (MPEG4 + AAC) to avi without re-encoding?

bobby_yan · #1 11-12-2007, 07:39 AM

Is there any tool? Thank you. The file information is as follows.

General #0
Complete name : D:\20030901.mov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 816 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1707 Kbps
StreamSize : 2.09 MiB

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec profile : Streaming Video Profile/Level 1
Codec settings/BVOP : Yes
Codec settings/QPel : No
Codec settings/GMC : 0
Codec settings/Matri : Default
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1574 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 540 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.165
StreamSize : 752 MiB
Title : Lsj-云居龙龙。 / Lsj-云居龙龙。

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 61.2 MiB
Title : Lsj-云居龙龙。 / Lsj-云居龙龙。

#2 11-12-2007, 10:46 AM

.AVI is outdated. AVI doesn't support VBR audio (actually AVI specs do support it, but software using ACM to read audio from AVI files will not be able to handle VBR audio streams correctly, even though such files are compliant to the AVI file specification).

If your .MOV file contains AAC audio with variable bit-rate and you don't the AAC audio to be converted, you can use other containers for MPEG-4 video: MP4, MKV, OGM.

.MOV container is based on .MP4. And it seems like you can safely rename .MOV files to .MP4 in most cases.

But Apple always like to create standards not supported by other software and hardware. No wonder QuickTime 7 added support of multichannel audio (used, for example, in the high-definition trailers on Apple's site) to .MOV container while the original MP4 container is limited to stereo only. Therefore multichannel audio must be re-encoded during MP4 export.

In the MPEG-4 Export dialog of the QuickTime Pro use an option called Passthrough to do a .MOV lossless conversion (export) to .MP4 without affecting the audio or video streams.

#3 11-12-2007, 11:04 AM

If you install AviSinth and QTReader plug-in you can create an .avs file with the following content:

Code:

LoadVFAPIPlugin("d:\program files\virtualdub\plugins\QTReader.vfp", "QTReader")
QTReader("D:\20030901.mov")

or with a more complex one:

Code:

LoadVFAPIPlugin("d:\program files\virtualdub\plugins\QTReader.vfp", "QTReader")
QTReader("D:\20030901.mov")
ConvertToYUY2()
FlipVertical()
SelectEvery(25,1)

If you have QuickTime 6 (for getting video only) or QuickTime 7 (for both audio and video) you can use:

Code:

# YUY2 (default):
QTInput("D:\20030901.mov", color=2)

or

Code:

# with audio (in many cases possible with QuickTime 7)
QTInput("D:\20030901.mov", color=2, audio=true)

or

Code:

# raw (with for example a YUYV format):
QTInput("D:\20030901.mov", color=2, mode=1, raw="yuyv")

or

Code:

# dither = 1; converts raw 10bit to 8bit video (v210 = 10bit uyvy):
QTInput("D:\20030901.mov", color=2, dither=1, raw="v210")

.AVS file can beopened with freeware VirtualDub.

#4 11-12-2007, 11:04 AM

To convert .MOV (MPEG-4 + AAC) to .AVI (MPEG-4 + AAC) with VirtualDub with video and audio re-encoding:

Open the .AVS file in VirtualDub
Set video to "Full processing mode". Select video compression (use, for example: xvid or x264 video codec)
Set audio to Direct stream copy
Save file as .AVI

To convert .MOV (MPEG-4 + AAC) to .AVI (MPEG-4 + MP3) with VirtualDub with video and audio re-encoding:

Open the .AVS file in VirtualDub
Set video to "Full processing mode". Select video compression (use, for example: xvid or x264 video codec)
Set audio to Full processing mode. Select audio Compression (say, Lame MP3)
Save file as .AVI

#5 11-12-2007, 11:09 AM

To convert .MOV to .MKV or .OGM with VirtualDubMod with video re-encoding or and without audio re-encoding:

Open the .AVS file in VirtualDubMod
Set video to "Full processing mode". Select compression (use, for example: xvid or x264 video codec)
Open stream list. Set audio to Direct stream copy.
Save file as .MKV or .AVI

Kron · #6 11-12-2007, 06:19 PM

Or you can just use Avidemux.
http://www.avidemux.org/

#7 11-13-2007, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kron

Or you can just use Avidemux

AAC support was missing on the win32 two days ago

Now you can use Avidemux to convert to AVI, MP4 or OGM (MPEG-4 + AAC).

bobby_yan · #8 11-18-2007, 05:54 AM

I have installed QT Alternative 1.95 & AviSynth 2.5 Alpha 2.
When open .AVS file with the following content

Code:

DirectShowSource("D:\20030901.mov")

I get the following message.

Quote:

"Avisynth open failure: DirectShowSource: could not open as video or audio."

Video returned: "DirectShowSource: couldn't open file D:\20030901.mov:
unable to play, unsupported file type."

Audio returned: "DirectShowSource: couldn't open file D:\20030901.mov:
unable to play, unsupported file type."

(D:\avisynth.avs, line 1)

But I can play the file with the media player classic, which is integrated in the QT Alternative installation file.

bobby_yan · #9 11-18-2007, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

AAC support was missing on the win32 two days ago

Now you can use Avidemux to convert to AVI, MP4 or OGM (MPEG-4 + AAC).

I use AviSynth 2.4 (r3688).

When I use direct stream copy for both video and audio, the audio is choppy when playing the resulted AVI file in videolan and media player classic, and video-audio is slightly out of sych (2-3s, not a fixed displacement) in the resulted MP4 and OGM files.
But when I use direct stream copy for video and MP3 compression for audio (128kbps, 2 channels, CBR), there are no such problems in AVI or MP4 files.

I remember that MP4 does support AAC audio, but why does the out-of-synch problem exists in the first case? Thank you.

Information of the resulted MP4 files are as follows.

First case: direct audio stream copy
General #0
Complete name : D:\test.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 Base Media
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 816 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1708 Kbps
StreamSize : 2.79 MiB
Movie name : test.mp4
Performer : Avidemux
Screenplay by : Avidemux
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Writing application : Lavf51.12.1

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec profile : Streaming Video Profile/Level 1
Codec settings/BVOP : Yes
Codec settings/QPel : No
Codec settings/GMC : 0
Codec settings/Matri : Default
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1574 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 540 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 24.941 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Interlacement : Progressive
StreamSize : 752 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 61.2 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Second Case: re-encode audio as MP3
General #0
Complete name : D:\test_re-encode audio.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 Base Media
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 816 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1707 Kbps
StreamSize : 2.12 MiB
Movie name : test.mp4
Performer : Avidemux
Screenplay by : Avidemux
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Writing application : Lavf51.12.1

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec profile : Streaming Video Profile/Level 1
Codec settings/BVOP : Yes
Codec settings/QPel : No
Codec settings/GMC : 0
Codec settings/Matri : Default
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 1574 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 540 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 24.941 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Interlacement : Progressive
StreamSize : 752 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Audio #0
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 61.2 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

The fps of these two files are different from the one of the original MOV file. This is because the MOV file is severely out of syncn, and the AviSynth adjusts the fps when generating the MP4 files.

bobby_yan · #10 11-19-2007, 11:04 AM

I have tried this code

Code:

# with audio (in many cases possible with QuickTime 7)
QTInput("D:\20030901.mov", color=2, audio=true)

and the resulted file is too huge, about 70G. It seems that "direct stream copy" means no compression here.

The motivation of the conversion is to synchronize the audio and video, which are out of synch in the original MOV file, without any re-encodings. The video is longer (about 1:09:20) than the audio (1:06:48). At the beginning, I wanted to convert it to AVI file and adjust the fps with VirtualDub to make the video synchronized. Fortunately, Avidemux automatically does this when exporting. But the audio in the AVI file generated by Avidemux was choppy, so I switched to MP4 container.

As I described in the above posts, resulted MP4 file generated with both A/V stream copy is still slightly out of synch, but much better than the original file. Moreover, the synch of the MP4 file with video direct copy and MP3 audio compression is perfect. I have also tried to combine the video generated from Avidemux and the audio extracted (direct stream copy with QT Pro) from the original MOV file with QT Pro 7.3, and export to a MP4 file with "pass through" option. The resulted file has the same out-of-synch problem. It seems the causation is the AAC LC format, but it's not right. Because the synch of the MP4 file (generated by Avidemux) with video direct copy and AAC LC audio compression is perfect too.

Compared to the original MOV file, only the fps changes, from 24 to 24.941. The only explaination is AAC LC audio from a video with integral fps cannot be muxed into a video perfectly with non-integral fps. Is that right? Any solutions? Thanks.