no sound with files recorded with JVC Everio GZ-MG60

yes, a sample would help greatly. You should be able to attache a file to this ticket.

I expect that the issue is that the demux is unable to find the codec or something like that. People have reported similar issues with VOB files in #6.

Yeah, the site crashing was really annoying. I just now got the download link functioning again.

short clip from iRecord+Streamclip, QT will not play AC3 audio

Hi,

We have a ton of iRecordings (an app from <http://www.ammesset.com/software/irecord/>, based on Apple's AVCVideoCap.app in the FireWire? SDK). These "direct digital" recordings of digital TV/cable/satellite channels have AC3 soundtracks. To make them playable with most players, we use Streamclip (from <http://www.squared5.com/>) to "strip" the ts packets, leaving a "normal" mpeg-ps file, with no loss in quality whatsoever.

None of the AC3/A52 components will let us play the audio in QuickTime-based players (yes I have the latest $20 MPEG2 playback component, export component, etc.). Every other open source app can play these files just fine! (fwiw I keep up with my own builds of many such projects with local cmd-line CVS/SVN trees.)

These files would probably match this ticket #10 rather than ticket #6 (VOBs). I have a very short commercial that you can use to analyse. Streamclip's "Info" panel shows the mpeg-ps file as similar to this:

Stream Files:
Manwich.mpg (3.20 MB)
Type: MPEG program stream

Duration: 0:00:15
Data Size: 3.20 MB
Bit Rate: 1.74 Mbps

Video Tracks:
224 MPEG-2, 528 × 480, 4:3, 23.976 fps, 8.00 Mbps, upper field first

Audio Tracks:
128 AC3 2/0, 48 kHz, 128 kbps

I just tried uploading this 3.2MB file to this ticket, which resulted in an error webpage telling me the filesize limit is 262144 bytes, with a link to the Trac on-line manual.

I tried using Streamclip to snip the short commercial down even shorter. To give you a good sample, you would want at least two keyframes (GOPs). See if the attached file "Manwich_clip.mpg" can be used? If not, can the Trac filesize limit be raised up a ways, please?

The tiny clip attached has this "info" from Streamclip:

Stream Files:
Manwich_clip.mpg (0.17 MB)
Type: MPEG program stream

Duration: 0:00:01
Data Size: 0.17 MB
Bit Rate: 1.06 Mbps

Video Tracks:
224 MPEG-2, 528 × 480, 4:3, 23.976 fps, 15.00 Mbps, upper field first

Audio Tracks:
128 AC3 2/0, 48 kHz, 128 kbps

btw A theory I've read about this lack of support in QuickTime is that Apple does not want to make it so easy to rip DVDs. Well, IMO, this lack of support is really showing me that Apple does not want to support the future of digital entertainment at all, esp. since the FCC is forcing all of us to buy new tuners & TVs (and that brings up a huge topic I've written about in other places).

Thank you for looking into this; it will fix the 'sore'est problem we have with QuickTime at the present time.

p.s. yes the e-mail addy is a working one ;)

I looked at the files. Since information about the MPEG-2 system streams format is so hard to find, I stepped through the processing of reading the headers using libavformat (part of ffmpeg). I can confirm that the video is MPEG-2 video and that the audio is AC3.

Just like in #6 with the VOB files, it seems that Apple's demux is again not even bothering to look for an AC3 component and ignoring the audio. I sometimes agree with your theory about Apple not wanting to make it easy to rip DVDs, especially after an email that I got from one of the QuickTime engineers asking about AC-3 passthrough and its uses in ripping one's own DVDs.

Maybe MPEG-2 demux can be added to the Perian Project and bypass Apple entirely!

In the mean time, I suggest bugging Apple about this and demand that they fix it. I expect that they just didn't do it in the first place because a multi-channel AC-3 codec was missing from OS X until after their component was released. It isn't that hard to check if a codec exists in QuickTime and ignore the track if it is not, so such a test is all that their component needs to do and still bypass the annoying dialog for those missing the component.

I cannot get a video file small enough to upload it as an attachment. So I put it on my website. You can download it here: http://www.designobjekt.de/test/jvc-everio.zip

Ah, I did not see that <_.splat._@mac.hush.com> also attached a file.

Could you maybe still look at my file to check if it's the same issue? it comes directly from the cam, it's completely unedited and about 800kb large. Thanks, Tom.

Replying to gbooker:

Thank you for spending time on this.

If technolion's files are the same problem, we all certainly do need to gripe to Apple.

I don't have a pay-for ADC account, so I by myself probably won't have much weight to get Apple to see these complaints.

Which type of public arena should we use? I can access the darwin maillists and the web-based discussion areas. Frankly I don't think either one will adequately push Apple to fix this.

I wonder if we should rather instead find a way to file a bug or to 'vote' for it if already open.

I've svn-co'd the Perian project as of today, will certainly join the effort best I can. (I saw the google-groups discussion re: its repository had to be rebuilt, so maybe after you-all can get the flip4mac+aviimporter patch back on there, I'll do a build here myself. :) fwiw I have self-built darn-near all possible libs to make ffmpeg+mplayer svn play almost everything on OSX, even have jackit & esound that most Macs won't need ;) ... I stay current on live555, x264, tons more also... should probably submit some patches back up to some of those projects, for ex. I had to fix x264 building shared macho dylibs properly... but mplayer svn just switched to libdvdread which doesn't build right here, turns out mplayer/stream/stream_dvd.c does not define read_toc() for our platform, so we disable it and force use mpdvdkit2 instead, but more current svn bugs in mplayer/configure to do that properly... y'know stuff like that... but this is o.t. for the a52codec ;) )

Replying to gbooker:

whoops I forgot to insert my email addy in that post above this one

a final question: how to get a login id so we can edit our typing mistakes here? ;)

Replying to anonymous:

If technolion's files are the same problem, we all certainly do need to gripe to Apple. I don't have a pay-for ADC account, so I by myself probably won't have much weight to get Apple to see these complaints. Which type of public arena should we use? I can access the darwin maillists and the web-based discussion areas. Frankly I don't think either one will adequately push Apple to fix this.

I would use either the QuickTime Users or QuickTime API lists. Posting here is where I got my aforementioned response.

I wonder if we should rather instead find a way to file a bug or to 'vote' for it if already open. I've svn-co'd the Perian project as of today, will certainly join the effort best I can. (I saw the google-groups discussion re: its repository had to be rebuilt, so maybe after you-all can get the flip4mac+aviimporter patch back on there, I'll do a build here myself. :) fwiw I have self-built darn-near all possible libs to make ffmpeg+mplayer svn play almost everything on OSX, even have jackit & esound that most Macs won't need ;) ... I stay current on live555, x264, tons more also... should probably submit some patches back up to some of those projects, for ex. I had to fix x264 building shared macho dylibs properly... but mplayer svn just switched to libdvdread which doesn't build right here, turns out mplayer/stream/stream_dvd.c does not define read_toc() for our platform, so we disable it and force use mpdvdkit2 instead, but more current svn bugs in mplayer/configure to do that properly... y'know stuff like that... but this is o.t. for the a52codec ;) )

Maybe not as o.t. as you may think. There are plans to merge a52codec into perian. ffmpeg has a decompressor for a52/ac3 so it is only a matter of time. Once perian starts to branch out of simple dixv playback, expect audio codecs to be one such area.

Lastly, as far as login IDs, trac doesn't have the ability to create IDs. However, it shoulds like you may be interested in contributing to perian. If you should join the project, the svn account there will also work in trac here (hint hint, join!). The repository rebuild was simply just a recovery from backup (hosted on the same system as this project).

Replying to gbooker:

Lastly, as far as login IDs, trac doesn't have the ability to create IDs. However, it shoulds like you may be interested in contributing to perian. If you should join the project, the svn account there will also work in trac here (hint hint, join!). The repository rebuild was simply just a recovery from backup (hosted on the same system as this project).

hmm I joined the Perian Google Groups but don't see how that will apply to Trac here. I don't see any way to "join" any Trac Project at all. I did do Trac Settings for Perian and A52Codec so they'd both use the same hexcode cookie, at least it will fill-in my email field automatically here now. ;)

As for the QT maillists, I'll go slog-thru some recent history there to get a feel for talking to them there. It'd probably be the API list as this is a demux issue in that we want to know how to add a new demuxer and/or keep QT from cutting us out if it sees AC3 anywhere, wondering if it's hard-coded like that.

We'll forever be relegated to using open source apps if they won't realise QT needs to change to support standard digital TV. Yeah I might even try convincing them they need to support .ts streams and such, too. It ought to be two-way support, as you'd want to export to .ts in the case of playing home movies to hi-def displays that way (Streamclip and others can do this), you shouldn't need to burn to BR/HD DVD disk first. How much you want to bet Apple says "buy an iTV" instead of providing universal apps to use our existing machines, eh? ;)

oh one more last thing: the a52codec.dmg link on the main wiki here somehow cuts off the .dmg part of the filename during download, I don't think it's Camino doing it here. or is there a tracker for the website itself separately to file a bug for this?

Replying to _.splat._ <_.splat._@mac.hush.com>:

hmm I joined the Perian Google Groups but don't see how that will apply to Trac here. I don't see any way to "join" any Trac Project at all. I did do Trac Settings for Perian and A52Codec so they'd both use the same hexcode cookie, at least it will fill-in my email field automatically here now. ;)

By Join, I meant promise that you will make a useful commit or two and send the output of

htpasswd -dn username

to me (gbooker@users.sourceforge.net) so I can add you to the svn repository.

I agree with you about Apple's handling of non-Apple codecs. They really play second fiddle. I have joked with a few friends about how we need to kidnap a key quicktime engineer for perian so we can get information about how to do things.

P.S. Fixed the download link. It just needed quotes around the filename. I had to recreate the download script after the HD loss.

@gbooker: I'd love to get this issue fixed somehow. So, can you please tell me what the exakt problem is? Can you debug it on my video file? Or is the problem somewhere hidden in Quicktime code? If so, what do I need to ask for on the Quicktime lists?

Thanks, Tom.

Replying to technolion:

@gbooker: I'd love to get this issue fixed somehow. So, can you please tell me what the exakt problem is? Can you debug it on my video file? Or is the problem somewhere hidden in Quicktime code? If so, what do I need to ask for on the Quicktime lists? Thanks, Tom.

I believe this is the exact same problem as with VOB files. Perfectly reasonable assumption given the fact that the same component (by Apple) does both. This is something to complain to the powers that be at Apple until they fix it.

I am closing this ticket since everything I can find, everything I know about QuickTime, points to this being Apple's fault, and as such up to them to fix it.

Replying to gbooker:

(hmm I guess this ticket system doesn't notify via e-mail of updates, but I'm not the owner of this one ... I know Xiph uses this also and theirs did notify me, oh well, but that'll explain why I haven't been back here so soon ;) )

Thank you for taking time for this anyway.

Every time I go to Apple's lists, I get overwhelmed, I don't know enough to talk with them about this. QT is closed source except for the samples available at ADC and of course the SDKs. Has there been precedent to have them look at open projects such as this and provide some help?

On the note about adding me to the svn system here, I have an id at Sourceforge also, have provided some patches to several projects there. Let me figure out how to get e-mail working between us (they don't have a real SMTP server)...

In meantime we are all relegated to using VLC, MPlayer, etc. to play these files. That should give Apple a big goose but I guess it hasn't so far... maybe Leopard eh?...

Thank you again.

Replying to _.splat._ <_.splat._@mac.hush.com>:

(hmm I guess this ticket system doesn't notify via e-mail of updates, but I'm not the owner of this one ... I know Xiph uses this also and theirs did notify me, oh well, but that'll explain why I haven't been back here so soon ;) )

Likely something broken in the setup here.

Every time I go to Apple's lists, I get overwhelmed, I don't know enough to talk with them about this. QT is closed source except for the samples available at ADC and of course the SDKs. Has there been precedent to have them look at open projects such as this and provide some help?

My response from Apple wasn't very helpful. In fact, when I mentioned the idea of ripping DVDs for personal use (just like people do with CDs in iTunes), I just got a lecture about how this is against what the media companies want with which Apple has many contracts. Completely unhelpful.

On the note about adding me to the svn system here, I have an id at Sourceforge also, have provided some patches to several projects there. Let me figure out how to get e-mail working between us (they don't have a real SMTP server)...

Sf is always screwed up. There is a reason this is not hosted there. Same reason why Adium, Fire, Growl, and Perian aren't either.

In meantime we are all relegated to using VLC, MPlayer, etc. to play these files. That should give Apple a big goose but I guess it hasn't so far... maybe Leopard eh?...

We have given up on Apple. We are adding VOB support to Perian, and it won't be long until it has full MPEG2 playback support. Apple refuses to fix their stuff, then we will start costing them money.