Quicktime player nonresponsive with 4 channel-448kbit/sec AC3 input

[anonymous]

Attempting to play an AVI file with 4channel AC3 sound causes QT player to become nonresponsive (spinning wheel) and it must be killed with Activity Monitor.

I did this with the latest a52codec source 1.7.5 (and it also happens with the released 1.7.2)

I am not completely sure whether this is an a52codec problem, or a Perian problem, but I have a similar video with the same video characteristics but only 2-channel AC3 audio, and it works fine.

THe problem video plays fine in VLC.

I have attached a Activity Monitor sample capture taken during the spinning wheel, and pictures of the file parameters displayed by Visualhub.

I extracted 15 second portions of the problem file and a "good" file using Visualhub with pass-through settings. Unfortunately, although the audio cuts out a couple of seconds into the segment of the bad file, it doesn't cause the freezing behaviour I see with the full file.

The video files are episodes of Lost. The "bad" file is episode 18, the "good" file is episode 17. Both seem to have been encoded by the same person, though the "bad" file has the 4-channel audio.

[anonymous]

Visualhub info window of "good" file

[anonymous]

Visualhub info window of "bad" file - note 4-channel 448kbit/sec audio

[etiffany@…]

adding email address to issue

[gbooker]

I can't diagnose the problem from this information. It seems that from the sample, it is freezing in the sound component (not the a52component). What is the encoder's name, and season of the ep; perhaps I can find it and try it out myself.

[etiffany@…]

Replying to gbooker:

It's Lost season 3, ep 18. Lost.S03E18.HR.HDTV.XviD-TVFF.avi You might be able to get it  at tvtorrents

I can upload the torrent file (the avi file is 700Mb). But I also have a relatively small (3.5Mb) segment of the original file that gives QT problems but plays fine in VLC.

[anonymous]

OK, I guess 3.5Mb is too big to upload. You can get the segment of the original file  here

[gbooker]

I deleted your attachment because of the way that Tvtorrents works, your username is associated with the torrent file.

I have a tvtorrents account, so I will look at it whenever I can finish downloading it.

[gbooker]

OK, I have the file, and it doesn't freeze here. I didn't play through the whole thing (I have seen this episode already), but playing the first minute or so doesn't cause any problems. Same with playing for a few seconds at random points in the file.

Granted, I am using the SVN versions of both Perian and the A52Codec, so that may be the fix, but I am suspicious that it may be more related to the hardware or sound configuration you have set up there. Since it works here, pending evidence to the contrary, I will make it as works for me.

[anonymous]

Thanks for checking. I found the same thing after downloading the 1.0b2 perian dist which includes the 1.7.5 a52codec sw. It works under QT 7.1.6 on my mac.

Unfortunately, it still freezes on my Apple TV, which is where I first noticed this problem. And which is where I'm most eager to get this working. The released perian0.5 and a52codec components worked fine on AppleTV until these 4-channel encodings appeared.

I have moved all the components that install with the Perian 1.0b2 installation over to the AppleTV, but it still freezes there. So I suppose this is some QT bug that was fixed in 7.1.6, and my Apple TV is still running the "stock" QT stuff that's built in.

What version of QT are you running on your Mac? I just upgraded to 7.1.6 yesterday.

[gbooker]

I actually had the software update app sitting in the background telling me to update the quicktime for several days, so the version I tested with was 7.1.5. I don't think it is a fix in 7.1.6.

[magnus@…]

Just installed Perian 1.0b2 on my AppleTV, but kept the old A52codec files. The episode of Lost mentioned above now works like a charm.

Just updating to quicktime 7.1.6 had no effect on my Powerbook G4. So it seems like there is some problem with Perian that is now fixed in the beta.