MM doesn't accept *.mp4 Videos - although codec is installed!

[John Kelly]

Hello,

Nero is (like the program that was delivered with the camcorder) for
disc-freaks...

Well yes, thats what Nero's primary purpose is.....but it can also create
virtual disks and it can also export to a very large number of formats. A
lot of which I had never before encountered.

I use the virtual disks (you can have two online at one time) to preview
the DVD Image I have created before sending it to a real DVD, I have to
admit that it has only saved me one disk though....I had messed up the menus

I am presently experimenting with commercial program disks...I make an
image and then load that as a virtual disk....such a disk runs VERY
fast.....for the purposes of read only databases stored on a large DVD where
that database can be accessed at Hard Drive speeds instead of dvd disk speed
the benefits are obvious.

Back to your main point though, I guess that if you are going to store a
lot of video in the way indicated you must have a large amount of disposable
hard drive space and an equally large capacity backup system.

As for the right tool to do what you want, well if you find one that
only does what you want and nothing else perhaps you can let us all know
about it. I am sure that a lot of equaly frustrated people would be
interested.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
ww.the-kellys.org

Instant Lovers Love Instant Experts too

 

[John Kelly]

Hewllo,

Take note that unless he has chabged his policy he will charge for
sorting out complex projects.

You will find mention of that in his newsletters....

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org

Don't you just LOVE Instant Experts?

 

[Rehan]

SANYO XACTI C4

ingobert, you may be interested in this open source project which is
essentially the converter for your camera's movie files:

"MP4Cam2AVI - .MP4(.MOV) to .AVI converter/joiner for digital cameras"
http://mp4cam2avi.sourceforge.net/

"MP4Cam2AVI is a .MP4|.MOV to .AVI convert & join tool for digital MPEG-4
camcorders, such as Sanyo Xacti ...C4..."

"With MP4Cam2AVI, you can:

1. Convert & join many .mp4(.mov) files from your camera to one .avi
(action: Many MP4(MOV) -> One AVI);
2. Convert many .mp4(.mov) files to avi, each name.mp4 to name.avi (action:
Many MP4(MOV) -> Many AVI);
...."



and much more



hope it helps

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Thanks Rehan.... my first test of MP4Cam2AVI wasn't successful. It converted
an .mp4 file from an Olympus C-7070 to an AVI file but it plays only the
audio... I don't have an installed codec that supports playing the new
file.The info with the app says that Direct Show codecs, such as those used
by Windows Media Player, are not suitable...

I'm sure it can get there, but it'll be another step to get and setup the
appropriate codec(s) to use the utility when heading toward Movie Maker.

This is typical of my experience with DVDRHelp.com and the open source
apps.... they take you half way. You end up with a Divx encoded AVI file
that needs another conversion.

 

[Guest]

Interesting conversation about .MP4 files. John Kelly and PapaJohn are much
smarter than me on this stuff... but here's my 2 cents (or a buck-50 if you
read this whole thread.

..MP4 is essentially an Apple Quicktime format. If you want to edit .MP4
files (without messy format conversion)... you will need a Mac. Yes you can
play .MP4 videos on other media players... but only Quicktime and Apple
editing programs can fully manipulate those videos.

MPEG-4 is a broad standard with many flavors. It's important to know that
only some MPEG-4 videos use the .MP4 file extension (also described as
container format).

Microsoft has an mpeg-4 codec format (uses .ASF), Real Networks has one
(.RM), DivX uses mpeg-4 with .AVI and .DIVX, so does On2, and finally... the
king of MPEG-4 (Apple) uses .MOV and .MP4 extension for virtually the same
codec.

What does all this mean to you... not much, just background.

The engineers over at Sanyo never intended you to edit those movies with
Movie Maker (or any other video editing software). I know, I had many
meetings with Panasonic and Samsung about the same issue.

The product marketing types at Sanyo (and others selling tiny flash-card
camcorders) are pushing a concept called "shoot-n-share." The whole idea is
to skip video editing, just shoot video clips and import the clips to your PC
as you would JPEG photos, then share in email or online.

The shoot-n-share concept is gaining popularity outside the U.S., where
household PC penetration is much lower. But in the great US-of-A we're
spoiled by having the most powerful PCs (and most per household) in the
world... so video editing is fast becoming mainstream here. Ever wonder why
every digital still camera has a video mode, but nobody ever uses it? In the
global market, people like the 30 second video clips. But here most people
never use the video option because the quality is horrible when compared to
DV-AVI, and way too short. Thus they become "throw-away" videos.

Sanyo must have paid a license to Apple for the MPEG-4 codec and probably
the Quicktime player logo is even on the box. They may have even included a
really crappy one-off Sanyo video editing app. Nothing you would ever use.

So why .MP4 over other formats?
The conversation over at Sanyo went something like this 3 years ago:
Engineers said "hey, we want to use MPEG-4 codec from Apple because 1) it's a
semi-open standard, 2) it's cheap to license, 3) they are CE guys so they are
more familiar with MPEG formats and Quicktime, 4) MPEG-4 looks really good at
small sizes, and 5) they get to use a cheaper chip in the camcorder (Windows
Media compression is more processor intensive, especially when using the wmv9
codec, so it takes a much more expensive chip).

Then the marketing guys said: sounds good to us. nobody will really edit
these videos... only designed for playback and sharing. We'll include the
Quicktime Player in the box and that's that.

Anyway, maybe this is all interesting but useless information.

I'm personally really interested in the flash-based Camcorders... the
concept is pretty cool. But for some reason the engineers (Sanyo, Panasonic,
Samsung, others) are absultely clueless when it comes to format decisions. At
least your camcorder uses a standard format like MP4... I've had other Flash
Camcorders that used a proprietary format that required a custom media player
included to play.

It would be great if the CE engineers in Japan would take a harder look at
WMV or ASF format for the Flash Camcorders.

Last thought... do you know about Neptune.com for online video sharing? I
work for Neptune, and the Mediashare service accepts .MP4 files. You might
want to go to Neptune.com, sign up for a free trial, then use the Easy Upload
feature to upload .MP4 videos into Quicktime albums. Windows Media and
Quicktime play equally well on Neptune... we get tons of .MP4 files from the
new Apple iMovie software.

Good luck!

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Very interesting write up James...

Where there is video and people who use Movie Maker, there will be a desire
to edit the video, no matter how short the clip or how low the quality...
the expanding use of still cameras and cell phones with video features will
continue.

A five second clip from a still camera in MP4 format might make the perfect
intro, middle or ending to a long movie... mixing all the inputs together is
what the computer lets us do... to me there's the need to continue to help
users know how to do any needed conversions.

Thanks a lot... I wonder if iMovie handles them without conversion.

 

[Rehan]

Thanks Rehan.... my first test of MP4Cam2AVI wasn't successful. It converted
an .mp4 file from an Olympus C-7070 to an AVI file but it plays only the
audio... I don't have an installed codec that supports playing the new
file.The info with the app says that Direct Show codecs, such as those used
by Windows Media Player, are not suitable...

I'm sure it can get there, but it'll be another step to get and setup the
appropriate codec(s) to use the utility when heading toward Movie Maker.

This is typical of my experience with DVDRHelp.com and the open source
apps.... they take you half way. You end up with a Divx encoded AVI file
that needs another conversion.

I agree. And thats why I asked the OP to send me a sample to test so
that I can suggest a process that works. But perhaps he got scared away...

Guess if there is enough interest shown to the developers, they can
easily implement the codec selection dialog during the conversion process.

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much!!!!!

I downloaded it, I tested it, it works 100%, its superfast!

Now I can make a superfast & LOSSLESS batch processing with all the mp4
files and then continue with any prog I want...

What really was new to me: that an mpeg file can be converted to an avi file
without recompression...

By the way: the icon of the program is showing exactly my camera... i think
there were some C4 users with the same probs ;-)

 

[Rehan]

You are most welcome!!

Keep us updated how the converted files behave in Movie Maker.

Regards

 

[Guest]

.MP4 is essentially an Apple Quicktime format. If you want to edit .MP4

files (without messy format conversion)... you will need a Mac. Yes you can
play .MP4 videos on other media players... but only Quicktime and Apple
editing programs can fully manipulate those videos.

*** sounds a little bit esoteric...

MPEG-4 is a broad standard with many flavors. It's important to know that
only some MPEG-4 videos use the .MP4 file extension (also described as
container format).

Microsoft has an mpeg-4 codec format (uses .ASF), Real Networks has one
(.RM), DivX uses mpeg-4 with .AVI and .DIVX, so does On2, and finally... the
king of MPEG-4 (Apple) uses .MOV and .MP4 extension for virtually the same
codec.

*** And thats the reason why this little prog "mp4cam2avi" can convert the
mp4s to avi's lossless without recompression - because its the same in the
core...

The engineers over at Sanyo never intended you to edit those movies with
Movie Maker (or any other video editing software). I know, I had many
meetings with Panasonic and Samsung about the same issue.

*** Of course they did. They included 2 Video editing progs from Ulead. (the
only prob for me: you can only produce DVDs/VCDs). You mabe don't know the
sanyo camcorders (C4, C5). They are not like all these "digicams with movie",
they are really 50/50 camcorder/stillcam. Have a look at the design and
you'll know what i mean...

The product marketing types at Sanyo (and others selling tiny flash-card
camcorders) are pushing a concept called "shoot-n-share." The whole idea is
to skip video editing, just shoot video clips and import the clips to your PC
as you would JPEG photos, then share in email or online.

The shoot-n-share concept is gaining popularity outside the U.S., where
household PC penetration is much lower. But in the great US-of-A we're
spoiled by having the most powerful PCs (and most per household) in the
world... so video editing is fast becoming mainstream here. Ever wonder why
every digital still camera has a video mode, but nobody ever uses it? In the
global market, people like the 30 second video clips. But here most people
never use the video option because the quality is horrible when compared to
DV-AVI, and way too short.

*** Oh, oh...The C4 is absolutely compareable to a standard consumer
DV-tape-camcorder - stereosound in CD quality, Image stabilizer, 6x optical
zoom, recording time with a 2GB SD-card: 2 hours... i don't work for sanyo
but mabe you should really have a look at it... believe me: in some years we
will have less tape-camcorders on the market then flashcard camcorders.

Sanyo must have paid a license to Apple for the MPEG-4 codec and probably
the Quicktime player logo is even on the box.

*** No, it's not.

So why .MP4 over other formats?
The conversation over at Sanyo went something like this 3 years ago:
Engineers said "hey, we want to use MPEG-4 codec from Apple because 1) it's a
semi-open standard, 2) it's cheap to license, 3) they are CE guys so they are
more familiar with MPEG formats and Quicktime, 4) MPEG-4 looks really good at
small sizes

*** mp4 looks also really good at big sizes, if you choose a corresponding
bitrate...

and 5) they get to use a cheaper chip in the camcorder (Windows

Media compression is more processor intensive, especially when using the wmv9
codec, so it takes a much more expensive chip).

*** yeah, and if it's less processor intesive, it takes less battery power...

Then the marketing guys said: sounds good to us. nobody will really edit
these videos... only designed for playback and sharing. We'll include the
Quicktime Player in the box and that's that.

Anyway, maybe this is all interesting but useless information.

*** no, but half of it is just wrong ;-)

I'm personally really interested in the flash-based Camcorders... the
concept is pretty cool. But for some reason the engineers (Sanyo, Panasonic,
Samsung, others) are absultely clueless when it comes to format decisions. At
least your camcorder uses a standard format like MP4... I've had other Flash
Camcorders that used a proprietary format that required a custom media player
included to play.

It would be great if the CE engineers in Japan would take a harder look at
WMV or ASF format for the Flash Camcorders.

*** yeah, it would save some additional space, but mp4 seems going to be a
standard format for flashcard camcorders... and in times of bigger and bigger
flashcards and since it's easy & lossless to convert...

By the way: sanyo told me that they'll bring a HDTV-flashcard-camcorder this
autumn...