Cast for two

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Make mp4 files faststart with MP4box

The beta Flash player 9 , allows for playback of mp4 files containing AVC video and AAC audio. The example worked but the entire file was first downloaded before playback started. This is because the so called moov atom, is not in front of the file. To fix this on Mac OSX, I first downloaded MP4box (for OSX/PPC). Then, I issued the command: mp4box -inter 500 test.mp4 and uploaded the test.mp4 file. Now, the demo is faststart!

To make sure, I made no errors, I made a second example that is indeed not fast start. The I issued the mp4box command:

The resulting file benefiet_inter.mp4 is included in a third demo that is fast start: Third Test of mp4 in Flash version 9

This is the info you get from mp4box -info:


l02958:~/Desktop ln$ ../../../Applications/MP4Box -info benefiet_inter.mp4
* Movie Info *
Timescale 600 - Duration 00:03:35.006
Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
File Brand mp42 - version 1
Created: GMT Wed Oct 3 17:55:44 2007

File has no MPEG4 IOD/OD

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 600 - Duration 00:03:34.920
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "vide" - Sub Type "avc1" - 5373 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21
AVC/H264 Video - Visual Size 384 x 224 - Profile Main @ Level 1.3
NAL Unit length bits: 32
Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 32000 - Duration 00:03:35.008
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "soun" - Sub Type "mp4a" - 6719 samples
MPEG-4 Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40
MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 1 Channel(s) - SampleRate 32000
Synchronized on stream 1

It would be nice that somehow I could figure out where the moov atom is with mp4box. But that's for another post.

11 comments:

arnekolja 1 said...

Do you still have the mp4box file? The download seems down.

Anonymous said...
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King Bayern Munich said...
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Anonymous said...

You can check atoms using

MP4Box -v -info file.mp4

Moleeki said...

Good job!!! i have just download mp4box, works well for me. thanks very much, Nachtergaele.

cast42 said...

Where to download and install mp4box on osx : instructions here http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=11343

CD distribution said...

I never would’ve thought about it this way unless it runs into your blog. Thanks for putting it up. I hope you have great success.

Unknown said...

but, if the software works, I tried the software, it doesn't work, so I try computer monitoringq

abettersoft said...

great guide, however, I think is easier to convert mp4 videos to other formats, such as mov format which supports better with media players

wellsithess said...


just find a good video converter to help to do so, such as aiseesoft video converter for mac is such a tooll which I have been using for a long time for convert mts to mov for editing and replay. just have a try at: http://www.ivideotool.com/ . good luck!!

video converter said...

How can I download mp4box? Thank you!