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.

New Youtube features allows for custom player

Using a new feature by Youtube, you can customize the player. Here is what I get from youtube.com/custom_player:

Hover your mouse in the bottom of the video playing field while the video is playing and all video's stored in my favourites show up in cover flow style. Cool ! I don't get what the button with three dots next to the play button is supposed to do. Weird.