[Gamester17]

this is not a feature request

why is this not a feature request?, 3ivx is officialy not supported by xbmc, see http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/info_project.htm

what is the fourcc of the audio and video coded of the media file. does the same file play on a pc in mplayer for windows/linux?

[Vesh]

<s>those answers are all in the post.</s> ah, missed the all-important "in mplayer" bit. hold on (dont love it, dont have it - gotta grab).

plays fine.

according to mplayer:
mp4a
mp4v '3ivx d4 4.5'

[Gamester17]

@Vesh, you still haven't answered my fourcc codec question, xbmc does not show that. you need to use some third-party application.

ps! as you can see on mplayer's website, mplayer does not nativly support any 3ivx codecs, fourcc "3iv1" is supported on mplayer for linux/windows through win32 dll's, dll's which xbmc does not support, (xbmc almost only support native mplayer codecs):
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/info.html
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/codecs-status.html

[Gamester17]

according to mplayer:
mp4a
mp4v '3ivx d4 4.5'

xbmc will try to play "mp4v" with ffmpeg mpeg-4 (mplayer native codec), not fully compatible so will cause the symtoms you see.
mplayer on pc on the other hand will likely play same with with "win32/quicktime mpeg-4 decoder" (quicktime.qts = win32 dll).

i'm merging your post into the existing feature suggestion thread for real 3ivx codec support as this is not yet supported by xbmc.

[Vesh]

*nods* especially when i saw the color band, i knew it was a best-match-not-close-enough situation. was just hoping for a band-aid that now i know isn't available.

thank ya for the time and clear response, though. at least now i can get on with other things. =]

[Crackbaby]

i tried several .xl.3ivx.mov on my xbox and some worked fine which was very nice... of the seven i have it looks like 3 work just fine and the other four don't work right. the three that work fine have multiple audio streams and the ones that don't work only have one audio stream. do you have an idea of what would be causing this?
they all play fine in mplayer
they are all encoded with qt aac audio and mp4 video.
looking at the information that mplayer spits out the only difference between the two is the ones with multiple audio streams have more tracks


works:
quicktime/mov file format detected.
--------------
mov track #0: 26780 chunks, 239247 samples
audio bits: 16  chans: 2  rate: 44100
audio extra header: len=103  fcc=0x77617665
mov: found mpeg4 audio elementary stream descriptor atom (51)!
fourcc: mp4a
--------------
mov track #1: 22222 chunks, 133192 samples
mov: found mpeg4 movie elementary stream descriptor atom (86)!
image size: 712 x 360 (32 bpp)
display size: 865 x 360
fourcc: mp4v  codec: '3ivx d4 4.5'
--------------
mov track #2: 26351 chunks, 239247 samples
audio bits: 16  chans: 2  rate: 44100
audio extra header: len=103  fcc=0x77617665
mov: found mpeg4 audio elementary stream descriptor atom (51)!
fourcc: mp4a
--------------
mov track #3: 24 chunks, 24 samples
generic track - not completely understood! (id: 3)
--------------
mov: longest streams: a: #0 (239247 samples)  v: #1 (133192 samples)
clip info:
name: rushmore
copyright: 1998
comments: encoded by bennyjhonson
==========================================================================


doesn't work:
quicktime/mov file format detected.
compressed header uses zlib algo!
compressed header size: 1669558 / 3977122
--------------
mov track #0: 46101 chunks, 413123 samples
audio bits: 16  chans: 2  rate: 44100
audio extra header: len=103  fcc=0x77617665
mov: found mpeg4 audio elementary stream descriptor atom (51)!
fourcc: mp4a
--------------
mov track #1: 38390 chunks, 239868 samples
mov: found mpeg4 movie elementary stream descriptor atom (87)!
image size: 712 x 416 (32 bpp)
display size: 1038 x 416
fourcc: mp4v  codec: '3ivx d4 4.5'
--------------
mov track #2: 24 chunks, 24 samples
generic track - not completely understood! (id: 2)
--------------
mov: longest streams: a: #0 (413123 samples)  v: #1 (239868 samples)
clip info:
copyright: 2002
comments: encoded by midi3e
name: gangs of new york
==========================================================================

i deleted all of the qt codecs out of the mplayer codecs directory and all of the movies still played fine, have any ideas?

[Crackbaby]

i think the real reason that they are not working is that the 4 that don't work have this:
compressed header uses zlib algo!
compressed header size: 1235012 / 2880069

the ones that work don't have the compressed header.
any ideas?
and i guess a fix would be to replace the header with one that is not compressed. is there a good tool to do that?

[Crackbaby]

3ivx makes 100% compatible mpeg 4 files... the problem is the compressed header in the quicktime file. zlib compression support needs to be added to xbmc to make it work. take the exact same file, demux it, then remux it with a standard qt header results in it playing fine. even the multiple audio stream ones.

see in the mplayer installation guide:
intstall guide
in the software requirements section:
zlib - recommended, necessary for compressed mov header and png support.

i wish i could code better i'd add it myself.
the zlib site:
zlib main site

i saw somewhere you need to add a compile flag when compiling mplayer to add support but i can't find that page again.

-edit-
you have png support so the zlib library is already partially implemented, it just needs to be implemented on the video side.

[Crackbaby]

well i am a little disapointed. i figured out what was going on on the mpeg4 .mov that was breaking playback on them and you didn't even reply that you weren't going to implement it. i have found an alternate solution to get them to play. i don't think adding zlib support would be that hard.

[appleguru]

i'm not sure why, but some 3ivx xl .movs (3ivx mpeg-4 enocded video; aac audio in a .mov container) play fine whereas others do not play at all (upon selecting them, xbmc just acts like nothing happened...) i'll look into it a bit more and see if i can determine any differences between the files that work and the ones that don't... i can also provide test clips if needed.

[deltop]

make sure you test them with a win32 build of mplayer, latest version is mplayer-pre05 (which will be implemented into xbmc soonish afaik).

if they don't work with mplayer you 'll have to wait until the mplayer devs fix the problem.

http://www.christianroessler.net/mplayer/index.php

you might also want to check into 3ivx's compatabilty with ffmpeg which is what mplayer uses to decode mpeg-4 streams. generally they should work, but unless 3ivx is directly supported (unlikely since it's a propriety codec) some may not which is most likely the problem here.

[appleguru]

they *all* work fine in the latest mplayer on the pc (well, fine shortof a few audio synch issues with a few files... )

i've yet to look at the differences in the files, but in terms of the video bitstream, 3ivx is 100% mpeg-4 spec compliant (ie, it's all mpeg-4 video). i have a feeling this bug is somewhere in the .mov parsing

[appleguru]

ok; found the commonality between files that play and files that don't:

compressed headers.

those with compressed movie atoms do not play; those without do... any idea on a fix?

[deltop]

ah yes now i remember, yep this needs to be implemented in xbmc.

it's been brought up before. if you do a search you should find the relevant posts on the problem. if you could add your support to one of the existing threads on the subject in feature suggestions that'd be great.

[appleguru]

thanks for moving/combining my thread with this one; glad to see that it's not just me 8)

well, okay then, add another request for zlib compressed movie headers support to the list :-d