Hi Ivan,

sorry for bothering you, i know you're a busy man.

BlackSun, the coder of PowerDivX 3.12 player ( coded in VB !! ) is currently working on next generation, PowerDivX 4, coded in C++. A first Beta is already available over at http://www.powerdivx.com , looking quite promising. I am trying to help him with moderating the forums there and organize beta testing.

We plan to make the player read MPEG4 streams, and i hate to admit i dont have a clue about what that means for now , but i promise we'll find out. I know you are busy coding programs encoding both audio and video compliant to MPEG4 standards and remember another thread where you have been mentioning two players ( Philips and another one ) that should be able to play them. We would really appreciate if you could name us some sources where we could find something about MPEG4 , what kind of parser is used, what formats are supported, etc.

Pls. allow me to ask you a few questions :

1. What video/audio formats are allowed for MPEG4 ? I know AAC is a valid audio format, but that's about it. Is there any chance to use other compression standards, like f.e. Vorbis, in MPEG4 ?

2. Do you have any sources or links that could help us ?

3. What are your feelings about a new, unproprietary format replacing AVI ? I heard Xiphoporus is working on such a new standard, but i'm not sure it is what we need for MPEG4 movies with Vorbis or AAC sound streams.

Thank you in advance, again my apologies for bothering you.

Christian

Actually I'm writing PowerDivX in delphi so it will be a bit difficult. The only way are DLL or DirectShow filters.

Check out: http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net

MPEG-4 file format (.mp4) can contain MP3 and MPEG-4 Audio, that is - MP3, AAC, TwinVQ, AAC-LD, CELP, HILN and Structured Audio (SA) and it can also contain MPEG-4 WTC and JPEG2000 still images

It is also able to contain all profiles of MPEG-4 video (simple is not the only one, you know - ACE is much better, and the upcoming H.26L that will be integrated into MPEG-4 will provide same quality like Simple Profile but at half of the bitrate!!!)

On the MPEG4IP site you will find complete MP4 I/O library and sample player - quite enough to start understanding the format. There is also an ISO code and ISO library (libisomediafile, libisomp4) but it is not available to non-MPEG members and, anyway, I think that MPEG4IP implementation of file format is better...

MPEG-4 file format is OS independent, neutral, file format - apart from audio and video, it can carry MPEG-4 Systems (BIFS) and it could provide same degree of functionality as Macromedia Flash (moving objects, animations, 3D meshes, itd..)

Intersting links:

www.envivio.com -- MPEG-4 in action (MPEG-4 Systems, too)

www.sourceforge.net/projects/mpeg4ip (Open Source implementation of MPEG-4, without Systems)

www.mpeg-4player.com (Philips MPEG-4 Player, no Systems)

Many thanks for theses links. ChristianHJW told me that you are looking for a player, aren't you interested in helping us to playback mp4 ?

I am using MPEG4IP player for debugging purposes - I would like to help, but I am very busy with authoring (encoding) tools and encoders, I'll see if I find some more free time..

It would be great, PowerDivX 4 will be a very great player, here the current feature list to add to PowerDivX 3.12:

- API calls into the player's interfaces (for webpage integration)
- Brightness/Constrast/Saturation filter
- Metadata reading
- Quicktime playback
- DVD Playback [10 % Done]
- Audio playback with Winamp plugins support [50 % Done]
- Plugins systems which allow the plugin to control the player
- Enhanced DiviDivX DVD-like menu system [1 % Done]
- Better chapter support
- Asynchronous Source (http/ftp) [10 % Done]
- MPEG4-ISO playback with AAC support [Need help with this]
- Some video info
- Video bilinear resizing, cropping and black edges [80 % Done]
- Huge speed improvements [100 % Done]
- OSD [50 % Done]
- Snapshots capabilities
- Bookmark
- Skin maker (maybe)
- Full screen control like PowerDVD 3/4 or WMP [60 % Done]
- Better options box [100 % Done]
- 30 subtitles file formats supported [75 % Done]
- New hotkeys
- Audio equalizer
- Filter DIRECT [Realtime] interfacing for Dedynamic/DivX4 [100 % Done]
- PowerDivX DirectShow Core DLL (will let us write a new player in less than 5 min) [98 % Done]
- New default skin [75 % Done]
- Tray icon [50 % Done]
- File association
- Windows XP theme support [100 % Done]

Thanks Ivan,

but i guess its going to be a new, unproprietary format replacing AVIs.

We had Avery Lee himself replying here http://www.powerdivx.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=47 and hope to see him more often..... you know he is a very busy person.

Also looking at TMF for the moment, a guy called Tronic invested some time into this new format, it will offer a few capabilities and possibilities being ideal for VBR audio and other things that need to be improved from AVI format.