Xmuxer and Ateme H.264/AVC ES files

[Mboufleur]

Hi, I was doing some testing and multiplexing the same files encoded using MainConcept's H.264 Encoder V2, and Ateme's Digital Encoder 1.9.0.20.
The same file was used as source and I attempted to use the same settings for both encoders.
After that, I used XMuxer to multiplex each H.264 video file with Two other MPA audios in a single TS stream.

The videos duration was exactly 2 minutes, and while using MainConcepts encoder, the resulting TS file was OK. However, using Ateme's encoder posed a issue that took me quite some time to figure out. Depending on which encoding configurations were chosen, the final TS file produced by XMuxer would have 2'05" , 2'15", and so on...
There were times when the XMuxer app would freeze after pressing the "Start" button and I would have to close the app and open it again. There were times when I would open the application after a freeze situation like the one described above, and not even the files I used before would work again.
So all in all, it was a pretty weird situation.

One of the things I found out at first, was that by changing the Slice mode in the video encode settings inside Ateme, it would change the way the final TS file multiplexed by XMuxer would behave.



I then tryed to use the Graphedit application in order to create files in a way similar to XMuxer, because Xmuxer was hanging way to often.




Then after setting all the configurations, I used the same video produced with Slice 1, and Slice 2 modes. These pictures below show the results for Slice 1 mode after they are muxed by MainConcept multiplexer.



And these are the results when the Slice 2 mode was used...



So, You can see that the final duration for the file using Slice Mode 2 is different.

In Ateme's manual, the Slice mode is something used to speed up encoding by splitting the frame among different cores (and as my machine uses two dual core Xeon processores, this makes for a big difference at the encoding time)...

The padding packets are also different, but I guess this is due to the fact that the two files are identified as having bigger and lower bitrates at the input (although the same bitrate was chosen when encoding with Ateme).

Could this be an effect of the Elecard MPEG Demultiplexer prior to Multiplexing process? Ir this might be an incompatibility with XMuxer and Ateme?

[Mboufleur]

Sorry about the broken links before. It seems my host was not nice enough and the images weren't appearing.
They seem to be Ok now, so I guess it's easier to picture the issue .

[Getbern Zagolski]

Mboufleur
How for you did turn out to push in components from XMuxer in Graphedit? Say please.

[SealTooGreat]

@ Zagolski

Start GraphEdit, click on the "blue box", new popup-window will appear. Find and click on "DirectShow Filters" and select  MainConcept's filter you wanna use and build graph upon selections you've made.

[Kostya]

Hi Mboufleur,

We study a problem which you have described. ASAP we will inform you on results. Thanks for the help in detection problem in our product.

Best Regards,
Konstantin.

[Mboufleur]

Thanks for your interest on fixing that. There's been a lot of incongruences among the different H.264 encoders - some from distinct companies behave better with applications from others companies and so on. Hopefully, we're on our path to interchangeability.

PS: I just forgot to mention in my previous post that the error also applies for "4 slices" or "automatic" (which in my case would be chosen as 4 slices because of the 4 cores).

[Kostya]

Hi Mboufleur,

What version of Elecard XMuxer Pro do you use? Please try to repeat your tests with last version of XMuxer Pro 2.5 Beta. You can download it from our site: http://www.elecard.com/products/products-pc/professional/xmuxer-pro/
Please upload Ateme's Digital Encoder 1.9.0.20 filter on our ftp (ftp.elecard.com, user name: uploader, password: ybrjveybrf,tkmyjcnm).

Best Regards,
Konstantin.

[Mboufleur]

I uploaded 3 ateme's filters to your ftp site: the encoder, the parser and the writer.
I didn't have the oportunity to test the latest beta version of the XMuxer, but as soon as I use it, I'll let you know about the results.

[Kostya]

I uploaded 3 ateme's filters to your ftp site: the encoder, the parser and the writer.
I didn't have the oportunity to test the latest beta version of the XMuxer, but as soon as I use it, I'll let you know about the results.

We will try to repeat our tests with filters which you have sent. We will wait your report on use new version of XMuxer Pro.

Best Regards,
Konstantin.

[SealTooGreat]

Hi Kostya,

I have Ateme h264 Digital Encoder v1.10.0.6. It has possibility outputting to .TS but it never works for me (for some reason) and than I star using Xmuxer Pro for the same purpose (.TS output).

I've encountered some problems regarding (re)multiplexing Ateme h264 (ES) and Ateme h264/mp4 to mp4/ts in Xmuxer Pro (v.2.5.70903_20-Sep_2007)

- multiplexing Atemeh264(ES) into mp4 gives some weird mp4 output - picture is totally in a mess.
- remultiplexing Atemeh264/mp4 to mp4 also gives same mess result.
- (re)multiplexing Ateme h264 (ES) or Ateme h264/mp4 to .TS produce correct result when playing in MPC (I've set it to uses filter chain Nero Splitter, CoreAVC decoder, ffdshow audio decoder, haali renderer, audio renderer), but mplayer refuses it to play reporting "FPS not specified in the header or invalid, use the -fps options". Similar problem with VLC but this time player can open the TS file but can not play it, it just hangs.

Dunno if this issue is caused form either Ateme or XmuxerPro, though XmuxerPro works fine with stream(ES and mp4) made by opensource x264.

Kostya, check PM.

[Kostya]

Hi SealTooGreat,
We will scrutinize a problem and  inform you on results. Thanks for your help

[Kostya]

Hi SealTooGreat
We have found out a problem, it will be corrected in the near future. I will send you the new version ASAP.

[SealTooGreat]

Looking forward for new ver.