[MEncoder-users] Most recent svn builds produce bad H264 mp4 files for iPod?

[James Hastings-Trew]

  On 10-07-05 10:29 PM, Flint Million wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm using mplayer on win32, with the builds provided by the site that
> offers various svn builds.
>
> As of late, the SVN builds are producing invalid mp4 files using h264
> for playback on my iPod.
>
> Here is the commandline I use for encoding:
>
> mencoder -vf crop=(desired crop),scale=(desired size),dsize=(desired
> size) -af volnorm,resample=44100:0:2 -oac faac -ovc x264 -x264encopts
> bitrate=(bitrate):vbv_maxrate=(bitrate):vbv_bufsize=2000:nocabac:threads=2:global_header:level_idc=30:me=umh
> -faacopts mpeg=4:object=2:br=128:raw -of lavf -lavfopts format=mp4 -o
> (output) -ofps (fps) (source)
>
> (I have a script that replaces the things in parenthesies as necessary.)
>
> I have an old Mencoder SVN build that works just fine:
> MEncoder Sherpya-SVN-r29312-4.5.0 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
>
> But current build downloaded:
> MEncoder SVN-r31372-4.2.5 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
> produces mp4 files that do not play properly. They appear to have a
> color distortion or in some cases even just show random color blocks
> moving about the output!
>
> I'm not too familiar with all of the various versions, patches and all
> that, especially for win32, so if anyone can shed some light on this,
> it'd be greatly appreciated! I'm even willing to try compiling my own
> version - I'm very familiar with compiling software on Linux, but I've
> never done it on Windows/MinGW, so a tutorial would be very helpful!
>
> (This is an Intel dual-core system, by the way, so I am getting the p4
> mt build - but I've tried the non mt builds with the same result.)

Andrew already answered this one for you - the problem is a change in 
x264 defaults from no b-frames to b-frames. Broke a lot of scripts that 
didn't explicitly declare bframes=0. Not a good idea to suddenly change 
a default like this, particularly when there is an entire class of 
fairly popular devices on the market that this would affect... just my 
2cents worth.