Rendering for Internet streaming on a MAC

RickD wrote on 2/17/2007, 7:21 AM

I have a problem trying to create a QuickTime movie that will primarily be used for Internet streaming by MACs. In other words, I want to post a .mov file on my web site that will be viewed almost exclusively by MAC users.

The problem is that no matter how I try to render the move, no matter what settings I use, I always get the following results:

(1) THE MOVIE FILE WILL ***NOT PLAY AT ALL*** UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ON A MAC. This includes direct loading from a disc or CD, or by streaming from my web site. It also includes different versions of the OS from 7 to 10 and different versions of the QuickTime player.

(2) THE MOVE FILE WILL ***ALWAYS PLAY*** UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES ON A PC. This includes direct load from a disc or CD into any PC program that supports the QuickTime movie format or Inernet streaming from my web site. It even plays on a nine year old PC with the original version of Windows 98 that has never been upgraded.

I have tried numerous combinations of rendering settings but nothing works. Basically, since the movie will primarily be viewed on the Internet, I want to use a streaming format so I select the 256 kbps setting and start from there when making changes to my template.

The other thing to note is that I have added a music track to this movie file, but that appears to be irrelevant. Regardless of whether or not I include audio with the file the results are exactly the same: ALWAYS plays on PC, NEVER plays on MAC.

Can anyone help me figure this out? How do I render for playback on a MAC?

Comments

mikkie wrote on 2/17/2007, 8:26 AM

Rick you haven't said how you're creating your vid now... In case it might help, & bearing in mind I'm NOT a MAC person, have no easy way to test etc... Other than using std quicktime stuff like Sorrenson...

I have created MAC compatible vid using Nero's mp4 encoder set for MAC compatibility. Winmedia is available but requires MAC player install, & the player isn't great I've heard. DivX has a player for MACs: http://labs.divx.com/archives/000072.html Could always bite the bullet & go to Flash: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player

If you're setting up the server http://mpeg4ip.net/ might be of use, though I don't know how up to date it is anymore. MPEG_Streamclip might be of use as well.If you could look up the specs, what settings are required, might be able to use x264 with one of the GUIs to create MAC spec vid, and maybe could find what you need over at videolan.org

RickD wrote on 2/17/2007, 10:22 AM

Sorry, I thought it was understood that I was using Vegas to create the movie. And I'm not a MAC person either, I run Vegas on a PC.

Vegas allows you tor render to QuickTime movie files, an Apple format, so the assumption is that these files should play on MACs. The problem is that they don't.

But - they do play on PCs using QuickTime for Windows.

All I want to do is render my Vegas project to a QuickTime movie file so that it is able to play on a MAC.

jrazz wrote on 2/17/2007, 11:55 AM

I think what Mikkie was getting at is we need to know your settings for the encode. This may not be the issue, but to know your encode settings would be helpful in troubleshooting.

Also, when you make a disc, how are you making it? Does the disc show up on the mac or is it just chugging away without reporting a disc?

j razz

RickD wrote on 2/17/2007, 12:39 PM

OK, the first thing I do is to select "Render As" from the File menu. Then I select "QuickTime 7 (*.mov)" in the "File save type:" box and "QuickTime Photo-JPEG 1a" in the "Template" box. This template matches almost exactly the format of the original source file which I recorded on my Olympus still camera. The only setting I change is the frame rate from 29.970 to 15.000 fps - only because that's the frame rate of the original .mov file from the camera. At this point I am not yet concerned about the audio.

Now, my render settings are exactly the same format as the original .mov file from the camera. I render this project to a .mov file and that's where the trouble begins. Just as I explained before, this file will play on any PC under any cicrumstances (different media players, disk vs. Internet...) and under no circumstances will it play on any MAC.

It is not a disk corruption or file format problem. MACs understand that it is a QuickTime file and try to load it (QuickTime opens) but I always get a message (from QuickTime) that it is not a valid movie file. It doesn't say anything about corruption or the likes. In fact, I can take the disc to a PC and it works fine.

Note that it really doesn't matter what settings I use - for example, the frame rate. As long as I render it to a QuickTime movie file it always plays on a PC but never on a MAC.

Since my goal is to have these files posted on my web site for MAC users I really want to use the 256 kbps template for decent streaming rate over the Internet. I go through the same procedure as above with that template and exactly the same thin happens: always plays on PC under any circumstances and never plays on a MAC.

The original source file is a QuickTime movie and it works just fine on any MAC, whether it is loaded from a disk or the Internet. I just can't get Vegas to render an Apple QuickTime movie that will play on a MAC.

I don't understand why this is so difficult. If Vegas is rendering an Apple format movie why won't the movie play on Apple computers? There is a little/big-endian difference between MACs and PCs but I am certain that the PC undestands this when loading a .mov file. In fact, it has to be correct. When you load .mov files from the Internet there aren't two seperate version depending on which OS you use. What I want to know is why can't I create one of these files?

jrazz wrote on 2/17/2007, 1:02 PM

I think this may be part of the problem, but then again, maybe not. You stated that you filmed from an Olympus picture camera that also happens to film video in a mov format correct? Well, mov is a wrapper much like avi is. The contents of the wrapper could be anything. Now, let's assume that Windows has this codec- whatever it may be in the mov wrapper included in the codecs it bundles with its windows operating software. Now, let's go one step further and assume that Macs do not have this codec. That would explain the problem.

What I would do is find out what is inside that mov wrapper. Download gspot and drop the original file on it to see what its contents are. Now, drop the Vegas produced file and see what the contents are. Now, go to the Mac and see if it has that codec installed.

Also, you might want to just try a regular quicktime format and not the jpeg1a template just to see if it has something to do with that.

j razz

mikkie wrote on 2/18/2007, 8:54 PM

"...What I want to know is why can't I create one of these files?"

Well unfortunately Rick, that's seems a good question. I thought maybe the problem was with the audio, but your original probably doesn't either. *Might* try without any audio at all if you've still got the include audio set, but that's just something to try...

Looking around a bit because this got me curious, Quicktime on a MAC looks like it should take/play/includes mjpg - the only setting for the codec is RFC 2035 under streaming - while it probably won't do anything, could try changing that.

Otherwise all I can think of is process of elimination... If you have access to Quicktime Pro, try encoding a file with identical settings, & see if that plays on the MACs -- if it does then that would point to a problem with Vegas' Q/TIme encoder. If you don't have Q/Time pro, sorenson has a trial available for download, and could make the same kind of comparisons. If this sort of encode outside of Vegas doesn't work either, then I'd guess something's happening during the file transfer or there's a problem playing those formats on the MACs.

The trailers I checked on the Apple site are h264, which I think is an option for Sorenson but included in Q/TIme Pro. If that might make testing easier [just making sure the MACs can play those trailers], you could try converting your original plus a Vegas edited avi of your original either with Q/TIme Pro or thru Super to encode an h264 mov & see how that does, even though it'll only hint at the effects of Vegas editing & your process of getting the video to the MACs. H264 gets complicated, including the subset of features available in Q/Time, so that's why the recommendation of trying Q/T/Pro or Super with mov presets. I am not sure if Q/TIme Pro gives you the option of h264 in Vegas.

Otherwise, as j razz wrote, checking out the other compression methods in the Q/Time customization dialog in Vegas might give you something you can use.