MPEG 1/2 (MPGV) Codec? MPG movie won't play in QT

Ernest... your question is "spot on" to the problem I'm having... did you ever get any help?

Thanks,

Thorne

You need the Apple's QuickTime MPEG-2 playback component...

http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A

David, many thanks for your reply. Sorry for the delay in my response to you.

I think the problem is with the source video being supplied to me, although I can't be totally sure....

I did purchase and install the MPEG-2 component for my Quicktime Pro back in March.

the source video's media info (in VLC) showed it to be MPEG 2.... so I'm figuring either my Quicktime Pro (with its MPEG 2 component) can't handle it... and this is what prompted me to search the web for an answer.... or

the video is somehow encoded in a manner unreadable to me.

Until I can get in touch with the editor who prepared the clips, I remain at a stand still.

Again, thanks for your help -

Thorne

You did not make it clear whether VLC actually managed to play it. If it can you can use VLC to convert the file to a different format. Maybe that's the easiest option.

Did you ever figure this out? I have the same situation. VLC plays these .mp4 files but Quicktime and MPEG Streamclip do not. I downloaded the MPEG2 codec. No luck. I'd love to know if there's a better solution than converting everything through VLC. Thanks.

I can open the videos in VLC and when I look under "Media Information" it tells me that the codec is MPEG 1/2 (MPGV).

Are these files sourced from BD M2TS files? If so, you can try using VLC to convert the BD PCM audio to AC3 and remux it with the untranscoded video to a transport stream (TS) file container which is then conpatible with MPEG Streamclip. Or, you could simply try converting the files to QT compatible file using HandBrake.

I don't know what it's sourced from. I was just handed it on a hard drive and told to import to Final Cut.

Actually my case is a little different from Ernest's original post in that VLC says only "mpgv" under codec details (doesn't specify MPEG 1/2). It's also 25fps, which shouldn't matter. The audio codec is "twos" I have no idea what that means.

I downloaded HandBrake and tried converting, but it only gave me the option of M4v. I did that and it is now openable with MPEG streamclip and with that I can convert to quicktime. But is this not complete insanity? Is there no better way? Thanks.

I don't know what it's sourced from. I was just handed it on a hard drive and told to import to Final Cut.

In that case, you need a more general work flow which does not tamper with the video content.

Actually my case is a little different from Ernest's original post in that VLC says only "mpgv" under codec details (doesn't specify MPEG 1/2). It's also 25fps, which shouldn't matter. The audio codec is "twos" I have no idea what that means.

The "twos" FourCC appears to refer to twos complement 16-bit Linear PCM stored in Big Endian byte order as opposed to "sowt" which is twos complement 16-bit Linear PCM stored in Little Endian byte order. Since you indicate the file container is MP4 and Wiki.VideoLan.org seems to refer to mp2v (MPEG-2) content as mpgv, my guess is the file contains separate M2V video and PCM audio tracks in the MP4 container which is not a common Mac combination—i.e., it is akin to trying to get VLC to play an MOV file containing an H.264 video track and AC3 audio track. I would likely try re-muxing the MPEG-2 video with the PCM audio to a Transport Stream (TS) file container without transcoding either data format. If the resulting TS file plays the video in MPEG Streamclip but without the audio, I would go back to VLC and and create another TS file but this time transcode the PCM audio to AC3. In either case, if you can get the TS file to open and play in MPEG Streamclip, you can then demux/convert the content to your preferred target codecs for FCP import/editing.

I downloaded HandBrake and tried converting, but it only gave me the option of M4v. I did that and it is now openable with MPEG streamclip and with that I can convert to quicktime. But is this not complete insanity? Is there no better way?

HandBrake should only be used to convert the sourced files directly to a final mobile device compression format. It is not recommended for use as a general converter application. As previously stated your primary concern is to load the content into a general conversion application without recompressing the video content. Hopefully this can be done by merely placing the original data in a compatible file container which MPEG Streamclip will accept. In the case of the M2TS data, the BD PCM was not compatible with MPEG Streamclip and had to be converted to a compatible, lower quality audio format before remuxing to the TS file container. In your case, it may be possible that the 16-bit linear PCM audio may be directly acceptable by MPEG Streamclip.

Hi Jon. Thank you for a thorough reply. When I use the VLC Transcode Wizard, it gives me many options, most of which I've never even heard of. I'm assuming I should try MPEG-2 video with MPEG audio, in an MPEG TS encapsulation. Not sure about bitrates, so I chose the highest available. But that produces a file that is one tenth the size of the original, which I'm assuming means I'm compressing, which I don't want to do.

The options to transcode video are:

MPEG-1

MPEG-2

MPEG-4

DIVX 1

DIVX 2

DIVX 3

H.263

H.264

WMV 1

WMV 2

MJPEG

Theora

Dummy

with a bitrate choice of: 3072, 2048, 1024, 768, 512, 256, 192, 128, 64, 32

and an audio choice of:

MPEG

MP3

A/52

Vorbis

FLAC

SPeex

Uncompressed, integer

Uncompressed, floating point

Dummy

with a bitrate choice of: 512, 256, 192, 128, 64, 32, 16

and encapsulation format choice of:

MPEG PS

MPET TS

MPEG 1

OGG

RAW

ASF (greyed out)

AVI (greyed out)

MPEG 4 / MP4 (greyed out)

MOV (greyed out)

WAV (greyed out)

ASFH (greyed out)

What would you advise? And again, this process requires two conversions (one in VLC and another in MPEG Streamclip)? Many thanks.

Also, the info at the finder level claims the file is MPEG-4 with linear PCM.

What would you advise? And again, this process requires two conversions (one in VLC and another in MPEG Streamclip)?

As previously stated, the main idea is to avoid transcoding/recompressing the data altogether if possible. I.e., all you really want to do is put the original data in a different container if possible.

I just have no idea whatsoever which combination will achieve that. Do you have any advice as per which options to choose? Many thanks.

Also, the info at the finder level claims the file is MPEG-4 with linear PCM.

Great! That likely explains your problem. Basically you have two options. My choice would be to use VLC to copy both the current MPEG-4 video and the PCM audio to an MOV file container. When using the wizard, do not select either the audio or the video content for transcoding to a different compression format. Simply continue on to the window that lists the file container options and see if it will allow you to select MOV. A secondary option would be to select the audio for conversion and transcode it to AAC (minimum 160 Kbps @ 48.0 KHz sampling rate) and place the unconverted MPEG-4 video with the converted AAC audio into a new MP4 file container.

I just have no idea whatsoever which combination will achieve that. Do you have any advice as per which options to choose?

Once again, when you get to the A/V Transcode window, do not select either Video or Audio for conversion...

If you press the "Next" button without making any selection here, then the original audio and video data is "passed through" to the target file container you select in the follow-up window.

Hey Jon, thanks for sticking with me.

- I followed above directions, but the .mov it created was black. It was the same length as the original, but no picture or audio.

- I tried again, this time selecting the MPEG TS encapsulation. This file opened with MPEG Streamclip and had video but no audio.

- I tried transcode audio to Dummy (which is, according to VLC, no transcoding at all) and encapsulated in .mov. Same thing, I get a quicktime the same length but with no audio or video, just black.

- I tried transcoding both audio and video to Dummy and encapsulate as .mov and didn't get anything at all; it just created a file that was 4kb.

- I tried transcoding audio to MPEG at 192 bitrate (it didn't offer AAC option) and encapsulating into MPEG TS. That worked. I am able to open that file with MPEG Streamclip. And I can export into quicktime.

However, it would be much more preferable if I could just encapsulate in .mov with VLC. Do you have any idea as to why no audio or video came through when I didn't check any transcoding boxes and simply encapsulated as .mov ? Why did I get 12 seconds of black with no audio? (my test clip is 12 seconds long).

Many thanks.