Searching for a Realistic MPEG-4 Solution?

gmezero asks: "Over the last year I have been listening to the trumpet of MPEG-4 being sounded, and I am eager to take up the charge and implement it within my company for our corporate communications. In the past we have used MPEG-1 because to it's commonality. However, due primarily to size limitations (among many other issues that have evolved over the last year), I am getting pressure to move us to WMV for it's perceived 'compatibility' as all of our staff have Media Player on their systems. Unfortunately, nobody seems to realize the fact that WMVs may be Media Player version dependent as well and lock us into future upgrade issues. I can not demand for our GIS group to roll out a stand alone player (eg: DIVX), and I am getting down to a deadline of next week to finalize this platform selection. My pitch to sell MPEG-4 within my company boils down to one major issue, and that brings me to my question. How do I create a MPEG-4 file that will be player independent, short of the player pulling down a new codec for their existing installed media player (QT, WMP, Real)?"

OGM maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same problem. There aren't that many good solutions. I have found Xvid to be the best mpeg4 codec but finding a good container format has been very hard. The OGG media container seems to be really good. It handles subtitles and alls sorts of stuff. I can't find any good encoders that can output ogm though. I wish mencoder would do it instead of the awful AVI format.

QT..

[_LORAX_]

can play mp4 out of the box. Just remeber to tag your files as FOURCC mp4v ( -vtag mp4v under ffmpeg ). You can also transcode .avi files to .mov with the -vocdec copy -vtag mp4v -acodec copy -f mov under ffmpeg as well.

Mission Impossible

[Wildclaw]

You want to use a new and better codec, but you aren't allowed to download a new and better codec, and neither are you allowed to choose the player they use? And you aren't allowed to install anything? You are basically screwed, more screwed and yet again screwed. Did I mention that you are screwed.

I would avoid wmv, rm and mov like the plague. They are all properitary container formats. For a container format use you are probably stuck with avi. It is supported by most players. It's main problem is that it is becoming somewhat outdated, which can cause problem with modern codecs.

If you actually had some possibility to install something I would have recommended Videolan. A single stand-alone platform independant player that doesn't use external codecs but instead includes its own. A player like that should be easy to support and cause minimum codec problems. An avi or mkv container with an mpeg-4 codec (xvid, divx, etc.) and aac or mp3 for sound should work perfectly in Videolan and you wouldn't have to worry about having trouble playing it in the future.

Ok, time to quite dreaming. The video codec market is a patent minefield so it practically impossible for a commercial entity to use open source video tools in USA. Good look with wmv :)

Re:It all depends on the codecs available

[gmezero]

Ah! I think this may be exactly what I was looking for to test with. I would be the only person pulling down the encoder, so I don't see that this would impact what the project is doing. Especially if it truely gives me an plain vanila MPEG4 file that will load under all of the primary players.

Thanks!