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spacepower7

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 6, 2004
1,509
1
So I have an odd video (concert) file that has a h.264 video stream (main profile 3.1) with ~256kbs AAC audio, but in a .ts container.

I tried to do a pass-thru of video and audio from .ts container to .mp4/m4v

I tried iFlicks, IVI, iFFMPEG, MP4Tools, and I think Subler.
Non of these worked.

Surprisingly, QuickTime X actually was able to export to a .mov file. It only took about 1 minute on a quad core Mac mini, therefore I don't think QuickTime altered the video or audio.

Now the weird part. The original .ts file is around 830 MB and the new (assuming pass-thru) .mov file is around 780 MB. The concert is around 52 minutes.

Anybody know why a there is a 50 MB difference in file size? Is there that much overhead info in a .ts MPEG-2 container file VS a .mov container?

I also checked both files in iMediaHUD (MediaInfo type app) which said the audio was the same but the data rates of the video were different. Could this be the extra container overhead info in a .ts file?

Just to confuse myself more, neither to the video files hit the iMediaHUD video data rate when observing in VLC codec details.

I just want a "pure" version of the file in an Apple device friendly container, and I'm curious about the file size differences.

Dynaflash or anyone else have an tech info?
 
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Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
Anybody know why a there is a 50 MB difference in file size? Is there that much overhead info in a .ts MPEG-2 container file VS a .mov container?

TS supports dynamic changes to e.g. the aspect ratio and a lot other parameters. Basically, it encodes a lot of control information along with every frame. In this regard, mp4 is far-far inferior - you just can't signal, for example, to the receiver that, say the first half of your file contains 4:3 video and the second half 16:9 with an mp4 file, unlike with TS files. This is, BTW, TS is used in broadcast where aspect ratio changes must always be communicated to the receivers. (And, of course, teletext / subtitles / dynamic program info / etc. are also stored in the same stream, always updated when needed.)

It can't, in addition to the above, store, with gps / compass-enabled cameras, dynamically changing location / direction info in a standardized way (it uses non-standardized, embedded plain sub / text files - pretty ugly if you ask me). In this regard, AVCHD's (M)TS files (assuming they store the location info and not external .ply files) are also far superior.

This is why it has a sizable overhead over the "static" mp4 container.
 
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