EzDevInfo.com

How can I make Windows 7 show thumbnails for MKV files?

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and have installed the latest Haali Media Splitter.

How can I make Windows Explorer show thumbnails for MKV files?

App to identify codecs in video files

I am looking for an app that will identify audio and video codecs in a given AVI or MP4 or what have you.

Does something like that exists?

Play Apple Lossless (.m4a, ALAC) files in Windows 7 Media Player?

Is there a good plugin or codec that allows Media Player/Media Center on Windows 7 to play Apple Lossless (ALAC) encoded files? As the files are shared between multiple iTunes installations and one Media Center I don't want to transcode them. Bonus points for proper meta data parsing. :)

What's the difference between FFmpeg's "-vcodec copy" and "-sameq"?

What is the difference between using -vcodec copy and -sameq with FFmpeg?

Do they do the same thing?

What's the best audio format available when I want to convert my files?

I'm a music lover. I have lot of songs stored on my laptop, but the problem is I'm running out of space on my hard disk, because of the different audio formats which occupy lots of space.

Now I want to convert all those different audio formats into one.

Which is the best in terms of space it occupies on hard disk, but with good or fair audible quality? what's the best format available which occupies low space with good quality?

Where is the Camera Codec feature available in Windows 8?

If you try to install the Camera Codec pack for Windows 7 on Windows 8, you get an error:

This version of the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack is not compatible with Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012. You can get the codec pack through Windows Update on Windows 8.

However, I cannot see anywhere on Windows update that would suggest I can download this, even as an optional update? Is it just the case that it is not yet live, as everything filters through the RTM process, or is it hidden away as something else?

Ripping a DVD to watch on iPod touch

I have a DVD that I'd like to watch on my iPod touch. Can I use normal PC ripping software or is there something special I need to do to get iTunes to sync it to my iPod?

Why does a Raspberry Pi require a key to playback MPEG2 content?

I was reading here and the article said that linux distros often use free versions of MPEG2. On my Raspberry Pi, however, I had to purchase a license to achieve playback of some of my files. I never had to do this on my (ubuntu) desktop before. The article I linked to wasn't very clear about the differences between the RPi and my Linux laptop; can anyone expound on the differences between these two?

Thank you!!

What is some good lossless video codec for recording gameplay?

I'm an avid gamer and I like to record my gameplay. Usually I've been using Fraps to do it, however I'm thinking of switching to Dxtory as it allows to write on multiple HDDs at once.

Say I have 3 HDDs with the following write speeds: HDD1 with 50 mb/s, HDD2 with 22 mb/s and HDD3 with 45 mb/s. Combined write speed would be: 117 mb/s.

Dxtory allows you to utilize all 3 HDD's at once while recording your gameplay.

Using this formula:

RGB24 YUV24: Width x Height x 3 x fps = bitrate (byte/sec)

YUV420： Width x Height x 3 / 2 x fps = bitrate (byte/sec)

YUV410： Width x Height x 9 / 8 x fps = bitrate (byte/sec)

And recording in YUV420 colorspace at 1920x1080 with 30 fps I'd need about 95 mb/s write speed. Dxtory is good because it allows me to play with constant 60 fps while recording in 30 fps. Fraps does not (even though they say it does), once you start recording with Fraps, the game's fps drops.

So I'm looking for a codec that doesn't need a very high write speed (bitrate) yet records in good (lossless) quality.

Dxtory comes with its own codec, the Dxtory codec. Which allows me some experimentation. Fraps has it's own codec which I can use in Dxtory to expirement around.

I also came across http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html .

Are there more lossless codecs out there (besides Fraps' and Dxtory's) which are good for what I want to do?

Edit:

To clarify, yes, I'm aware a lossless codec always has "good" quality. But that's not what I'm looking for.

Let me take the Fraps codec and Dxtory codec to clarify what I'm looking for.

• When I record with the Dxtory codec in RGB colorspace at 1920x1080 with targeted 30 fps, I can play the game at 60 fps, BUT I'm recording with 10-15 fps, that's because RGB with Dxtory needs much, much more write speed than my hdd can handle.

• When recording with Dxtory codec in YUV410 colorspace at 1920x1080 with targeted 30 fps, I can play at 60 fps and record at 30 fps, again, that's because YUV410 in Dxtory's codec takes much, much less write speed than RGB

• When recording with Fraps codec in ??? (I dunno the color space Fraps records in, I guess YUV420), I can play with 60 fps and record with 30 fps.

What I'm looking for is a lossless codec that can record in YUV420 (or even RGB??) which does not exceed a write speed (or bitrate if you will) of 100 mb/s in 1920x1080 or in other words, which will allow me to record in constant 30fps.

Obviously the best solution would be to buy an SDD, but that's not what I'm after.

Converting AVI encoded file with an IMM5 codec

As part of a legal matter, I received a copy of a security video encoded using what appears to be an 'IMM5' codec, apparently often used by police. I also received a copy of 'BackupPlayer', which can play this video. Note that no media player I have installed, including VLC, is able to play it. IMM5 does not show up in the standard codec packs, and Google searches are surprisingly fruitless.

I would very much like to transcode this into a more common format, as it contains a deeply important moment, and I want the option of viewing this video for decades to come.

Handbrake is unable to handle the file, presumably because I do not have the IMM5 codec installed. Anyone have any pointers?

Which Bluetooth Stack supports APT-X on Windows 7

I'm thinking about buying wireless desktop speakers for ease of use with different audio sources (Notebooks, Mobile Phone etc.). For higher audio quality over the standard A2DP protocol there are different codecs needed unlike the mandatory SBC codec, which has a rather poor quality and high latency.

So I would like to know, which Bluetooth stacks ( Windows 7 built in and others) support which Codecs ( apt-x, AAC ), because I would like to use the internal Bluetooth hardware and not buying simply an apt-x enabled BT dongle for ease of use.

Does there a list exists, where I can get an overview about the supported codecs ? A big plus would also be a list , which mobile phones support these codecs in their bluetooth implementation.

How does bitrate differ for the same resolution and framerate?

Reading about video quality I found that it depends of resolution, frames per second and bitrate, which decides the size of the video.

My question is how the bitrate is calculated and how it can differ.

Let's say a video has a 360x240 resolution. It takes 86400 pixels per frame. The frame rate is 30 Hz. So the video takes 86400 × 30 = 2592000 pixels per second.

So let's say 1 pixel is 3 Bytes (24 Bits) of data: we have 2592000 × 24 bits per second video (62208000 Bits), that is 62208 kBits (This does not sound right, maybe some problem in my calculation).

But how can it differ and how does it make difference in quality?

What is the current state of development for the FLAC codec? [closed]

I have a pretty large collection of FLAC files created from my CD collection. I love the FLAC format and the sound quality that you can get from it.

Lately, however, I've been trying to write a few tools to manipulate the files and I've been noticing what seems to be a stagnation of the community around the codec. Some of the links on the official FLAC page point to things that are no longer relevant. 7digital, for example, appears to no longer sell FLAC encoded songs.

It's pretty hard to find hardware players that support FLAC any more. Most noticeably it's not present on lower end players when it used to be, and playback is absent on Android. Programming language tools (Java and .NET libraries) are at best old, and at worst unfinished.

What's the current state of FLAC development?
Has it been replaced by another codec?
What currently updated applications make use of it?

Use ffmpeg copy codec to combine *.ts files into a single mp4

I've got a bunch of ts segments described by a single index.m3u8 file:

index.m3u8        
segment1_0_av.ts  
segment2_0_av.ts  
segment3_0_av.ts  
segment4_0_av.ts  
segment5_0_av.ts

I know they are all encoded the same way. ffprobe gives me the following:

Input #0, mpegts, from 'segment1_0_av.ts':
  Duration: 00:00:10.00, start: 0.100511, bitrate: 1251 kb/s
  Program 1 
    Stream #0:0[0x100]: Video: h264 (Main) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p, 960x540 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 12.50 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 25 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x101]: Audio: aac ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 105 kb/s
    Stream #0:2[0x102]: Unknown: none ([21][0][0][0] / 0x0015)

I'd like to combine them into a single mp4 container. But when I try commands like:

ffmpeg -f concat -i filelist.txt -c copy output.mp4

where the generate the filelist.txt from the index.m3u8 file, it complains about not being able to read various files. But converting the ts files themselves seem to work fine. I think I'm not using ffmpeg properly.

How do I use ffmpeg to combine the ts files described by index.m3u8 into a single mp4 container using the copy codec?

Video encoding for archival

I would like to archive some home videos (DV). I don't need to save them losslessly, but I would like to encode them in something high-quality.

What format is both pretty indistinguishable from the original and will likely be readable 15 years from now?

WMA makes me nervous, because it's only one company that makes it, and they're constantly coming out with newer formats. (VLC couldn't open my WMAs that Windows Movie Maker made.)

Other things I've considered are h.264, Ogg Theora, DivX, and Xvid.

I don't mind paying for something, but usually that means the format is owned by only one vendor.