URGENT: JOINING/APPENDING PTE HD MP4 FILES

[orizaba]

SERIOUS PROBLEM!

My system: Windows 7 Ultimate (100% updated), 32GB RAM, AMD RADEON HD8970M (driver 100% updated), PTE 9.0.14.

I am building a big PTE project. As usual, due to PTE native 32-bit version limitations, I have to build several PTE separated projects (limited to 4GB memory), make respective HD MP4 PTE files, and join such HD MP4 files together, using MKV TOOLNIX v23.0.0. I never had a problem with this method.

Today, the situation is:

- First PTE HD MP4 file is 4,19 GB, 29:28,100 long, 60fps, progressive, Bitrate 20000 (2-pass).

- Second PTE HD MP4 file is only 184 MB, 1:16,000 long, 60fps, progressive, Bitrate 20000 (2-pass). This file was only intended to check how both files would join together.

As you can see, both files were encoded (by PTE) using the same parameters.

However, using MKV TOOLNIX to join/append them, as usual, something goes wrong, as the second file has a perfect audio, but video does not show, only a grey image!

MKV TOOLNIX error message says "The track number 0 from the file 'E:\9 - PTEs 3\PTE 445 do 441 mas curto.mp4' can probably not be appended correctly to the track number 0 from the file 'E:\9 - PTEs 3\PTE 439 SÓ ATÉ 250.mp4': The codec's private data does not match (lengths: 42 and 42)."

I tried several times, always the same error. I googled and I could see that this may result from different frame rates in each HD MP4 file. However, how is this possible, since I always used 60 fps progressive when I built both files? I tried as well other softwares like MP4 JOINER and YAMB 1.6.0, and result is always the same, second file does not show video.

What is this "codec's private data"? What are those "lengths: 42 and 42"? I would say that 42 matches with 42...! I do not understand it all.

I must say that first (big) file is 250 slides, most of them HD video, but some native old 25 fps. However all video used (HD and old clips) were converted to AVI, by PTE converter. Second (small) file is 10 slides, including HD video and old 25 fps, as well, just like the first (big) file. So, both have same type of slides.

This shows as a serious problem for me, as it seams that I can not join my PTE HD MP4 files, so my project can not be completed.

How can I solve this situation?

Thanks.

Jose

 

[Lin Evans]

Just a thought Jose.  Could you try creating the PTE files as AVI rather than MP4 then try to join?  This would mean a different codec would be used.  Not having ever tried this I can't be certain but the error message references a codec issue and creating as an AVI uses a different codec. Perhaps after joining the show can be converted to MP4?

Best regards,

Lin

[orizaba]

Hi Lin,

Thanks very much for your quick reply. Yes, I could try your suggestion. However, building AVI files in PTE, trying to join them, and than convert the final file to MP4 or MKV, involves one conversion/reencoding, meaning quality loss. In fact, my Media Player (Popcorn Hour) runs better/smoother with MKV files, which I get directly from original PTE HD MP4 files without any reencoding. Building PTE AVI files (I tryed now with a sample) 2-pass is not possible, although quality/parameters is very similar to MP4 2-pass. So far so good, but than comes the reencoding to MP4, and this I must avoid.

This "joining/appending" problem with original PTE MP4 files must be solved!!! Igor once said that PTE v9 uses a different codec from older v8. This new codec seams to fail, this is not the first problem I have with it. Very disapointing, and in the meantime I can not finish my project.

I saw somewhere in Google (I can not find it again) that there is a software which can force the joining, even in case frame rates are not exactly the same, or some other parameters. Do you know something about this? Some solution must be found, I must complete my project.

Thanks again for your help.

Jose

[Lin Evans]

Hi Jose,

Sadly, I have no other suggestions. I don't make large video files so this is an area outside my experience. Perhaps Igor my have a suggestion...

Best regards,

Lin

[orizaba]

Thanks Lin, I hope Igor can say something on this.

Regards,

Jose

[orizaba]

Lin, some good news!

I tried your suggestion with real PTE HD AVI files, and the good news is that using AVIDEMUX 2.7 to join/append them, the resulting file is directly a MKV file without any reencoding!

This way, the situation is as with PTE HD MP4 files, changed to MKV without reencoding and directly used in my media player.

The only point I am not convinced is that PTE HD AVI custom files are built with only one pass (it is a very fast process compared with HD MP4 files, 2-pass, 26 minutes compared with 86 minutes), so, final quality must be less. In fact, I know, I read somewhere long ago, that second pass is to correct and make more perfect the first pass. To overpass this, I increased bitrate from my usual 20 Mbps to 22 Mbps. Anyhow, 26 minutes instead of 86 minutes can not be the same job...

I hope Igor can deal with this problem (MP4 files codec), which did not exist in former PTE v8, as I would prefer to keep using the old method with MP4 files 2-pass.

All this because PTE is a native 32-bit software. When the native 64-bit version? As I already said a lot of times, PTE is the best video editor I know (not Premiere, not Vegas), and I am very sorry that it has this 4 GB limitation, it is most anoying!

Best regards and thanks again,

Jose

[denisb]

Hi,

 

I can generate mp4 larger than the 32 bits limit with PTE (more than  6GB).

But I use the Quality and not The Bitrate with 2 pass.

People who make the codec wrote: " Use this mode if you want to keep the best quality and don't care about the file size. "

The Bitrate with 2 passes is when the file size is more important than the quality.

To obtain the best MP4 file, I use the original mov video from my canon DSLR.

First I transform the video.mov (h264 codec) to video.avi (h263) and make my slideshow.

When every thing is ok, I copy the slideshow.pte and on the copy, with a text editor, change the video.avi to video.mov.

Then with the copy I generate the mp4 with 60 fps quality 100%. If the quality is not enough for you try quality =120% (type with the keyboard.)

But I am sure that quality 100 with original video is better than optimizing the video and use 2-pass bitrate 20000 (fro the mp4 of course)

 

Denis

[orizaba]

Hi Denis,

Thanks for your help.

1 or 2-pass? I never care about file size, I only want best quality, and I still think that 2-pass at a high bitrate limit (since 2-pass is a VBR process) gives better quality.

Because (from Google):

Two pass encoding, also known as multi-pass encoding, is a video encoding strategy used to retain the best quality during conversion.

In the first pass of two-pass encoding, the input data from the source clip is analyzed and stored in a log file. In the second pass, the collected data from the first pass is used to achieve the best encoding quality. In video encoding, two-pass encoding is usually controlled by the average bitrate setting or by the bitrate range setting (minimal and maximal allowed bitrate) or by the target video file size setting. Two-pass encoding is almost twice slower than one-pass coding. So if you are short of time select one-pass solution.

Best regards,

Jose

[denisb]

Hi Jose,

if you consider bitrate, 2-pass is better than 1-pass, but with x264 codec, the CRF (Constant Rate Factor)  transformed to Quality in PTE is a better choice.

See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264

Note that quality 100 in PTE 9 is equal to CRF=18  and quality=0 is equal to CRF=34.

Denis

PS: I concatenate 30 mp4 made with PTE to one MKV file without problem. The resulting file was 15 GB

[orizaba]

On 5/7/2018 at 3:47 PM, denisb said:

Hi,

 

I can generate mp4 larger than the 32 bits limit with PTE (more than  6GB).

But I use the Quality and not The Bitrate with 2 pass.

People who make the codec wrote: " Use this mode if you want to keep the best quality and don't care about the file size. "

The Bitrate with 2 passes is when the file size is more important than the quality.

To obtain the best MP4 file, I use the original mov video from my canon DSLR.

First I transform the video.mov (h264 codec) to video.avi (h263) and make my slideshow.

When every thing is ok, I copy the slideshow.pte and on the copy, with a text editor, change the video.avi to video.mov.

Then with the copy I generate the mp4 with 60 fps quality 100%. If the quality is not enough for you try quality =120% (type with the keyboard.)

But I am sure that quality 100 with original video is better than optimizing the video and use 2-pass bitrate 20000 (fro the mp4 of course)

 

Denis

Hi Denis,

Coming back to this post of yours, and after looking to your last one, I am really interested in all your considerations concerning 1 or 2-pass, best quality, etc., and I should like in the future to better understand in detail, step by step, how you "copy the slideshow.pte and on the copy, with a text editor, change the video.avi to video.mov."

However, my first problem, as I said in my first post, is PTE limitations to build a project bigger than 4GB.

Look: I have my original 4K MOV files (Bitrate around 45 Mbps). With PTE converter I convert and resize them to HD AVI files (Bitrate around 31 Mbps) in order to insert them in each slide on timeline. After some 250 slides of this type, lots of transitions and other effects, around some 28 minutes, memory rises to 4 GB (Windows Task Manager), and in case I am not carefull, PTE crashes. So, I have to stop adding slides, I have to build a HD MP4 file, and than start another PTE project, build respective HD MP4 file, and so on, and at the end, join all my HD MP4 files.

This way, I could not understand how you overpass this situation. The way to build each HD MP4 file (1 or 2-pass) has nothing to do with this PTE limitations problem, I think.

At the present, due to HD MP4 files do not match each other because of the codec's private data do not match (as I said in my first post), this is a new PTE problem, this is why I followed Lin´s suggestion to build HD AVI files instead, which I can join without problems, with the advantage that AVIDEMUX produces MKV files without reencoding, which I can join and use final MKV file directly on my Media Player, with no reencoding at all from the start (except the conversion/resizing from my original MOV to AVI to use in the PTE timeline, but this is a must, as I understand).

So, I should like your comments on this.

Regards,

Jose

[denisb]

Hi Jose,

 

when you optimize the video in PTE, if the video file is    "mire_HD.mp4" , the line for reference in the project.pte is:

    FileName=R:\mire_HD.converted.avi

I change, in a copy, just before the generation of theHD  video to

    FileName=R:\mire_HD.mp4

and PTE use my original video.

PTE need avi (h263 codec) for the fluidity of real time, but when you make HD mp4, it's not real time and PTE accept mp4 or mov file)

 

For the limit of 4 GB, sorry, I don't understand your first post, I understand it was that the mp4 was larger than 4 GB  instead of the crash of PTE when you make the slideshow.

I try with ffmpeg to merge mp4 files from PTE and change the container to mkv without re-encoding the video.

The 30 videos are made with PTE 9.0.16 quality 100  and same audio bitrate and it works.

But the ffmpeg is a command line application.

a file named liste.txt contain the list of the video files:

file 'vid1.mp4'
file 'vid2.mp4'

The command line

C:\Applis\Video\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe -f concat -i liste.txt -c copy out.mkv

 

merge the files to one out.mkv file without re-encoding.

Denis

 

[orizaba]

Hi Denis,

Ok, I got it. Just one question: with PTE text editor you replace the PTE converted file by your original MOV file, than you must open PTE again to publish the MP4 file. When you open PTE (with these original files, much bigger in size), PTE do not crash? Most probably it will exceed 4 GB and should crash, I think. By the way, could you remember me how to go to PTE text editor?

Another point: to join/merge several MP4 files without re-encoding you use ffmpeg and command line. Why not Avidemux, which I use, and looks easier?

So, for the PTE limit of 4 GB when we make de slideshow, now you understand my problem. Don't you have this problem?

Jose

[denisb]

hi Jose,

I use a text editor, not PTE text editor I use notepad++, but notepad from windows is good also.

When I open then the file with PTE, I never had crash of PTE.

To make a test, I put 19 mp4 videos 6 GB, in a pte project and modify in O&A the duration of some videos. Looking at the task manager, PTE need less than 400 MB of RAM far from 32 bits limitation. The problem of 32 bits limitation, in my case, is only when I put some huge still pictures in a slide and open O&A.

 

I use ffmpeg because it's a kind of "Swiss knife" for video. It is used by many soft like PTE for example. And I like command line.

 

Denis

 

[orizaba]

Denis,

Something is strange for me about those 19 mp4 files of your test: what are respective bitrates?

My projects include HD videos 31 Mbps bitrate, lots of stills 300 ppi resolution, lots of transitions and effects, lots of audio tracks, etc., and 4 GB memory are reached fast. This is my problem.

Jose

[denisb]

Jose,

the bitrates are between 6000 and 15000 (it's slideshows)

For example the bitrate of one of them during time . It's a slideshow with 2 videos (they need more bitrate than the still pictures.

 

Denis

 

 

I try with 50 original clips from my CANON 70D (bitrate 90 Mbits/s) and it is the same. PTE needs only 400 MB RAM