Help wih AAC audio

[Pob]

Well, after so long without any hitches I was suprised to download a video file that did play, but with the audio out of sync. Convinced the file itself must be at fault I just deleted it and did not give it another thought.
But today I downloaded more video files and the same thing! It seems the video files in question are all 'X264' files, where previously they were mkv;
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 720x404 23.98fps [Output 1]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz stereo [Output 2]
I am using Win7-64.

So then I embarked on an AAC oddysey, trying to get ffdhshow to play them instead of whatever the default was, and not finding a simple file to rename like MP3mod.dll in windows/system I downloaded W7DSfiltertweaker and used that.
So now ffshow was used for the audio - but it's still out of sync! And not by a small amount - I am talking 3-4 seconds out :-(

The files do play fine in Media Center Home Cinema and Windows Media Center
So peeps. have you come across these horrible X264 files and if so, how do you get them in sync in GBPVR or NPVR?

[mvallevand]

x264 is an open h264 encoder and it is not a container. However it is capable of 10bit h264 encoding (Hi10P) that most computers and extenders will have trouble with. However at 720x404 I expect it is just a bad container for the format and you need to remux it into mkv.

Martin

[Pob]

Thanks for that - I should have said the problem files are all '.mp4' files. I have found that any MP4 file with AAC sound seems to exhibit this behaviour, so I was assuming that AAC was the culprit. Until recently all these video files were either H264 with AC3 audio (.mkv), or xvid with MP3 audio (.avi).
The 'scene' has agreed on a new standard for all video releases - you know what I mean - and it is MP4, with X264 video and AAC audio. I would like to get them working correctly without remuxing, and as they play well in W7 MC or MPHC, I am just confused why the lag appears in our favourite media player! I am currently using Cyberlink for H264 video so I will try usng the MS decoder to see if maybe that is the difference...

[mvallevand]

While the "scene" can innovate and be progressive one thing it definitely doesn't do is create standards. Each group has their own unique way of encoding, and there is very little thought given to the troubles that may ensue based the group's decision. Personally I'm happy to wait until I can capture it myself, I don't need to be in the vanguard

Regarding our favourite player I actually prefer NextPVR to GBPVR :-)

Martin

[Pob]

Regarding our favourite player I actually prefer NextPVR to GBPVR :-)
Martin

Good point! I must admit the fact I still use GBPVR is simply inertia - it has worked so well, for so long, I just never had motivation to change. Maybe this is it - if someone confirms these mp4 files with x264 video and aac audio play correctly in NextPVR it could be the kick in the backside I need!

[mvallevand]

As I wrote I can't speak for a specific group's encoding but I use whurlston's YouTube plugin regularly are there is no lip sync issues with h264/AVC 4.0 1920x1080i and AAC audio. These are proper mp4 encodes though. Given that NextPVR and GBPVR just pass the mp4 files to Windows, I doubt if you will get better playback.

Martin

[SLR_65]

While the "scene" can innovate and be progressive one thing it definitely doesn't do is create standards. Each group has their own unique way of encoding, and there is very little thought given to the troubles that may ensue based the group's decision.

Actually, they HAVE created standards.
http://scenerules.irc.gs/t.html?id=2012_SDTVx264r.nfo

I'm fighting this too - using FFDShow and CoreAVC I get a huge lag between the audio and video that I can't seem to get back in synch. I can convert the mp4 to avi and make it work, but what a pain.

Groups that have adopted this new standard include: ASAP, BAJSKORV, C4TV, D2V, DiVERGE, FTP, KYR, LMAO, LOL, MOMENTUM, SYS, TLA and YesTV.

Nice of these to force this on us, especially mid-season! At least FQM has stuck with Xvid, but they're releases are harder to find.

[SLR_65]

OK, I decided to dig into this and see if I could fix it tonight as I really don't want to have to convert everything to avi to make things work.

It occurred to me that it was a container problem as converting to an x264 avi worked fine -> i.e. the x264 part is working, it's the mp4 container that's not, but the avi is. (and to be honest, I have no real clue what the difference between a codec and a container is - I just know there are two parts to making things work)

I dug into what actually provides mp4 container support and found it was Haali Media Splitter. I checked the Haali home page and found the software had been updated several times since the version I was using. I downloaded the most recent version, uninstalled my old version, rebooted and installed the new version . . . and now it's working perfectly! 8->

If you're using Haali then try installing the most recent version and see if it works (and, if you wouldn't mind, please post back whether it works or not so others facing this problem and finding this thread via a search know how things turned out).

Hope that works for ya! Take care,

Steve

[Pob]

That is incredibly helpful - thank you for posting a solution. I do indeed use Hali media splitter for x264, but it never even occured to me that it could be the culprit - I was focused on the audio / video decoder only. I guess the reason the .mp4 files were playing OK in Windows MC is that Media Center must use it's own media foundation splitters + decoders? Anyway so glad I can go back to using GBPVR now to play these files...

[SLR_65]

Hi Pob,

You're welcome - I hope it fixes it for you, please post back the results.

I use XP Pro SP3, so I'm not sure how later versions of Windblows handles this stuff - the videos were NOT playing correctly on my machine no matter what I used (GBPVR, WMP, etc.).

I had Halli, CoreAVC and FFDShow loaded. The Halli update fixed the audio synch issue but I was still getting some pixlation in bright scenes. I found CoreAVC was the culprit - I disabled it . . . interestingly enough, unchecking the x264 options didn't keep it from being used for these encodes, but unchecking the AVC1 boxes did. Then I just enabled the H.264/AVC support in FFDShow's Video Decoder Configuration screen (moved it from disabled to libavcodec) and Wah Lah! Audio is in synch and the video is not pixlating at all. (I should note that I had upgraded FFDShow to the latest version earlier when I first started trying to fix this problem).

Hopes this helps ya - I know I was glad to get things going again! Post back how it goes for you.

Take care,

Steve