Apple, the "it just works" company.
Why is it that I have to upload an FLV file to YouTube, and then re-download if from there as an MP4 file using a bookmarkelet, as the only way to effectively convert this FLV file to an MP4 file on my Mac while keeping the audio in sync with the video?
(the FLV wasn't compatible with iMovie, so I needed to convert it first)
It's sad that in 2013 I need to do this on an iMac to convert an FLV file to MP4 file without messing it up. And trust me, I tried everything imaginable before that. It saddens me. What should have taken 10 minutes took me fucking hours to get done.
Comments
If you have Perian and export to Apple lossless and then encode using an app like Handbrake to MP4, the audio should stay in sync. Sometimes media has variable bitrates that direct conversion programs don't handle very well, also be sure that you use the same frame rate on export. It would be nice if Apple put more effort into Quicktime to allow for this kind of thing. It is such a time waster having to make so many intermediate copies of files and fighting glitches, color changes and sync problems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
If you have Perian and export to Apple lossless and then encode using an app like Handbrake to MP4, the audio should stay in sync. Sometimes media has variable bitrates that direct conversion programs don't handle very well, also be sure that you use the same frame rate on export.
Using which app?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It would be nice if Apple put more effort into Quicktime to allow for this kind of thing. It is such a time waster having to make so many intermediate copies of files and fighting glitches, color changes and sync problems.
I know. This is exactly what I'm saying. It's usually what Apple is good at, but in this specific area they've been useless for years. Heck, their very own HTML5 video player on their own website absolutely sucks.
Quicktime Pro (as opposed to Quicktime Xtremely useless), you have to install it manually (and buy it):
http://store.apple.com/ie/product/D3380Z/A/quicktime-7-pro-for-mac-os-x
Still 32-bit too unfortunately but it's an essential app for reliable media conversions . Sadly Perian is no longer developed but as long as it doesn't break, it's a great setup. You can do loads of things with it that you can't do with any other app nearly as easily like pass-through exports for leaving MP4 video alone but changing the audio, making edits that don't require re-encoding the movie at all, frame counters, you don't get the UI overlapping your video, you get frame-stepping with in/out points for accurate edits, none of this clip splitting and trim rubbish and you can export to any format, any frame size with filters.
I don't mind if they don't update the app but I really wish they'd put those features into Quicktime X so we don't constantly have to keep Pro and dummy apps side by side all the time. They can easily give it multiple layouts like they did for DVD Studio Pro.
Even though I have the job done, I'm testing your method. Gut feeling it won't work.
I knew it wouldn't work.
When you open the .flv in Quicktime and click window > show properties, what does it say the formats and durations are and what does it say in the Apple Lossless one? Also, is the Apple Lossless one out of sync too?
This is the original FLV file. I've since deleted my conversion file.
A quick thing to try would be doing a pass-through export. Your clip is H.264 video in a .flv container so what you can sometimes do is export the video using the mpeg-4 option without re-encoding and just set it to re-encode the audio to AAC but do the trim first. If the pass-through works and the audio is consistently out of sync through the whole video, you can extract it, chop the audio or video depending on which way it is and paste it back in.
It could be that the video format you have is a bit messed up. Did you capture that video stream or join segments together or download it as a large file from the source?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It could be that the video format you have is a bit messed up. Did you capture that video stream or join segments together or download it as a large file from the source?
I didn't get the file, someone else figured that out for me. But the file couldn't be that messed up considering uploading it to YouTube and redownloading it as MP4 without touching the video at all, perfectly trascoded it from FLV to MP4.
OK, enough time waste on this. **** Quicktime.
If the source clip audio and video matches in length and the exported video doesn't, it's either getting the wrong frame count out or not decoding the source correctly - if it's a webripped stream done using a screen recorder, it might not even have a standard framerate. You don't have to export the whole 2 hours each time, just a segment, click on the time counter, switch it to frames and check that the number of frames in the output matches the frames in the source and that the audio length matches the video. Whatever is mismatched will let you track down where it's messing up.
Youtube it seems uses ffmpeg for at least some formats:
http://multimedia.cx/eggs/googles-youtube-uses-ffmpeg/
They might use software from Adobe for flv. VLC can transcode video direct to mp4 so that's another route to try. iSquint is another option:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19769/isquint
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
If the source clip audio and video matches in length and the exported video doesn't, it's either getting the wrong frame count out or not decoding the source correctly - if it's a webripped stream done using a screen recorder, it might not even have a standard framerate. You don't have to export the whole 2 hours each time, just a segment, click on the time counter, switch it to frames and check that the number of frames in the output matches the frames in the source and that the audio length matches the video. Whatever is mismatched will let you track down where it's messing up.
Youtube it seems uses ffmpeg for at least some formats:
http://multimedia.cx/eggs/googles-youtube-uses-ffmpeg/
They might use software from Adobe for flv. VLC can transcode video direct to mp4 so that's another route to try. iSquint is another option:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19769/isquint
Yes, yes, yes, but if I can upload to Youtube and download as an MP4 with perfect results - without thinking about anything - and there's no turn-key solution for doing it on my Mac, what method makes more sense? And why do I need to use Google because Apple can't provide an elegant solution? Like I said, I wasted enough time. This should be the least of my worries in 2013. I just sent Apple angry feedback on QuickTime and iMovie. I am furious!
What was the framerate of your source clip btw and what was the framerate of the movie you got back from Google? If it was a webripped stream, it might have had a non-standard rate.