Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MacTron]

The ubiquity of the H264 codec and the lack of support of it in Mac Os 9 let this great operating system out of the game, the "video game". LOL
Ten years ago I have failed in to bring H264 to Mac Os 9. Just for the record, I have tried out two ways:
1) Continue the Mac Os 9 port of the great UNIX/Linux video package FFMPEG.
2) Hack the QuickTime 6.2 (for Mac Os X) H264 codec and insert them in to QuickTime 6.0.3 for Mac Os 9.

[Mat]

A solution would be to use an hardware decoder at a PCI card. It was once done with the Wired 4DVD card to decode MPG2/DVDs at every PCI mac (even the smallest ones). As back than one could use some existing cheap PC decoder PCI card, and bring all the new codecs in hardware back to our beloved macs.

Would need one or two good coders and some months of their spare time. But definitely doable, ...

[Protools5LEGuy]

MPEG2 was easy to do. Even some ATI Rage 128 had a hardware decoder for DVD onboard or as Add-on card. Good to know PC decoder PCI cards works on Macs. Please be specific with the model. http://www.wiredinc.com/wp/pdf/Wired4DVD%20Manual.pdf

H264 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC is "other" game.

It is true than today, most downloads are for H264 content, but we can use other OSes to convert them to a OS9 compatible codec. Just in case we want to preview some of this H264 content on OS9 machines.

Emicsoft Video Converter for OSX (Universal Binary) has let me change the codecs on some stuff to preview it on OS9. But I am sure there should be more choices.

I would like to get some more info from MacTron on what troubles he had porting to OS9 FFmpeg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFmpeg.
If he used CodeWarrior, a XCode Version asking for a Carbonized app or the latest Macintosh Programmer Workshop.

https://github.com/ksherlock/mpw

https://www.ffmpeg.org/

A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video.

Maybe with this latest MPW http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1301.msg11981#msg11981 we can build FFmpeg for OS9 at last.

Also, we should search more info on OS9 Quicktime 6.0.3 plugins/codecs, to see if it is possible to hack some parts from OSX 6.2 QT as MacTron tried.

The OSX Perian code is open too. http://www.perian.org/. The game is not over if we develop a OS9 Perian.

Cisco had published a Open Source H264 http://www.openh264.org/

[devils_advisor]

i believe you need a x environment. you talking about porting the source but thats quiet a task if you ask me. you need to strip it and replace stuff that requires libs and stuff thats not available or rewrite it from scratch.

[MacTron]

A solution would be to use an hardware decoder at a PCI card.

Yes this is a good idea ... we can try to use a PCI card with a hardware h264 decoder. Some embedded ARM CPUs include one in the GPU, we have to find one installed on a PCI card. Another possibility is to use the nVidia or ATI GPU already available in most Mac's ...

Anyway, using a software only or hardware aided solution, this is a really complex task, furder away  of most of us capabilities ... 

[devils_advisor]

 Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoder for Mac OS X connects via USB 2.0 and presents itself as three QuickTime components

[Protools5LEGuy]

We can still use the great UNIX/Linux video package FFMPEG on windows http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ inside a Microsoft Virtual PC v6  http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=812.0 virtual machine.

For sure the conversion time would be absurd. Compared to any native utility on any other OS than 9. Benchmarking conversion times on different OSes worth a Time for the true post, but maybe on other forum.

We can use a sorenson win app in virtual to convert these files. If someone is forced to do because he has no other tools (or desire to boot another OS), at least, there is a workaround.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Please, take a look on how this MacRumor user takes advantage on his G5 to convert files to be seen on a OS9 667 Ti Powerbook .

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1859839

Well I've been tinkering with my newly acquired 667 Powerbook and seeing how far I can push video under OS9.
For testing I used a couple of 720P movie trailers, MPEG Streamclip on my G5 to convert them and Quicktime Pro 6 on Mac OS9.
I found the optimum codec to be the Apple MPEG4 Compressor at 3 Mbs which surprised me as I previously thought compressed video on underpowered hardware was a no no.
I output the mpg files at 1129 X 635 (size of Quicktime window maximised) which isn't far off the magic 720P - bear in mind this is on a 667 Powerbook (no L3 cache) - I bet the higher machines can do 720P easily.
Another great thing about rendering to Apple MPEG4 is that it converts in a single pass in realtime or quicker.


I'd love to know if anyone is successful at playing 720P on OS9 and what machine? Judging by my effort I'd guess 800Mhz is the threshold?

Also look how Zen from PowerPCLiberation uses Handbrake (Tiger-Leo) versions lower than 0.9.3 to convert DVD or H264 files to Xvid with 1500kbps+ and 2-pass. He claims perfection.

http://powerpcliberation.blogspot.ca/2013/12/xvid.html

[devils_advisor]

I believe we need to start sorting that out. There are codec's for final output and codecs to work with. Divx/xvid are final output, mpeg's the same. These codecs are harder to work with.

[MacTron]

Also look how Zen from PowerPCLiberation uses Handbrake (Tiger-Leo) versions lower than 0.9.3 to convert DVD or H264 files to Xvid with 1500kbps+ and 2-pass. He claims perfection.

Yes, I have done the same but using FFMPEG on Debian Linux to convert H264 to Divx and test it at 1080p in Mac Os 9 ...
But using other Operating Systems isn't a solution for the lack of H264  in Mac Os 9.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Ten years ago I have failed in to bring H264 to Mac Os 9. Just for the record, I have tried out two ways:
1) Continue the Mac Os 9 port of the great UNIX/Linux video package FFMPEG.
2) Hack the QuickTime 6.2 (for Mac Os X) H264 codec and insert them in to QuickTime 6.0.3 for Mac Os 9.

There was also an attempt to port Quicktime server for OS9 Marlin http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2102.0

But every individual works on porting stuff that do not tell the world the troubles they find out, never will be a solution. Let's focus on the STOP places. I guess some FFMPEG libs are hard to translate to the C language used in CodeWarrior.

Also interesting would be to know what steps MacTron did to put QT 6.2 libs on OS9 QT 6.0.3

Yes, I have done the same but using FFMPEG on Debian Linux to convert H264 to Divx and test it at 1080p in Mac Os 9 ...
But using other Operating Systems isn't a solution for the lack of H264  in Mac Os 9.

At least the game isn't over. It let you "Insert Coin to Continue".    But having QT 6.03 with Apple MPEG4, who cares?   

I believe we need to start sorting that out. There are codec's for final output and codecs to work with. Divx/xvid are final output, mpeg's the same. These codecs are harder to work with.

Yes we need to sort that out. At least we want to playback H264 files, but we can't, unless we convert them with other OSes to "playback" them.

Other thing are the codecs used for video edition. For video edition you need other codecs than H264 too.

Most modern cameras outputs their footage on MP4 H264 files. At least modern Smartphones.

[devils_advisor]

have you looked at the performance side of the h264 ? the encoding part is very cpu demanding and for os9 the playback side could be a bottleneck too.
divx is pushing it to a limit already if you keep the bitrate wide open besides your filesize limitations thats something i wouldnt consider. what you can do is use a linux box and a watch folder (just like after effects does) and make you output from whatever and have it saved to a shared drive and batch converted (could be a headless unit like a xserve) or if you know how to create (find) a webgui and do it this way. i think a week ago i used os9 to access my webmin server on a linux box and it did quiet well from what i remember (just the looks where a little off).

other than that get the source code with the lowest version number, make a project in codewarrior and start compiling. from there we can find out where we hanging.

[MacTron]

I believe we need to start sorting that out. There are codec's for final output and codecs to work with. Divx/xvid are final output, mpeg's the same. These codecs are harder to work with.

... well may be... it depends on the App used, if it can work with inter-frame compression or not.
For my last video works I have used MP4 videos at 1280 x 720p @ 24fps from my old Sony Ericsson Vivaz cellular and opened directly in VideoShop (without pre-rendering) edited trimmed and added transitions ( using a MP4 codec) and save to QuickTime .mov without re-rendering again. As you can imagine all the process was done in Real Time, without extra hardware needed.
Once you have the final .mov file, you can render it (or leave it as is) to the format you wish (Mpeg1/2 avi/Divx, MP4 etc...) using QuickTime Player. An hour of final video can take 15 min to an hour max. By the way, the same work in Final Cut may take from two to three hours ... That's why I don't like Final Cut it spend most of the time re-rendering ...

[Mat]

Just wanted to throw in another interresting point regarding h264. We – Mac OS 9 users – had a codec based on h264 very early and before there was an h264 codec for X! It was "Sorenson Video 3" (not to confuse with "Sorenson Spark"). It shall be just slightly different to h264 and was released together with QuickTime 5.

So h264 would definitely be possible!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorenson_codec#Sorenson_Video_3

[IIO]

no matter on what technology it was based on, but sorensons cubism-pointillism is unbearable. i´ve destroyed a lot of videos with it.

[devils_advisor]

Now look at that

http://sourceforge.net/p/transcoderredux/code/HEAD/tree/

http://www.techspansion.com/goodbye.html

[IIO]

the perian game is over too, its been disonctinued years ago.

i already made myself backups of it because i am afraid it might disappear from the web soon. OSX PPC stuff is more outdated than OS9 PPC stuff...

but perian is nice. sometimes it is a bit strange and does weird things because it opens files differently every other day, but most of the time you can play flv with it (and probably some other formats, which i have no use for)

[Protools5LEGuy]

Cisco had published a Open Source H264 http://www.openh264.org/

https://github.com/cisco/openh264

Processor Support

    Intel x86 optionally with MMX/SSE (no AVX yet, help is welcome)
    ARMv7 optionally with NEON, AArch64 optionally with NEON
    Any architecture using C/C++ fallback functions

Can we build OpenH264 on CodeWarrior for OS9?

Can we build OpenH264 on XCode to make a carbon-lib OS9 app ?

[supernova777]

reminds me of this track

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGfw81zkFJE[/youtube]

[Protools5LEGuy]

reminds me of this track

You remind me this Apple Engineer

[youtube]KHZ8ek-6ccc[/youtube]

But please, let's be on topic.