[vlc-devel] Transcoding to h264/aac over ts

[David Menestrina]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use VLC to generate a file suitable for use with Apple's HTTP Live Streaming for the iPhone.  This streaming method requires H264/AAC video using MPEG-TS as the container.

Unfortunately, it seems that VLC has some troubles transcoding files to h264/ts.  The output of the transcode results in the first few seconds of video not displaying (using VLC as the player), and the following warning message being printed repeatedly during those first few
seconds:
   packetizer_h264 warning: waiting for SPS/PPS

I noticed that I am not the first person to run into these issues.  For example:
   http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71968&p=237756

I also tried running the output through Apple's mediastreamsegmenter and got the following error messages:
no start access unit
(^repeated many times)
in CheckVideoPesForIFrame, and no payload start
no start access unit
(^repeated many times)
in CheckVideoPesForIFrame, and no payload start
no start access unit
no start access unit
in CheckVideoPesForIFrame, and no payload start
no start access unit
pes header indicated; no pes header
no start access unit

...and so on.

I have tried various versions of VLC, including the latest git trunk.  I would also note that if I change the container format to ASF, then it plays just fine in VLC.  Further, if I leave the container as ts, but change the video codec to mp4v, the result also plays fine in VLC.  Unfortunately, the required combination of h264 and ts does not work.

I've spent quite some time trying to debug this, but I don't know much about h264, so please let me know if anyone has any thoughts.

Thank you,
david