Question / Help Apple Encoder h264 problem with final file

[efreetcs]

Hello,

In the "Output" section, and after choosing "Output Mode" to "Advanced", i select "Recording" tab, and in the "Encoder" list, i select "Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder".
When i do a video record, and play it in VLC, it plays correctly if i don't do anything in VLC. But, when i move forward (if i'm at 00:01:00 on a 01:30:00 video and i move to 01:00:00 for example), my VLC (or quicktime or whatever) is freezing for a long time. Sometimes the video start from beginning.

I tried with all the "Recording Format", and it's doing always the same thing.
I tried to change bitrate / KI / Profile / B-Frame : Same thing.
I tried with or without sound : Same thing.
I tried on a short video (2min) or a long video (1h and 3h) : same thing.

When i select "x264" in the "Encoder" list, the file is readable correctly by VLC without freezing when changing the time cursor.

Is there a reason where the "Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder" makes the final file "freezing" in VLC (and quicktime btw) ?
This encoder uses less CPU than the others, so it's interesting to use it instead of x264 software encoder.

Thanks for your answer.

 

[amsyar ZeRo]

Same as me.

The Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder is a really good encoder,though.When I streamed on YouTube/YouTube Gaming,it complained for a while then it resumes nicely(Actually,nothing happened to the stream¯\_¬ᗜ¬_/¯)

It also uses really little CPU compared to x264,and I don't see any quality drop(besides my bitrate).

But,there are problems with it:

-The video lags in some places,noticeably when I played Geometry Dash(the video,uh,how do I explain it..just watch it here.Ignore the voice)

-If you use the .mov output format,then you cannot move the video slider when viewing it in Quicktime Player/VLC/any video player.

-Also when you try to import the .mov inside a video editor like iMovie,the app will freeze.Trying to delete after 'Force Quit' will result similarly.

Hope anyone can fix this.

 

[Michael Cheng]

So you have no issues when output to FLV format?

 

[amsyar ZeRo]

Finally found a solution!Set keyframe interval to 2.This will make the scrubbing nice,at a very little cost of CPU.
Taken from this manual of a program that utilises Apple's H.264 encoder.(see Frame Sync)

 

[Cake_buster]

I wonder if there's some Codec or meta data issues with the files that encoder makes. Try exporting/converting the video using Quicktime or MPEG Stream Clip (a free awesome encoding software). I have instructions below.

It could also be possible the file size is just huge, and either the program or your hard-drive can't keep up--unless your have an SSD.

Converting: In QuickTime; just use the 720p options. In MPEG; Export to QuickTime, Compression to H.263, and Quality at 100%.

 

[amsyar ZeRo]

@Cake_buster Maybe you're right.But I read in the manual in my last post and saw about Frame Sync,which controls the smoothness of the video.Apparently I discovered that setting the keyframe interval to 0 makes the video stuck when moving the video slider,as it sets the frames to the source(whatever that means).Setting it to 2 works best.