Zarx264gui 2.0 final

[BasharOfTheAges]

Or just use something that isn't a bloated wreck surviving only by name-recognition from the 90s and corporate/government/education entrenchment. So. basically, something that's not Norton or McAfee.

More to topic, I don't ever want to install the mac virus known as quicktime to my system, but i'm noticing some definite desync occurring when I compress betas. Also realized that some form of quicktime is already on my system, or CS5 really seems to think it is, as whenever I do a "replace clip with AE comp" in premiere, I get an AE comp with the clip as an asset with the label of "quicktime" applied to it. What is zarxgui actually checking for? Or, is my AE drunk?

[Qyot27]

More to topic, I don't ever want to install the mac virus known as quicktime to my system, but i'm noticing some definite desync occurring when I compress betas. Also realized that some form of quicktime is already on my system, or CS5 really seems to think it is, as whenever I do a "replace clip with AE comp" in premiere, I get an AE comp with the clip as an asset with the label of "quicktime" applied to it. What is zarxgui actually checking for? Or, is my AE drunk?

x264 looks for an installation of Quicktime. If it finds it, it uses Quicktime's encoding engine (as --fullhelp and ./configure refer to it, qtaac) to encode AAC at the same time as the video gets encoded. This is possible because, like the qtaacenc and qaac command-line frontends, x264 was built against the Quicktime SDK (only possible because L-SMASH is included, which also includes the changes from x264-audio). If it doesn't find Quicktime, it uses libvo-aac, which Zarx noted to have the potential for sync issues.

I don't have a clue as to whether hacked solutions like Quicktime Alternative are suitable for this purpose. I would assume no, but maybe the SDK doesn't care whether it's a real install or just can find the codecs.

If you aren't dead-set on using AAC (and are outputting to MKV), create a .BAT, and change --acodec qtaac to --acodec vorbis. That might resolve the sync, since it's using Vorbis rather than AAC. From x264's --fullhelp readout:

Code: Select all

      --acodec <string>       Audio codec [auto]
                              Available settings:
                                  - auto (select muxer default codec and its default encoder)
                                  - copy (copy source audio without transcoding)
                                  - none (disable audio)
                                Set audio format only and automatically choose encoder
                                  - raw, aac, ac3, eac3, alac, mp2, pcm_f32be, pcm_f32le, pcm_f64be,
                                    pcm_f64le, pcm_s16be, pcm_s16le, pcm_s24be, pcm_s24le,
                                    pcm_s32be, pcm_s32le, pcm_s8, pcm_u16be, pcm_u16le,
                                    pcm_u24be, pcm_u24le, pcm_u32be, pcm_u32le, pcm_u8,
                                    vorbis, 
                                Force to use specified audio encoder
                                'ff' prefix indicate they are supported via libavcodec
                                  - raw, qtaac, (ff)libvo_aacenc, (ff)aac, (ff)ac3, (ff)eac3,
                                    (ff)alac, (ff)mp2, (ff)pcm_f32be, (ff)pcm_f32le, (ff)pcm_f64be,
                                    (ff)pcm_f64le, (ff)pcm_s16be, (ff)pcm_s16le, (ff)pcm_s24be,
                                    (ff)pcm_s24le, (ff)pcm_s32be, (ff)pcm_s32le, (ff)pcm_s8,
                                    (ff)pcm_u16be, (ff)pcm_u16le, (ff)pcm_u24be, (ff)pcm_u24le,
                                    (ff)pcm_u32be, (ff)pcm_u32le, (ff)pcm_u8, (ff)vorbis,

You could also use AC3, EAC3, MP2, ALAC, or choose from a large selection of PCM formats.


I was under the impression that After Effects depends on Quicktime for some of the previewing functions, though. It certainly complained to me about Quicktime crashing during the times I had to preview stuff in AE, although I dunno if the CS-series has made that situation any better.

[Qyot27]

I'll note, though, that qaac.exe itself only depends on Apple Application Support, not Quicktime. As they have on the website:

Since 1.00, qaac directly uses CoreAudioToolbox.dll. Therefore, QuickTime installation is no more required. However, Apple Application Support is required.

Apple Application Support is included in recent Apple products such as iTunes, QuickTime, or Safari. Therefore, you can install it via installation of one of these products. However, Apple Application Support itself is actually independently packaged as AppleApplicationSupport.msi. If you want, you can extract it from installer exe file using 7-zip archiver, and directly run AppleApplicationSupport.msi. This way, you can install only necessary modules to run qaac. No iTunes, QuickTime, or Safari needed.

You need recent Apple Application Support package (QuickTime >= 7.7.1, or iTunes >= 10.5). With older version, at least AAC-HE encoder is not usable, and there might be some other problems. Of course, the latest version is desirable.

It would then be possible to encode the audio with qaac.exe first, then mux after-the-fact with L-SMASH's muxer.exe or mkvmerge (as I personally wouldn't bother trying to load an external audio file into x264, but if that's what you do, then use --audiofile filename --acodec copy instead of --acodec qtaac).

[Zarxrax]

Libvoaac shouldnt have any serious desync, just 1-2 frames, really no worse than back when i was using nero as the aac encoder.
The quality should be passable. I doubt anyone other than an audiophile could really tell a big difference, especially at the bitrates that are typically used.

[Dusk252]

Hello.
I have a bit of a problem here. Whenever I try to use Zarx264gui to compress a .mp4 file, I get this line in the log, no matter which audio options I choose: mp4 [info]: audio muxing feature is disabled. and the output file comes with no audio.
I have quicktime installed and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, so I'd be grateful if someone could enlighten me on this, please.

[Qyot27]

Hello.
I have a bit of a problem here. Whenever I try to use Zarx264gui to compress a .mp4 file, I get this line in the log, no matter which audio options I choose: mp4 [info]: audio muxing feature is disabled. and the output file comes with no audio.
I have quicktime installed and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, so I'd be grateful if someone could enlighten me on this, please.

It means you're giving it a file that doesn't have any audio (or that somehow it's not picking up on an external audio file, if that's what you're giving it), thus there's no audio to encode.

[Dusk252]

Hello.
I have a bit of a problem here. Whenever I try to use Zarx264gui to compress a .mp4 file, I get this line in the log, no matter which audio options I choose: mp4 [info]: audio muxing feature is disabled. and the output file comes with no audio.
I have quicktime installed and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, so I'd be grateful if someone could enlighten me on this, please.

It means you're giving it a file that doesn't have any audio (or that somehow it's not picking up on an external audio file, if that's what you're giving it), thus there's no audio to encode.

I'm not giving it an external audio file nor am I trying to compress a file with no audio. I guess it'd be stupid to expect something to end up with audio if the source doesn't have it...

[Mister Hatt]

There's your answer then, for whatever reason the audio isn't being detected by the muxer the GUI uses. Try a different muxer or provide some info on the codecs and whatnot.

[Dusk252]

There's your answer then, for whatever reason the audio isn't being detected by the muxer the GUI uses. Try a different muxer or provide some info on the codecs and whatnot.

Using a different muxer works. Thanks^^

[tyee]

Just downloaded the program and when I start it up I get the error window about the app has encountered a problem and needs to close. Running winxp sp2. Reinstalled .net 3.0 but no difference. Any hints??