capabilities of mp4 container format?

[thanhvn]

i've always used the avi container format for my divx movies. however, i hear that mp4 is better than avi but i'm not sure of its capabilities. can anyone explain to me:

1) what are the limitations of avi that mp4 overcame?

2) can mp4 do the following:
a) bundle 2 or more audio streams with each video stream?
b) bundle 2 or more subtitle streams with each audio stream?
c) bundle 2 or more video streams into the same container?
d) include an interactive menu with each container to access the various video/audio/subtitle streams (if one or more of the above is possible)?

i guess i wanted to know how close to the dvd experience the mp4 container format offers.

[shiny#3]

answering question 1
the mp4 container does not have a file size limit like most avi containers which is 2 GB.
this is especially important if you want to store a movie
with a higher resolution than the DVD format.
answering question 2:
a) yes it can, I have tested myself.
b)I don't know, I have tested only one subtitle stream locked to 1 audio stream so far.

since I have not tested the features that you mentioned in c and d I cannot give proper information about that.
I recommend that you visit the homepage of ahead to
learrn more about that ,or that you talk to the developers via support directly to retrieve enhanced information .
good luck

[ChristianHJW]

What kind of subtitles are you going to use ? Note that MP4 does not support SRT or SSA, nor vobsubs, only matroska does .....

[BoF]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
only matroska does .....

...and ogm if I remember well. (I know you love it )

[thanhvn]

shiny#3: how do you lock a subtitle track to an audio track? i use both gk0.28.7 and dvx3.56b and i haven't figure it out yet.

christianhjw: i use mostly srt subs. however, since neither mp4 nor matroska is widely accepted yet, i guess i'll stick to avi. most of my movies are for archival purposes, for personal uses and for lending to friends/family, i'll stick to the safer bet and not go with a format that MAY die in the near future (due to lack of financial/developer/promotional/consumer/etc. support), and thus render my collection unusable.

[ChristianHJW]

Current mkvextract from the mkvtoolnix package will allow you to extract all the streams in your MKV into their source containers, means AVI for the video, MP3/AAC/Ogg for the audio.

As long as you keep this program on your HDD, you are safe, so your arguments against using matroska are void .....

[bond_d9]

Re: capabilities of mp4 container format?

Originally posted by thanhvn
1) what are the limitations of avi that mp4 overcame?

avi cant handle vbr audio without hacks
avi cant handle b-frames without hacks
avi cant handle subtitles without hacks
avi cant handle variable framerate video
avi cant handle advanced stuff like menus, aso...
avi isnt streamable
...

2) can mp4 do the following:
a) bundle 2 or more audio streams with each video stream?

yes, already possible

b) bundle 2 or more subtitle streams with each audio stream?

yes, already possible

c) bundle 2 or more video streams into the same container?

yes, already possible

d) include an interactive menu with each container to access the various video/audio/subtitle streams (if one or more of the above is possible)?

yes, already possible

Originally posted by thanhvn
i'll stick to the safer bet and not go with a format that MAY die in the near future (due to lack of financial/developer/promotional/consumer/etc. support), and thus render my collection unusable.

well mp4 is the official container format of the mpeg-4 standard and already a lot of tools support it natively (quicktime is maybe the most popular one)
and also matroska is already pretty famous and powerfull

i dont think that both will "die" in the future