[FFmpeg-user] ProRes Quicktimes with audio not playing back reliably

[Bob Maple]

Experimenting with ffmpeg for Prores Quicktime creation on Windows so I 
can stop having to bounce stuff over to a Mac to do it, but am having 
some issues with the resulting files.

Upon a bunch of testing, it seems that the movies made with video AND 
audio are problematic;  If I make a video-only Prores Quicktime it plays 
back just fine, or if I make an audio only it plays back fine as well.

With both however I get unreliable playback, ranging from Quicktime 
Player (on Windows) playing back 'lurchy' or even freezing up entirely. 
  It's also not consistent;  It will play through sections fine one time 
and freeze up another, so it's not happening at exactly the same spot. 
Sometimes I'll get 2 seconds in and it freezes, sometimes it'll go for 
20-30 and then die.

So this seems like a muxing/interleaving issue with the video and audio 
ffmpeg is writing in such a way that Quicktime Player is getting a bit 
twisted up inside.  If I take for instance the separate video-only 
Prores and audio from ffmpeg and combine them myself in Quicktime Pro 
(using Copy from the audio movie and 'Add to Movie' on the video one) 
and save a new self-contained file, it plays back fine.

I've been searching through the list archives and the cloest thing I can 
find is:

  http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2012-May/006612.html

However the FCP warning is not (yet) my problem since I can't even get 
them to work reliably on Windows, AND I've made >4GB files that still 
don't work.  But that thread suggested some sort of muxing problem that 
was supposedly fixed in the ffmbc fork, but I downloaded and tried that 
too and didn't have any better success - the movies behave the exact 
same way.  So I'm not sure what might be going on.

Here's my encode command line plus output:

   --

D:\ffmpeg-20120907-git-070b0e1-win64-static\bin> .\ffmpeg -i 
D:\F75C0919.MOV -vcodec prores -profile:v 2 -acodec pcm_
s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 D:\ProResTest.mov
ffmpeg version N-44264-g070b0e1 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg 
developers
   built on Sep  7 2012 17:38:57 with gcc 4.7.1 (GCC)
   configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-pthreads 
--enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-bzlib 
--enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-libcelt 
--enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb 
--enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut 
--enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger 
--enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libutvideo 
--enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis 
--enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid 
--enable-zlib
   libavutil      51. 72.100 / 51. 72.100
   libavcodec     54. 55.100 / 54. 55.100
   libavformat    54. 25.105 / 54. 25.105
   libavdevice    54.  2.100 / 54.  2.100
   libavfilter     3. 16.100 /  3. 16.100
   libswscale      2.  1.101 /  2.  1.101
   libswresample   0. 15.100 /  0. 15.100
   libpostproc    52.  0.100 / 52.  0.100
Guessed Channel Layout for  Input Stream #0.1 : stereo
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'D:\F75C0919.MOV':
   Metadata:
     major_brand     : qt
     minor_version   : 537331968
     compatible_brands: qt  CAEP
     creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
   Duration: 00:02:34.48, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 65008 kb/s
     Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p, 
1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 63463 kb/s, 29.97fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 
60k tbc
     Metadata:
       creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
       timecode        : 00:27:53;12
     Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le (sowt / 0x74776F73), 48000 Hz, 
stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
     Metadata:
       creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
       timecode        : 00:27:53;12
     Stream #0:2(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74)
     Metadata:
       creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
       timecode        : 00:27:53;12
File 'D:\ProResTest.mov' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Output #0, mov, to 'D:\ProResTest.mov':
   Metadata:
     major_brand     : qt
     minor_version   : 537331968
     compatible_brands: qt  CAEP
     encoder         : Lavf54.25.105
     Stream #0:0(eng): Video: prores (apcn) (apcn / 0x6E637061), 
yuv422p10le, 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 30k tbn, 
29.97 tbc
     Metadata:
       creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
       timecode        : 00:27:53;12
     Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: pcm_s16le (sowt / 0x74776F73), 48000 Hz, 
stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
     Metadata:
       creation_time   : 2012-07-12 22:27:21
       timecode        : 00:27:53;12
Stream mapping:
   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 -> prores)
   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (pcm_s16le -> pcm_s16le)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame= 4630 fps= 36 q=0.0 Lsize= 3381837kB time=00:02:34.48 
bitrate=179328.3kbits/s
video:3352768kB audio:28966kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing 
overhead 0.003047%