Did MP4 encoding change for Oct GC?

From my Windows Mobile 6.1 AT&T Fuze I download conference talks via the RSS podcast at http://feeds.lds.org/ldsgccomplete_eng_mp4

I'm able to view the video and audio from April's GC on my phone no problem. But for some reason I only get the audio when viewing the .mp4 files from the October GC.

The .mp4 files from both April and October play fine on my PC. It's almost as if a different encoding was used in October which isn't compatable with Windows mobile 6.1.

Anyone else run into this or know what might be going on?

Thanks, Brad.

Yah, I wondered as well if there has been a change. I downloaded the video podcast from the same source, and when I tried to sync it to my iPod Touch, I get a message that the video format isn't supported by my iPod (using software version 3.1.2). At the moment I have iTunes converting the podcast files to iPhone/iPod format, so we'll see if that works. Like BradBartz, the videos play just fine on my PC, but not on my hand held device.

In my player of choice (mplayer on linux) I can view full sessions 2-5 without a problem, but the saturday morning session seems to be broken. I can watch up until 2934 seconds (or 49 minutes), but then it crashes the movie player. I dont know if the problem is related to yours. Is your problem with all the sessions?

I haven't come across any problems with any of the sessions that you mentioned - so far they all work fine in either VLC or the Quicktime player on my PC. It seems to be only the encoding used for the podcast videos - iTunes displays a message that the video format isn't supported for iPod when I attempt to sync.

As far as the conversion process to iPhone/iPod format, it's awfully slow, and doesn't seem to make any difference anyway. Those videos that apparently have been converted still won't sync to my iPod, with the same format compatibility error.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this issue with an iPod, or other handheld device.

It is possible that those talks are not supported for streaming. As far as the iPhone functions, it can support any MP4 format over a network connection (including compressed MP4s) as long as the server is configured correctly. It's possible that the RSS files have been modified, therefore making MP4 files incompatible with streaming.

I have a similar issue - a successful play of April conference talks on my Macbook, iPhone, Apple TV as video podcast. No luck with October on iPhone, Apple TV. I compared the encoding formats from the April Conference to the October conference by looking at the additional data provided in the More Info section of Finder. April Conference content was encoded w/ following codecs: AAC, H.264, MPEG-4 SDSM, and MPEG-4 ODSM. The October content is lacking the SDSM/ODSM. Audio/Video is not my particular field of expertise but I have a hunch this has something to do with it. Thoughts?

BradBartz wrote:
I'm able to view the video and audio from April's GC on my phone no problem. But for some reason I only get the audio when viewing the .mp4 files from the October GC.

Brad - Thank you for letting us know about downloadable .mp4 files. We are working on correcting the encode and hope to have them back up soon. It appears that the encode did have an issue with some of the mobile platforms.

I will post to this forum when they are ready.

Thanks for fixing the videos. My brother and I both can't play the October conference videos on our iPod touches. It'll be great to have them!

... I thought I was going nuts here! I've tried everything from cleaning out old conference podcasts to using the convert function on iTunes to convert to iPhone.

I soooo want to start watching these on my trips. Especially Elder Holland!

We have corrected the MP4 encoding error.
These files will now load to your iDevices.
Thanks for the feedback.

LDS Web Media wrote:We have corrected the MP4 encoding error.
These files will now load to your iDevices.
Thanks for the feedback.

Hmmm. Still no good!

I've got an 80GB classic iPod. Here's what I tried.
I've downloaded new Conference Reports
I've Reset my iPod. (Dial Button + Menu)
Checked Sync Settings to ensure automatically includes *all* episodes of *all*.

I'm at a loss.

bschroader wrote:Hmmm. Still no good!

I've got an 80GB classic iPod. Here's what I tried.
I've downloaded new Conference Reports
I've Reset my iPod. (Dial Button + Menu)
Checked Sync Settings to ensure automatically includes *all* episodes of *all*.

I'm at a loss.

Hang on! I had to run the Create iPod/iPhone version on it. Now it syncs. What threw me off this time is that they no longer show up under Video Podcasts. They are directly under the Movies folder on my iPod.

This is better though. Thanks!

I tried downloading the October 2009 general conference videos from the website and the podcast and they work with my 2nd gen iPod touch now. Thanks for making the change!!!

I'm still getting an incompatibility error on the October 2009 General Relief Society Meeting videos that I downloaded yesterday.

Thanks again for fixing the videos. I'm really happy to be able to take them with me and watch them during down time. If you could update the relief society videos too that would be awesome.