.mp4 vs .m4v ?

[Engin Osmanovski]

By the way i need the output to be “.mp4”. I have no idea why i get “.m4v” with the Encoder.

[Jim Mcadory]

AE has two h.264 output options. The m4v output occurs when you select h.264 Blu-ray option. For an mp4 file select just the the “h.264” option which is directly above the h.264 Blu-ray option.

[Engin Osmanovski]

@Jim

I didn’t select the “H.264 Bluray” preset. I selected “H.264” and customized several settings (like bitrate, aspect ratio, etc) in the same way for both.

Actually, Media Encoder shows the output as a .mp4 file before the render. But after the render, the output somehow ends up being a .m4v file.

Any other ideas?

[Jim Mcadory]

My guess is that one of the option settings is causing the switch. I did find that if you change the Multiplexer option to “None” rather than the default of “MP4”, the result will be an M4V output (the option is found on the video format button, multiplexer tab).

I don’t claim to be an expert on all of the differences between an m4v and mp4 but what what I have seen an mp4 file always has the audio multiplexed and an m4v does not.

If this is not the cause, would you post all of your settings so we can try to duplicate and locate the source.

[Engin Osmanovski]

Yes, i thought the same thing at first so i checked but the multiplexer was set to “mp4”. Here are the settings i used in Encoder:

Video tab settings:

Format: H.264
Export Video: Enabled
Export Audio: Disabled
Frame rate: 23,976
Field order: Progressive
Aspect: Square (1.0)
Tv Standard: NTSC
Profile: High
Level: 4.0
Render at Maximum Depth: Enabled
Bitrate encoding: CBR
Target Bitrate: 10 mbps
Keyframe Distance: 72
Use Maximum Render Quality: Enabled
Use Previews: Disabled
Use Frame Blending: Disabled

Multiplexer tab settings:

Multiplexer: MP4
Stream Compatibility: Standard

I am getting a mp4 file (as i intended) when i use these settings at After Effects. But when i use Media Encoder with the same settings somehow it gives me a m4v. Here is a screenshot of the summary section in the Media Encoder’s export settings window:

The file seems to have a “.mp4” extension. But once i render, it ends up being “.m4v”.

[Jim Mcadory]

Ok, by watching the output of the ME render process for an mp4 file it is clear that ME is firat creating an h.264 blu-ray file set ( which is a m4v and acc file ) and once the video and audio files are rendered it will combine the files to a single mp4 in the final step. In your case you are disabling the audio file so the process has nothing to merge so it just leaves the m4v file.

I used you settings and only got an m4v file but once I enabled the audio output I got an mp4 file.

[Engin Osmanovski]

This is interesting. I disable audio in After Effects too but it is giving me mp4 in the end.

Here are how After Effects render settings look:

[Jim Mcadory]

I watched the output process from AE for an mp4 with no audio and it also starts as an m4v but at the end of the render it is renamed to mp4. Not sure why AE and ME have a slightly different process.

[Engin Osmanovski]

Weird situation. Thanks anyway, Jim.