Motion JPEG (MJPEG) support for digital camera movies (.mov/.avi)

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Does anyone know if WDTV Live Streaming Media Player can properly play movie files generated by digital cameras (Canon, Panasonic, etc) that are in the Motion-JPEG format? The manual says no, some people in this forum say yes, others in this forum say yes, but the video/sound is jerky.  I have so many of these, I don’t want to try and convert them all, given they play perfectly on a PC.

MediaInfo summary - Panasonic (.mov files):

General: Format : MPEG-4
                Format profile : QuickTime
                Codec ID : qt

Video: Format : JPEG
             Codec ID : jpeg

MediaInfo summary - Canon (.avi files):

General: Format : AVI

Video:    Format : JPEG
               Codec ID : MJPG

2

Can confirm and approve,

all my (old) mov  files from my digital cams working and playing well! 

GSpot info:

File Type: QuickTime (.MOV)

Mime Type: video/quicktime

Codec: jpeg

Name: Apple Photo JPEG

3

If you could upload somewhere short examples of your files, I can test it for you.

4

Thanks for your offer to test some movie files out for me - much appreciated!

Early year I ended up buying a Seagate FreeAgent Theatre+, only to find out it had poor support for Motion JPEG movies, so after that waste of money, I began the hunt to try and find a machine that could play them smoothly and my arrival at WD TV Live now.

The movie files are 15 second samples at:

  1. http://tinyurl.com/pana-mov

     Original movie file from Panasonic camera - Quicktime with JPEG codec

  1. http://tinyurl.com/pana-mp4

     The above movie converted to Mp4 format which is more acceptable to media players

     and plays smoothly on my Seagate machine.

     Use this to compare the above movie for jerkiness, stuttering, etc

  1. http://tinyurl.com/canon-avi

     Original movie file from Canon camera - AVI with JPEG/MJPG codec

  1. http://tinyurl.com/canon-mp4

     The above movie converted to Mp4 format which is more acceptable to media players

     and plays smoothly in my Seagate machine.

     Use this to compare the above movie for jerkiness, stuttering, etc

    

Thanks for all your help!

5

I have testet your files.

First i have testet to stream the files over ethernet (wired). The converted ones plays as expected smoothly. Your original files from the cameras plays also, but there is a lot of stuttering and sound will be interrupted.

Then i tried with an USB-Stick. It was better, but also not satisfying:

  • Sound of your pana-mov from USB is good, but video is slightly stuttering.

  • Canon-avi stutters very frequently and also sound is broken with short gaps.

Summery: Performance of your digi-cam-files on the SMP (with FW 1.04.12) is not satisfying.

I think, the performance of the panasonic file is good enough for some people not to notice the stuttering. But in comparison with your mp4 there is quite a difference ;o(  …

Sorry for the bad message…

6

Thanks for going to all that trouble to test it out - I really appreciate it!

While the end result is unfortunately disappointing, it at least ensures that I don’t again buy something that won’t satisfy my requirements, so you’ve saved me time and money - thank you once again.

What we can conclude here is that if people do want the WD TV streaming media player to play their Motion JPEG movies from their digital camera, then they really have no choice but to convert them to MPEG or another format.

Surprisingly my old Seagate FreeAgent Theatre+ did not too bad a job on playing the original Canon AVI Motion-JPEG file, whereas the WD TV SMP suffered from very bad stuttering.  Both FreeAgent Theatre+and WD SMP had jerky/stuttering video with the Panasonic digital camera Motion JPEG movie file (Quicktime .mov).

I guess the only option left for me is a HTPC (home theatre PC) rather than a dedicated hardware media player like WD TV.