CODEWITHSUNDEEP
videodata-structuresmp4
Samson
Samson

Reputation: 21

Inserting new custom atoms/boxes into MP4 container format files

I'd like to know if anyone can advise me regarding adding my own objects into the MP4 container structure.

For example I've found a typical file like the ones we use has the following 'atoms' / 'boxes' :

I'd like to add my own small custom object between the ftyp object and the moov object.

So the objects will appear as :

This will be a small object containing just a unique hash.

The question here is - will all the players out there ignore this new object that I'm adding - it has nothing to do with playback but is used to track our files internally.

I'd like to add a separate object as this will be done on the fly (cgi/php) as files are served so it is very easy to simply insert a new object near to the start of the file prior to serving the rest of it via http.

I did something similar using WMV files and all players that I can find ignore objects which they don't recognize. I'm wondering if it's the same situation with the MP4 files. Do players ignore objects that they don't expect, I guess this should be the default behavior of a player as it is an extensible container format?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2018

Answers (2)

bhavesh369
bhavesh369

Reputation: 319

"Note that in some specifications boxes were known as atoms. Note that the introduction of new atom types is discouraged; in general other extensibility features of the file format should be used if possible" -- Text form ISO/IEC 14496-12:2005

Upvotes: 2

smhx
smhx

Reputation: 2266

According to the mpeg standard documentation, all unknown atom types should be ignored by a given application. So you can in fact add your tracking atom safely. However, your atom should not have, in it's name, any lower-case letters, as they are reserved by the standard. For example, you can't have 'sams' as your atom name, but you can have 'SAMS'

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions