MP4 can only be read from physical files not streams #378

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claunia · 2026-01-29T16:42:21Z

claunia commented

2026-01-29 16:42:21 +00:00

Originally created by @cfsmp3 on GitHub (Jan 25, 2018).

MP4 files don't use the generic stream infrastructure we have - instead. when a MP4 file passed as a parameter, we just have libgpac (the library we use for MP4) open it.

This means we cannot use -udp , or pipes, etc, to read the .mp4 from anything other than an actual file.

Last time we checked correcting this seemed almost impossible without really getting deep in libgpac. However we are now using a new version of libgpac and things may have changed.

This is something to look into.

Gives a lot of qualification points for GSoC 2018 since in order to do it you need to get somewhat deep into libgpac and ccextractor internals.

Originally created by @cfsmp3 on GitHub (Jan 25, 2018). MP4 files don't use the generic stream infrastructure we have - instead. when a MP4 file passed as a parameter, we just have libgpac (the library we use for MP4) open it. This means we cannot use -udp , or pipes, etc, to read the .mp4 from anything other than an actual file. Last time we checked correcting this seemed almost impossible without really getting deep in libgpac. However we are now using a new version of libgpac and things may have changed. This is something to look into. Gives a lot of qualification points for GSoC 2018 since in order to do it you need to get somewhat deep into libgpac and ccextractor internals.

claunia added the difficulty: hard GSoC-related labels 2026-01-29 16:42:21 +00:00

claunia closed this issue

2026-01-29 16:42:21 +00:00

claunia commented

2026-01-29 16:42:22 +00:00

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Feb 27, 2018):

This task qualifies for GSoC (assuming the proposal is good).

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Feb 27, 2018): This task qualifies for GSoC (assuming the proposal is good).

claunia commented

2026-01-29 16:42:22 +00:00

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Jan 25, 2020):

Not easy at all because we use GPAC which seems to want a path, not a file handle or descriptor.

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Jan 25, 2020): Not easy at all because we use GPAC which seems to want a path, not a file handle or descriptor.

claunia commented

2026-01-29 16:42:22 +00:00

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Dec 14, 2025):

This is a limitation of the MP4 file format, closing because it's just can't be done.

@cfsmp3 commented on GitHub (Dec 14, 2025): This is a limitation of the MP4 file format, closing because it's just can't be done.

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Reference: starred/ccextractor#378