Creating mov files by mp4 multiplexing

Question

I've working on some Windows code that creates mp4 container files from video and audio input streams (it happens to be in C++). I would ideally like to extend it to support timecode streams too.

How difficult is it to extend mp4 multiplexing code to create QuickTime compatible mov files instead of mp4 files? The obvious alternative is to use the QuickTime SDK to create mov files directly - the main problem is that the Windows QuickTime SDK is pretty much obsolete these days and hasn't been updated for many years.

Are mp4 files and mov container files just a few atoms different? Are there particular atoms to look out for? Any links for further reading on the differences between mp4 and mov formats?

Any useful diagnostic tools to examine mp4/mov files and highlight differences? Are there good benchmark tests for compatibility to check that I'm creating genuine mov files rather than mp4 files that happen to work in particular scenarios?

Windows diagnostic tools would be the most convenient but I could also use OS X tools or Linux tools if really needed. My code needs to run on Windows though, cross platform coding isn't required in this case.

Answer 1

From what I heard QuickTime's atom structure is more complex. A lot. The first tool you'll find useful is libquicktime .

The more interesting one is AtomicParsley because at one point in time the developer maintained parallel MPEG-4 and QuickTime versions.