Ameba Pro2: MP4 recording freezes when switching from H.264 to H.265

FreeRTOS SDK
1

I am working with the ameba-rtos-pro2 SDK and trying to run the media_video_to_storage example.

The example works perfectly using the default H.264 settings. However, when I attempt to switch to H.265 by modifying the following line in example_media_video_to_storage.c

#define USE_H265 1 // Changed from 0 to 1

The system freezes immediately after starting the recording. It reaches STORAGE_START but never progresses to the encoding/stop phase.

Freeze Log:

Start MP4 recording (1 files)
STORAGE_INIT
open file (sd:/AmebaPro2_1.mp4) len = 10 seconds
STORAGE_INIT → STORAGE_START
[Driver]: TSFValue = 2575757210022, tsf = 0, shift_set= 0x8000, bcn int = 100

Expected Behavior (as seen in H.264): In H.264, the log continues to print the size of the video and audio it recorded, followed by STORAGE_STOP and successful file closure.

Environment:

  • Hardware: Ameba Pro2 (AMB82-mini or similar)

  • SDK: ameba-rtos-pro2

  • SD Card: Formatted and working for H.264

Has anyone successfully recorded H.265 to storage using this example? Do I need to change any other settings?

2

Hi @k-adarsh ,

As the codec type is hard-coded for H.264, there are 2 more settings that you might need to change to record with H.265.

  1. Ensure that you have enabled USE_H265, #define USE_H265 1
  2. Please also change `ctx.type` and the `mp4_muxer_write_video()` codec argument from `AV_CODEC_ID_H264` to `VIDEO_CODEC`, so that the muxer knows it is handling H.265 instead of H.264.

Thank you.

3

Thanks for the reply! I’ll try the changes you mentioned and get back to you.

Also, I’m facing another issue. I’m trying to record live video in 60-second chunks, so I modified the code to record in a loop, but there’s nearly a one-second gap between segments. I suspect the delay stems from closing the first file and opening the second. Is there a way to reduce this, or do you have any example code for continuous chunked recording?

4

Hey, thanks for the suggestion! The code works and is recording in H.265.

Could you also help with the other issue?

When I try to loop-record in chunks, I can’t seem to shorten the gap between recordings; I’m consistently losing about 1 second of video (600ms at best) between clips.

5

Hi @k-adarsh ,

Would you like to tryout the mmf video example for mp4 recording? You may modify the record_file_num in line 121 of mmf2_video_example_av_mp4_init.c ameba-rtos-pro2/project/realtek_amebapro2_v0_example/src/mmfv2_video_example/mmf2_video_example_av_mp4_init.c at main · Ameba-AIoT/ameba-rtos-pro2 · GitHub

You may also consider to record into a single large mp4 file without segmentation then split after using ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -f segment -segment_time 10 -reset_timestamps 1 output_%03d.mp4

Thank you.