MPEG-4 ALS decoder seems capped at 2^28 bytes .mp4 file size

[H2Swine]

How to reproduce:
Pick a "sufficiently big" WAVE file.
Compress it with the MPEG-4 ALS reference decoder RM23 as found at ​http://web.archive.org/web/20120219094440/http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/menue/forschung/projekte/beendete_projekte/mpeg-4_audio_lossless_coding_als/parameter/en/#230252
using the -MP4 parameter.
Check that the encoded .mp4 file exceeds 268435456 bytes. Then just try to decode it:

% ffmpeg -i slightlytoolongALSfile.mp4 throwaway.wav
ffmpeg version 7.0.1-essentials_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2024 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 13.2.0 (Rev5, Built by MSYS2 project)

Output will be like the following:

[aist#0:0/mp4als @ 0000027da5867440] [dec:als @ 0000027da5862400] Error submitting packet to decoder: Invalid data found when processing input
[aist#0:0/mp4als @ 0000027da5867440] [dec:als @ 0000027da5862400] Decode error rate 1 exceeds maximum 0.666667
[aist#0:0/mp4als @ 0000027da5867440] [dec:als @ 0000027da5862400] Task finished with error code: -1145393733 (Error number -1145393733 occurred)
[aist#0:0/mp4als @ 0000027da5867440] [dec:als @ 0000027da5862400] Terminating thread with return code -1145393733 (Error number -1145393733 occurred)
[aost#0:0/pcm_s16le @ 0000027da5867dc0] No filtered frames for output stream, trying to initialize anyway.

Then shorten the WAVE file and try again. If the .mp4 file ends up less than 268435456 , ffmpeg should decode it just fine.
Try again with -l (for wasted bits) and if that reduces the file size, you might be able to encode more samples. Try with -i (force dual mono, increase file size), and you will have to crop off more samples from the WAVE before encoding, if ffmpeg is to handle it.

[H2Swine]

Others terminate like

[als @ 00000151a0ae71c0] quant_cof -65 is out of range. speed= 136x

(Not saying it is a world-dominating codec, and ffmpeg doesn't support neither float nor -z, but still, it wouldn't be bad to get fixed what one does claim to support, instead of leaving behind partly decoded files.)

[MasterQuestionable]

͏    Primarily used by what applications, I wonder?
͏    .
͏    The prominent formats seem to be that described in:
͏    ​https://github.com/MasterInQuestion/talk/discussions/3#discussioncomment-9376594

͏    Does mere remuxing again to MP4 work normally?
͏    E.g. ffmpeg -i "in.mp4" -c copy "out.mp4"

[H2Swine]

Looks like remuxing hits another size constraint. 487 823 229 bytes remux fine, 947 942 263 bytes and it throws this error:

[in#0/mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 00000211d3001680] Error during demuxing: Cannot allocate memory
[out#0/mp4 @ 00000211d30125c0] video:0KiB audio:0KiB subtitle:0KiB other streams:0KiB global headers:0KiB muxing overhead: unknown
[out#0/mp4 @ 00000211d30125c0] Output file is empty, nothing was encoded

(Primarily used by ... people who throw another codec into testing. ALS does surprisingly good on some signals.)

[Balling]

"Error during demuxing: Cannot allocate memory"

How much RAM do you have?

[H2Swine]

16 GB + 16 GB swap/virtual

No problem with other codecs.

[Balling]

It is funny I never heard about Audio lossless coding in my life. Haha.

[H2Swine]

quant_cof out of range was already reported in #5942.

@Balling:

It is funny I never heard about Audio lossless coding in my life. Haha.

Seems it was only used in research papers - but once upon a time there was an attempt to make FFmpeg encode to it, even: ​https://github.com/justinruggles/FFmpeg-alsenc

I don't see much point in promoting the codec zealously, but one could fix bugs to the decoders that are taken on board.

[Balling]

Can you attach the needed sample in #5942?

[Balling]

And with CDDA.

What does that mean? See that issue again. CDDA is for CD music?

[H2Swine]

I replied in #5942 - it might be that the error is elsewhere than ffmpeg, as explained there.
CDDA = 44100/16 in 2 channels. The original ticket 5942 says "no such problem with mono/stereo files", that is why.