# Nero and DirectShow Dump Question



## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

I am not a newb with either TiVo or computers (quite experienced with both), but I AM relatively new to messing around with video file formats on the computer. I also know about VideoRedo and plan to purchase it (so no need to suggest that), but I find that working through the "grunt" methods when starting something new makes me learn a lot more and a lot faster.

So on to my question. I have used the TiVo Desktop and the TCP/IP interface on the TiVo to move files to my computer. They play fine in WMP. I used DirectShow Dump to strip of the TiVo wrapper and produce a plain .mpg file. Those files also play just fine in WMP as well as my ASUS O!Play Air media player. HOWEVER, those .mpg files do NOT play in either Nero 9 or Quick Time (but other .mpg files do play in both). If I try to import those .mpg files into Nero Vision for editing, all Vision can see is the AC3 audio track but no video at all.

So there is something strange about the way DirectShow Dump spits out the .mpg format. Does anyone know what's going on?

On a related note, while Nero is supposed to support .tivo files (according to the Nero FAQs), none of the applications in the newest version of Nero 9 can even recognize any file with the .tivo extension. I don't suppose anybody knows a solution to that? Thanks for any help,
Goose


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

NeroVision Express works well with .TiVo files on my computer, but I'm still on version 6. DirectShow Dump and tivodecode just strip the DRM wrapper and decrypt the file. There's nothing unusual about the resulting MPEG-2 video.

The good new is that once you bite the bullet and get VideoReDo you'll never look back. The user interface makes NeroVision look like it was written by third graders, and the fact that it can create DVDs without transcoding .TiVo files to 720x480 will save you endless hours.


----------



## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

ggieseke said:


> NeroVision Express works well with .TiVo files on my computer, but I'm still on version 6. DirectShow Dump and tivodecode just strip the DRM wrapper and decrypt the file. There's nothing unusual about the resulting MPEG-2 video.


Are you absolutely certain about that? At the risk of saying something which I do not completely understand, I tend to disagree. If there is nothing unusual about the resulting MPEG-2 file, then why can't either the Nero 9 video editor or player handle the files, or Quick Time play the files? I rarely use Quick Time, having an extreme dislike for all things from that company, but it is a useful product to test various media files, like using different browsers to test web page coding.

Anyway, Quick Time plays .mpg files just fine, EXCEPT any that are created by DirectShow Dump on my computer (I have not tried tivodecode). Have you or anyone else successfully played DirectShow Dump files in Quick Time? If so, that might indicate a problem with one of the programs that I have. Since the problem is with BOTH Nero and QT on my PC, it does seem to point to something different about the output from DirectShow Dump.

As a side note, I just noticed another thread dealing with this problem on Macs, where they describe the IDENTICAL problem trying to edit these .mpg files in QT on the Mac as I get with Nero 9 on the PC - it plays the audio track fine, but no video - it just displays a static picture. Same fies, two different software products, two different hardware platforms. Sure would be nice if this provided a clue to someone more knowledgeable in these formats to figure out the problem.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

QuickTime (at least the free version) isn't designed for MPEG-2 video and won't play it even if you have other working MPEG-2 codecs installed - you just get error 2048. Are you sure your other .mpg files aren't actually MPEG-4? MediaInfo is a nice little utility that will tell you the details of almost any video file.

I'm pretty darn certain about the way DirectShow Dump and tivodecode work. DSD just uses the TiVo DirectShow Source Filter that Desktop installs to decrypt the files, and tivodecode does it using the actual decryption algorithm. Both programs produce identical output files in my tests. I also wrote my own version of tivodecode from scratch, and it goes down into every packet of the MPEG-2 stream without finding anything that's non-standard.

I don't know about Nero 9, but the codecs that come with 6 don't have any problems with decrypted .TiVo files except that they assume a square pixel ratio when used by other players like WMP. Since the files that typically come off of my Series 2s are 480x480 it squashes the picture horizontally.


----------



## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

ggieseke said:


> QuickTime (at least the free version) isn't designed for MPEG-2 video and won't play it even if you have other working MPEG-2 codecs installed - you just get error 2048. Are you sure your other .mpg files aren't actually MPEG-4? MediaInfo is a nice little utility that will tell you the details of almost any video file.
> 
> I don't know about Nero 9, but the codecs that come with 6 don't have any problems with decrypted .TiVo files except that they assume a square pixel ratio when used by other players like WMP. Since the files that typically come off of my Series 2s are 480x480 it squashes the picture horizontally.


Thanx for the suggestion about MediaInfo - that utility reports all my .mpg files as format MPEG-PS, but the ones that play in Nero9 and QT show a video codec of MPEG-1 video, and the TiVo files show a video codec of MPEG-2 video. At least that shows me what the difference is in the files, which is what I was trying to understand.

As for Nero9, I strongly recommend nobody waste their time or money on that software! Despite the fact that their web site clearly states it supports TiVo files, it does not, and when I contacted technical support their only response was "Nero does not support TiVo files, so there is nothing to fix."


----------



## Gavroche (May 27, 2007)

V7Goose said:


> As for Nero9, I strongly recommend nobody waste their time or money on that software! Despite the fact that their web site clearly states it supports TiVo files, it does not, and when I contacted technical support their only response was "Nero does not support TiVo files, so there is nothing to fix."


I use a combination of TivoDecode and Nero 9. Run through TivoDecode first, then drag the resulting file right into Nero Recode (or Nero Vision).

(Works simply as described for HD... for SD you need to do some re-sizing due to the 480x480 size)


----------



## xswami (Mar 1, 2010)

I use Prism Media Converter and can convert .tivo files to almost any available type. Several files types will play on my Seagate FreeAgent HD+


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

ggieseke said:


> I'm pretty darn certain about the way DirectShow Dump and tivodecode work. DSD just uses the TiVo DirectShow Source Filter that Desktop installs to decrypt the files, and tivodecode does it using the actual decryption algorithm. Both programs produce identical output files in my tests. I also wrote my own version of tivodecode from scratch, and it goes down into every packet of the MPEG-2 stream without finding anything that's non-standard.


Thanks for posting. I just love reading stuff like this.

We're all newbies in some areas, and experts in others. Thankfully the experts will quite often take time to help the newbies. And it's really fun to read that some people out there do stuff such as: "I also wrote my own version of tivodecode from scratch"!

The whole situation seems quite surreal. From what I've seen at a quick glance:

1) QUALCOMM gives away the Turing cipher for the world to use.

2) TiVo uses this cipher to encrypt its video files.

3) People reverse engineer what TiVo is doing and use free source code from QUALCOMM to decrypt the files.


----------



## Argus Vidicon (Mar 23, 2007)

Direct Show Dump works well enough for me. The ratio is still bad for Adobe Premiere and most likely everything else because of the embedded 480x480 size. That continues to cause problems. I have devised a perfect conversion out of that 480 X 480 snag using erightsoft Super. My files still need some cropping adjustment but I saved those to a Super Profile. All is well, no complaints


----------



## Argus Vidicon (Mar 23, 2007)

And once used and or adjusted in Premiere and output from Premier and run back through Super the transfer back to the TiVo (if desired) only takes about 90 seconds for a 5 min video, and the TiVo loves those MPEG-2 files I make in Super. Burning to DVD works well, I use Nero 6 Ultra NeroVision Express 3 for personal and technical reasons. My Nero (2-pass) makes better quality DVD's than Premiere output to DVD. Software companies come out with new versions that really don't work as well as older versions, why is that I'll never know. As nice as Roxio 10 is... I should just remove it from my system. The DVD menus are cute but quality is better with Nero. I like the quick easy photo sideshow in Roxio 10. The Roxio 10 Video Wave is very flexible and will force some good things to happen. That's the only reason I keep it.


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Gavroche said:


> I use a combination of TivoDecode and Nero 9. Run through TivoDecode first, then drag the resulting file right into Nero Recode (or Nero Vision).
> 
> (*Works simply as described for HD*... for SD you need to do some re-sizing due to the 480x480 size)


So, using Nero 9, can I go from a decrypted .mpg file (I use kmttg which downloads and then calls TivoDecode) straight to a DVD +/-R in AVCHD format w/high def video on the disc or is the resulting output standard def only?

If yes to all of the above:
- Can I put 2 or more titles on that disc? (I want to put 2 hours on a single layer DVD, usually 2 1 hour shows.)
- If the original had 5.1 audio, does the resulting output also have 5.1?
- Does the resulting output have audio sync issues?
- Will subtitles in HD shows from TiVoHD make it over to the target? (I can successfully extract them using t2sami or kmttg which calls it.)

I'm trying to do less work to archive high def content from my Tivo HD to DVDs. My continuing saga is at http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=439679. It's already been WAY more work, trial and error and research than I'd like.


----------



## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> So, using Nero 9, can I go from a decrypted .mpg file (I use kmttg which downloads and then calls TivoDecode) straight to a DVD +/-R in AVCHD format w/high def video on the disc or is the resulting output standard def only?
> 
> If yes to all of the above:
> - Can I put 2 or more titles on that disc? (I want to put 2 hours on a single layer DVD, usually 2 1 hour shows.)
> ...


I can't answer about Nero, but if all you are trying to do is write the files to disk to save (not play on a DVD player), then Imgburn will work fine. The files will be written as-is. If you pull them back to your hard drive they will be exactly the same as they were when you wrote them to disk.


----------



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> I can't answer about Nero, but if all you are trying to do is write the files to disk to save (not play on a DVD player), then Imgburn will work fine. The files will be written as-is. If you pull them back to your hard drive they will be exactly the same as they were when you wrote them to disk.


I'm already using ImgBurn to write out AVCHD discs emitted by RipBot264 and after combining two AVCHD dirs (emitted by RipBot264) + adding a menu via MultiAVCHD.

As I said "I'm trying to do less work to archive high def content from my Tivo HD to DVDs."

Last night, I ran VRD's Quickstream Fix on the .mpg files that came out of kmttg and Ripbot264 is still going. I'll find out tonight whether the cleanup it did was sufficient to resolve the audio sync problems.


----------

