# archiving HD content from TiVo HD to DVDs for playback on XBox 360 or PS3?



## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Ok, this is a newbie question for me since I finally got a TiVo HD 3 months ago and joined the high def TiVo world...

I've got some (non-protected) high def shows and movies on my TiVo HD that I want to archive . Since I have no Blu-Ray burner for my PC and don't have a standalone BD burner, I'm going to need to put them on DVDs (-R, +R, -RW, +RW should all be fine, I think). 

I intend to use either my Xbox 360 or PS3 to play then back since native DVD video format isn't high def.

Unfortunately, most of my HD recordings are over 4.7 gigs (some far over it). I'd rather not spring for dual layer blanks as they're kinda pricey. So, it seems like I'll need something to re-encode or transcode to something that will fit within 4.7 gigs. 

What's the easiest way to achieve the above? I'm not terribly interested in editing the content on my PC and auto-commercial trimming is a plus but not a requirement. Would be nice if it preserved 5.1 audio if present in the recording.

It sounds like YMMV w/Roxio Creator 2010 (and it's not free), I also see chatter about kmttg and VideoReDo.

I see mentions that transcoding might take forever. How long are we talking about vs. length of content? I've got an old Athlon 64 3200+ (single core) running Win XP w/only 1 gig of RAM and a Lenovo T61p Core 2 Duo T7500 w/3 gigs of RAM and Vista. Ballpark figures are good enough...

(For reference, I used to archive SD content from my DirecTiVo via a standalone DVD recorder (s-video and left/right audio) to DVD-R. It was no fuss other than TiVo having no batch "save to VCR" option.

I've also used HandBrake to rip DVD-RWs produced by the above to videos I can watch on my iPhone 3G and 6th gen iPod, usually transcoded to H.264. The T61p was (not surprisingly) ~2x faster at transcoding than my long in the tooth Athlon 64 machine.)


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

159 views and no replies?

Nobody here archives HD content to DVDs that they want to playback w/o needing a HTPC?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The PS3 can play AVCHD DVDs. I've never done it myself, but I hear this program does it well...

http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/

Not sure what you need to do to prepare the .tivo files for it though. At the very least you'll need to decrypt them to standard .mpg files using something like DirectShow Dump or tivodecode.

The 360 can play HD files stored in the DVR-MS format from a networked PC, but not from a DVD. You can use VideoReDo to easily convert .tivo files to DVR-MS files if you want to create some sort of video server instead of burning DVDs.

Dan


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

cwerdna said:


> 159 views and no replies?
> 
> Nobody here archives HD content to DVDs that they want to playback w/o needing a HTPC?


Sorry, all my HD content is stored on either Tivo or our home network. Tivo plays from either source using PyTivo. Do not use DVD media at all.

Can you just put the .mp4 files on a DVD-r and play them?


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Ok, I've given kmttg a shot and it's not so terrible once you glance thru the docs. 


jcthorne said:


> Can you just put the .mp4 files on a DVD-r and play them?


Yes, it seems, if I use the right encoder or don't use quite the right settings, I could end up w/an unplayable file on one console or the other or a silent file.

I picked one of my high def shows and got it over w/kmttg and chose the ff_h264_high_rate profile. I burned the resulting .mp4 file onto a DVD-RW as a test. The .mp4 file it produced was unplayable on my Xbox 360 (produced an error message) and playable but w/o any audio on my PS3.

(Just for kicks, I did copy a few .mp4 and .m4v files produced by Handbrake w/various settings long ago [originally intended to be watched on my iPod and iPhone 3G]) onto DVD-RW and confirmed both of them could play some of the files I tried w/sound).

Can anyone point me to a good encoding profile (.enc) for use w/kmttg that will produce a file that's playable on both? I might have to tweak the switches as bit as my goal is to use a avg. bitrate so that ~2 hours of HD video will fit on a 4.7 gig DVD-R or DVD+R.

I'd also really prefer it if the audio preserved (5.1 recording is still 5.1 and 2.0 is 2.0).

I've got Handbrake converting the .mpg (decrypted from .tivo file) to produce an .mp4 w/h.264 codec and well see what happens.

I'd rather not do a lot of needless trial and error w/trying various settings or downloading more utils.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

cwerdna said:


> ...I'd rather not do a lot of needless trial and error w/trying various settings or downloading more utils.


If you do have to resort to this, just make a 1-5 minute partial recording of a program or two to cut down on transfer and transcoding time.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

cwerdna said:


> OI've got some (non-protected) high def shows and movies on my TiVo HD that I want to archive . Since I have no Blu-Ray burner for my PC and don't have a standalone BD burner, I'm going to need to put them on DVDs (-R, +R, -RW, +RW should all be fine, I think).
> 
> I intend to use either my Xbox 360 or PS3 to play then back since native DVD video format isn't high def.
> .
> ...


I'm doing this with VideoRedo TVSuite. Copy HD shows to PC, edit with VideoRedo TVSuite to remove commercials and save/burn in DVD format.

Works great.

Scott


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> I picked one of my high def shows and got it over w/kmttg and chose the ff_h264_high_rate profile. I burned the resulting .mp4 file onto a DVD-RW as a test. The .mp4 file it produced was unplayable on my Xbox 360 (produced an error message) and playable but w/o any audio on my PS3.


 Neither one probably like MP4 container with AC3 audio which is what you get out of that profile. Try the "ff_ps3" profile as that will probably work on both. To get better quality you can up the bit rate from 2500k to 5000k or maybe a little higher (adjusting the *-b 2500k* setting in the ff_ps3.enc file). As suggested by orangeboy you should experiment with a short clip to make tweaking quicker until you get a result you are happy with.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

moyekj said:


> Neither one probably like MP4 container with AC3 audio which is what you get out of that profile. Try the "ff_ps3" profile as that will probably work on both. To get better quality you can up the bit rate from 2500k to 5000k or maybe a little higher (adjusting the *-b 2500k* setting in the ff_ps3.enc file). As suggested by orangeboy you should experiment with a short clip to make tweaking quicker until you get a result you are happy with.


Thanks for the reminder about using a small clip. You guys are right that this is probably the best way to get things working at first. I can worry about tweaking the target size or bitrate later.

Unfortutunately, the ff_ps3 profile produced a file that was unplayable on my 360 (error message). On the PS3, the video quality was poor (I didn't up the bitrate yet) and the sound seemed to be missing the rear channels and sounded awful.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

That's the problem with AAC audio - multi-channel doesn't play very well on receivers which is why AC3 is better. I don't think you'll find a profile that works well on both PS3 & 360 - you are probably better off targeting one or the other. So while you can up the bit rate to make video look good with ff_ps3 profile, audio will still be AAC.

For PS3 your best bet by far is to have m2ts container with H.264 & AC3 audio to mimic Blu Ray format. That way you can have 6-channel AC3. Unfortunately I don't think there are free encoders to do that. The newly released VideoReDo TVSuite 4 does support that but of course is not free. I just generated a sample using VRD TVSuite 4 and it looked very good.

Another possibility I don't have much experience with is Matroska (mkv) container. I think for that one it can have AC3 audio and perhaps will play on both players. There is support for that container with ffmpeg.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

moyekj said:


> That's the problem with AAC audio - multi-channel doesn't play very well on receivers which is why AC3 is better. I don't think you'll find a profile that works well on both PS3 & 360 - you are probably better off targeting one or the other. So while you can up the bit rate to make video look good with ff_ps3 profile, audio will still be AAC.


I think you're right. kmttg's hb_ps3 profile generated a file that WAS playable on both my PS3 and Xbox 360 but the audio was only 2 channel PCM per my receiver.

I manually used Handbrake GUI to transcode the "original" .mpg using their normal profile w/a few mods and accidentally left the audio at AAC (faac), Mixdown Dolby Prologic II. The resulting file had the exact same result as the above. Good that it's playable on both consoles but bad that it's only 2 channel stereo. 

On my other machine, I tried using Handbrake GUI to manually transcode two "original" .mpg files w/a few slight changes to the Normal profile. I removed the audio tracks and added an Automatic, AC3 Passthru source. It generated .m4v files which I also made copies of and renamed to .mp4.

PS3: .m4v files didn't play at all (unsupported content). .mp4 files played but had no sound. Interestingly, if you went to Options (triangle button), it seemed to recognize that all the files were video files and saw they had Dolby Digital 384 kbps sound but just didn't play it.
360: Couldn't play any of these files.


moyekj said:


> For PS3 your best bet by far is to have m2ts container with H.264 & AC3 audio to mimic Blu Ray format. That way you can have 6-channel AC3. Unfortunately I don't think there are free encoders to do that. The newly released VideoReDo TVSuite 4 does support that but of course is not free. I just generated a sample using VRD TVSuite 4 and it looked very good.
> 
> Another possibility I don't have much experience with is Matroska (mkv) container. I think for that one it can have AC3 audio and perhaps will play on both players. There is support for that container with ffmpeg.


I'll look into the latter.

Man! I wish this weren't so complicated and there were others (that I could easily find) that have been through all this before and know the answer.

Woah: I just realized you're the developer of kmttg.  (Unrelated: if you haven't already, you should check out 



. )


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Thanks for the mkv pointer. 

I altered settings slightly from Handbrake's normal profile and created an .mkv w/only unknown ac3 track as ac3 passthru. (Perhaps I should also add in a downmixed 2 channel track for people who don't have the proper equipment?) 

I used tsmuxer to convert the .mkv into .m2ts and also mk2vob to convert to VOB which actually generated an .mpg (!) file. 

The .m2ts and .mpg (VOB?) played fine on my PS3 had proper 5.1 audio. However, I noticed some audio glitches (dropouts) that don't seem to be in the original on the TiVo. I'll have to do some more digging for figure out if it's in the mpeg that came down via kmttg.

Unfortunately, none of the files (.mkv, .m2ts and (VOB) .mpg) can be seen on my DVD-RW by my 360 so I can't play them back.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

HerronScott said:


> I'm doing this with VideoRedo TVSuite. Copy HD shows to PC, edit with VideoRedo TVSuite to remove commercials and save/burn in DVD format.
> 
> Works great.


If the shows have 5.1 audio, is it preserved in the DVDs you've burned? What are you using to playback the DVDs? PC? Xbox 360? PS3? All of the above?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

If your sources are from digital cable then VideoRedo Quick Stream Fix is pretty much a necessity from my experience if you want to do further processing on the mpeg (edit out commercials, encode to other formats). It removes glitches in the original mpeg stream that can otherwise cause A/V sync issues or other problems. Most decoders can handle the glitches OK in the original mpeg, but as soon as you do further processing on them they come back to bite you. VideoRedo is really the only tool I have found that can reliably clean them up.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

moyekj said:


> If your sources are from digital cable then VideoRedo Quick Stream Fix is pretty much a necessity from my experience if you want to do further processing on the mpeg (edit out commercials, encode to other formats). It removes glitches in the original mpeg stream that can otherwise cause A/V sync issues or other problems. Most decoders can handle the glitches OK in the original mpeg, but as soon as you do further processing on them they come back to bite you. VideoRedo is really the only tool I have found that can reliably clean them up.


Interesting... my recordings are coming from Verizon FiOS (fiber into the apartment, then into an ONT which then emits cable TV signal into my unit's coax). I don't intend to edit out commercials but yes, obviously I'm trying to re-encode to something more space efficient as I've not seen an hour of high def small enough to fit within 4.7 gigs.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

cwerdna said:


> If the shows have 5.1 audio, is it preserved in the DVDs you've burned? What are you using to playback the DVDs? PC? Xbox 360? PS3? All of the above?


Yes, 5.1 audio is preserved and currently playback is on a DVD player. Since it's a standard DVD format, I would hope the PS3 and XBox would play them back properly as well.

Scott


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

HerronScott said:


> Yes, 5.1 audio is preserved and currently playback is on a DVD player. Since it's a standard DVD format, I would hope the PS3 and XBox would play them back properly as well.
> 
> Scott


 Not really a good option for HD sources though as obviously DVD format is SD.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

HerronScott said:


> Yes, 5.1 audio is preserved and currently playback is on a DVD player. Since it's a standard DVD format, I would hope the PS3 and XBox would play them back properly as well.


Oh! Hmm, it sounds like you downcoverted your hi-def content to standard def. If so, that's won't cut it for me.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Ah sorry, I misunderstood when you said you wanted to put on DVD. I assumed that meant at DVD resolutions.

Scott


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

moyekj said:


> If your sources are from digital cable then VideoRedo Quick Stream Fix is pretty much a necessity from my experience if you want to do further processing on the mpeg (edit out commercials, encode to other formats). It removes glitches in the original mpeg stream that can otherwise cause A/V sync issues or other problems. Most decoders can handle the glitches OK in the original mpeg, but as soon as you do further processing on them they come back to bite you. VideoRedo is really the only tool I have found that can reliably clean them up.


You were right about the audio sync problems. I went from kmttg's extracted .mpg to .mkv (via Handbrake) produced VOB (actually .mpg) and .m2ts files for a 1 hour show. The audio was off a bit near the beginning, but at the 45 minute mark, it was WAY off, by maybe 5-10 seconds! Ugh!

I might have to bite the bullet and buy VideoRedo. If I do buy it, what should my workflow be? Let's assume that trying to create disc playable by all 3 w/5.1 audio (PS3, Xbox 360 and PC) is a lost cause and I only want to target one but I still want the output DVD-R to contain 1-2 hours of high def.

Is following the directions at http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/attachment.php?attachmentid=227&d=1196374700 on the .mpg that's generated by kmttg sufficient then I should use Handbrake to create an .mkv then create a VOB or .m2ts or is there a simple/better way w/VideoRedo?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> Is following the directions at http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/attachment.php?attachmentid=227&d=1196374700 on the .mpg that's generated by kmttg sufficient then I should use Handbrake to create an .mkv then create a VOB or .m2ts or is there a simple/better way w/VideoRedo?


 If using kmttg then simply enable "VRD QS Fix" task in kmttg to run VideoReDo QuickStream Fix in the background and as part of a task set. You can then setup a Handbrake or ffmpeg or VRD to do the encode using the "encode" task and run everything automatically.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Anyone have any experience w/using Ripbot264 to achieve PS3 playback? Someone at work (who I don't personally know) says he archives his TiVoHD content to create DVDs containing AVCHD playable on his BD player. I want to try to see if this works for my PS3.

He said to make sure I deinterlace 1080i content but Ripbot265 has 5 options for that and it's unclear how to determine which one to pick. Trial and error? Options are:
TFF -> 29.97 FPS
TFF -> 59.94 FPS
BFF -> 29.97 FPS
BFF -> 59.94 FPS
Inverse Telecine

It sounds like the last is for content that was originally in 24 FPS film. TFF and BFF seem to refer to bottom/top frame first, but how do I know? Why would I choose 29.97 vs. 59.94 FPS?


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> Anyone have any experience w/using Ripbot264 to achieve PS3 playback? Someone at work (who I don't personally know) says he archives his TiVoHD content to create DVDs containing AVCHD playable on his BD player. I want to try to see if this works for my PS3.
> 
> He said to make sure I deinterlace 1080i content but Ripbot265 has 5 options for that and it's unclear how to determine which one to pick. Trial and error? Options are:
> TFF -> 29.97 FPS
> ...


I don't have any personal experience with Ripbot, but 1080i is recorded as TFF. Usually, the only time you will see BFF is with DV files from camcorders. Inverse Telecine is used to convert 29.97fps pulldown material back to 23.976fps progressive film. I don't do de-interlacing as I usually just keep the file as MPEG2 where interlaced encoding is fine. Does the PS3 not handle interlaced h.264 content?

As long as PS3 can handle the framerate, I think 59.94fps would be the easiest. As I haven't done it myself, I would say try both TFF de-interlace methods and see which you like best. 59.94fps should result in a larger file since the framerate is higher, but the conversion will likely be quicker since the de-interlace is easier.

Check out this site for more information on interlacing. It is a bit dated, but the information is still good.

By the way, in case you are interested in how to actually determine how your videos are recorded you can use the method described on this site. You need to know a little bit about indexing your files and avisynth, but it is pretty easy. Let me know if you need help and I can write out a few examples and steps.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

cwerdna said:


> You were right about the audio sync problems. I went from kmttg's extracted .mpg to .mkv (via Handbrake) produced VOB (actually .mpg) and .m2ts files for a 1 hour show. The audio was off a bit near the beginning, but at the 45 minute mark, it was WAY off, by maybe 5-10 seconds! Ugh!


I took the same raw .mpg file (extracted w/the help of kmttg) and used Ripbot264 to turn it into AVCHD. I then used Imgburn and the directions at http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/burn_avchd_with_imgburn.cfm to burn the show to DVD-RW. The audio was 2.0 again (need to figure out if that show really is only 2.0) but the audio sync was good, even 45 minutes into the show! :up:

I used BFF -> 29.97 FPS which is probably wrong judging by the followup posts. I did notice some judder that's significantly worse than the original. I'm going to try TFF -> 29.97 FPS tonight.

I noticed the chapter skipping is real slow and somebody has put in auto chapters every 5 minutes. Not sure if it's in the output or the PS3 is doing it but I'm ok w/the 5 minute marks.

The other issue is that for each show, Ripbot264 emits a showname.AVCHD directory w/a bunch of files and dirs within each. I _think_ but am not sure that there's no way to make a "standard" AVCHD w/multiple showname.AVCHD dirs. It seems like a "standard" AVCHD disc has only a single BDMV dir off the root. Am I right? If so, it seems like I'd need some other authoring tools to make a single disc from multiple AVCHD dirs. My target is to fit 2 hours of HD video onto a 4.7 gig disc so it's usually 2-4 TV shows for me.

I tried burning multiple showname.AVCHD dirs to a single DVD-RW including the above so that I have
show1.AVCHD
-> BKMV and so on
show2.AVCHD
-> BKMV and so on
...

The PS3 sees this and I have to drill down thru the file system to the showN.AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM\00000 file (0000.m2ts) and play that. My short test clip that I mentioned I had audio glitches in before (via other methods) are fine here and 5.1 audio works. The 1 hour show's audio sync seems good too. The downside is that there are no chapter marks at all. Chapter forward does nothing and reverse seems to go back to the beginning.

I also suspect this is a non-standard disc now and am guessing that many/most BD players won't be able to play this? I can't test this hypothesis since my PS3 is my only BD player.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

cwerdna said:


> Oh! Hmm, it sounds like you downcoverted your hi-def content to standard def. If so, that's won't cut it for me.


Well you keep saying you want a simple way, and you wish it wasn't so complicated, but then you say this won't cut it for you. Why?

I do a LOT of recording from HD movie channels to standard DVDs, and in 99% of the cases, the video quality on playback is virtually indistinguishable from the original source recording on my TiVo HD unit. This is especially true for all older movies. The only movies that don't cut it for me are the really high action/high tech movies where macroblocking can be an issue, but those are relatively rare. I gave away my old S2 TiVo because I couldn't stand the terrible PQ after I went to HD TVs, but these recordings on a normal DVD from the S3 and HD TiVos look wonderful.

Having a DVD recorder with excellent picture quality is critical, of course. The best option seems to be the current Panasonic models. These are over priced and have terrible UI, but they have excellent PQ for anything up through 3 hr recording on a single layer DVD. Current choice would be an EA18K unit without tuners, available for about $165.

If you are just insistent on making pure HD recordings with all the appropriate high bit rates, then keep working on the complicated methods, but if you just want good quality recordings that look great even on 72" HDTVs without the need for a BlueRay player, then the simple option does work. They may not be "true" HD discs, but they sure look good.

Goose


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

V7Goose said:


> Well you keep saying you want a simple way, and you wish it wasn't so complicated, but then you say this won't cut it for you. Why?
> 
> I do a LOT of recording from HD movie channels to standard DVDs, and in 99% of the cases, the video quality on playback is virtually indistinguishable from the original source recording on my TiVo HD unit. This is especially true for all older movies. The only movies that don't cut it for me are the really high action/high tech movies where macroblocking can be an issue, but those are relatively rare. I gave away my old S2 TiVo because I couldn't stand the terrible PQ after I went to HD TVs, but these recordings on a normal DVD from the S3 and HD TiVos look wonderful.
> 
> ...


I already have a standalone DVD recorder (Pioneer DVR-220-S) and that's what I used to archive shows from my DirecTiVo and a few standard def shows from my Tivo HD. However, at the speeds I used (2 hours on a disc), while acceptable for standard def and pretty close to the original, it's nowhere near high def quality. I doubt it'll be close enough even at the fastest speed which puts on 1 hour/disc.

S-video in and out along w/the 480i resolution are the limiting factors.

Also, I don't know any consumer DVD recorders in the US that will record anything beyond 2 channel stereo.

Even good feature film DVDs aren't up to par w/Blu-ray nor HD DVD.

If there was only a good standalone DVD recorder that accepted HDMI or component in and 5.1 sound that emitted what I want (an hour or two of HD using a more efficient codec) were reasonably priced, I'd buy it. As it is, there aren't even any standalone BD recorders in the US. I've seen some in Japan but would doubt they're compatible w/our TV standards.

My TV is a 61" Samsung LED-lit DLP RPTV (HL61A750).

If there were only a simpler workflow that yielded consistently good results... that's what I'm looking for. I think I'm almost there w/the good results but it's taken a fair amount of trial and error.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

cwerdna said:


> I already have a standalone DVD recorder (Pioneer DVR-220-S) and that's what I used to archive shows from my DirecTiVo and a few standard def shows from my Tivo HD. However, at the speeds I used (2 hours on a disc), while acceptable for standard def and pretty close to the original, it's nowhere near high def quality. I doubt it'll be close enough even at the fastest speed which puts on 1 hour/disc.
> 
> S-video in and out along w/the 480i resolution are the limiting factors.
> 
> ...


I doubt if I'll change your mind, but that won't bother me; I just wanted to share a couple of other thoughts on the subject . . .

I know nothing about your DVD recorder, but perhaps it is the cause of your poor PQ? I have recorded about 5,000 movies from my TiVos to DVD, and burned out a number of recorders in the process. I have found that the PQ from different models of recorders varies widely. I too would love a recorder that would accept a non-interlaced component input, but you just can't get one in the US. There have been a number of recorders that had component input, but they would not accept anything but 480i, and their PQ was still inferior to the best recorders with only S-vid in. Of almost equal importance is the OUTPUT PQ from whatever DVD player you use to review the test recordings. But I am sure you understand that.

I do not think anyone will argue that feature film DVD are not of the same PQ as a factory Blu-Ray, but that is not the issue. The only real point here is the actual PQ of a particular program as it appears on your HD TiVo. The vast majority of all movies transmitted on television, even premium cable movie channels such as all the HD HBO, CineMax, etc. channels are NOT HD quality, despite the fact that they are being received on HD channels and listed as HD in TiVo. If the source material is not in HD, the transmission in HD cannot make it any better. Even with fiber systems like FiOS, where the PQ on all channels is noticeably better than cable or sat systems (IMHO), almost no movies are being received in true HD quality. This is not true, of course, for programs like Planet Earth, which were specifically created for stunning HD pictures.

With the right recorder and playback equipment, any movie from an SD channel, such as TCM, is indistinguishable from the broadcast picture, even with side-by-side comparison, on both my Sony plasma and 72" Mit. DLP sets. I have compared them against the HDMI output from my S3 and HD TiVos as well as the HDMI output from my FiOS HD STB (the easiest test for this is simply switching my TV from the HDMI TiVo output to the simultaneous signal on the component output of my DVD recorder).

And as I have already said, this is also true for the vast majority of movies I have recorded from the premium HD channels. Not ALL of them, but most. HD transmissions and TiVo are certainly capable of PQ that cannot be adequately recorded from a 480i S-video input on standard DVDs - this can be seen on any live HD news broadcast, but most movies do not contain that type of detail.

As for the audio, I do not find this a limitation at all on any but the newest movies, and even then, there are few that actually have any significant information on discreet surround channels. Those movies for which I particularly want the discreet audio channels also tend to be the same ones where I insist on having true HD copies anyway. The normal two-channel output from my TiVo HD carries the necessary DD info for both my old Sony amplifier and very modern high-end Yamaha amp to decode and produce surround tracks. Heck, my old Sony amplifier with Dolby Surround ONLY has L/R RCA inputs, and the 5.1 output from that amp being fed straight from my S3 is completely satisfactory for the vast majority of available content. Enough so that it is not worth my money to replace it.

Of course your preferences may be totally different than mine, which is fine. I just wanted other readers that do not already know these things to understand that much of what they have on an HD TiVo can be copied to standard DVDs using a high quality stand alone recorder with totally satisfactory results. The most significant limitation to this "easy" method of archiving programs is that it must be done in real time.

Oh, one other issue - no matter what the source you might be recording, you cannot get a decent PQ if the TiVo output is zoomed! While the HDMI or component output from TiVo is not terribly degraded with the zoom setting, this is NOT true for the S-video output! That is the other limitation of making recordings this way - I cannot zoom a letter boxed picture while recording it! AFTER it has been copied to DVD, I can use the DVD player or TV zoom capabilities to expand the picture without a problem, but if you try to watch/record a program from the TiVo s-video outputs when it is zoomed by Tivo, the picture just sucks.

Good watching to all,
Goose


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

V7Goose said:


> I do not think anyone will argue that feature film DVD are not of the same PQ as a factory Blu-Ray, but that is not the issue. The only real point here is the actual PQ of a particular program as it appears on your HD TiVo. The vast majority of all movies transmitted on television, even premium cable movie channels such as all the HD HBO, CineMax, etc. channels are NOT HD quality, despite the fact that they are being received on HD channels and listed as HD in TiVo. If the source material is not in HD, the transmission in HD cannot make it any better. Even with fiber systems like FiOS, where the PQ on all channels is noticeably better than cable or sat systems (IMHO), almost no movies are being received in true HD quality. This is not true, of course, for programs like Planet Earth, which were specifically created for stunning HD pictures.
> ...
> And as I have already said, this is also true for the vast majority of movies I have recorded from the premium HD channels. Not ALL of them, but most. HD transmissions and TiVo are certainly capable of PQ that cannot be adequately recorded from a 480i S-video input on standard DVDs - this can be seen on any live HD news broadcast, but most movies do not contain that type of detail.
> 
> As for the audio, I do not find this a limitation at all on any but the newest movies, and even then, there are few that actually have any significant information on discreet surround channels. Those movies for which I particularly want the discreet audio channels also tend to be the same ones where I insist on having true HD copies anyway. The normal two-channel output from my TiVo HD carries the necessary DD info for both my old Sony amplifier and very modern high-end Yamaha amp to decode and produce surround tracks. Heck, my old Sony amplifier with Dolby Surround ONLY has L/R RCA inputs, and the 5.1 output from that amp being fed straight from my S3 is completely satisfactory for the vast majority of available content. Enough so that it is not worth my money to replace it.


I'm on Verizon FiOS. No, I have no premium channels anymore after my free trial of some premium channels ended. I'm am not archiving movies. I'm talking about archiving high def content that looks SIGNIFICANTLY better in HD and is in 720p or 1080i than their standard def channel versions such as stuff on CNBC HD, Smithsonian Channel HD, Science Channel HD, HDNET (like Enterprise eps) and so on.

As for Dolby Surround and 2 channel stereo, you're talking about stuff like Dolby Prologicwhere you can matrix left, center, right, and a limited frequency range rear onto 2 channel vs. having true discrete 5.1 channels. Even my 12 year old low-end Yamaha receiver could decode Prologic (although it had no Dolby Digital decoding, just 6 analog ins for sources that had their own decoder + 6 analog outs).


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> I don't have any personal experience with Ripbot, but 1080i is recorded as TFF. Usually, the only time you will see BFF is with DV files from camcorders. Inverse Telecine is used to convert 29.97fps pulldown material back to 23.976fps progressive film. I don't do de-interlacing as I usually just keep the file as MPEG2 where interlaced encoding is fine. Does the PS3 not handle interlaced h.264 content?
> 
> As long as PS3 can handle the framerate, I think 59.94fps would be the easiest. As I haven't done it myself, I would say try both TFF de-interlace methods and see which you like best. 59.94fps should result in a larger file since the framerate is higher, but the conversion will likely be quicker since the de-interlace is easier.
> 
> Check out this site for more information on interlacing. It is a bit dated, but the information is still good.


Using Ripbot264 outputting to AVCHD, I tried TFF 29.97 fps and BFF 29.97 fps on one show, there seemed to be no difference in the output. There was definitely some judder where the original didn't have any.

In another (a Star Trek Enterprise ep), I tried this:
TFF 29.97 fps - I can definitely see motion isn't smooth like when the ship is crossing the screen slowly and has some funky judder visible in many scenes. 
TFF 59.94 fps - yielded horrible judder. 
no de-interlacing - horrible weird flashing/judder (hard to describe) but it's *unwatchable*. It's also intermittent. It seems like there could be a bug on the PS3 or TV in how it handles this content as I can sometimes get it to go away. But, if I start skipping around, it'll come back and it's not clear how to "fix" it. I disabling 1080p as an output choice (as a test) on the PS3 but that didn't help.

I was locking the size of the output to 2230 MB for a 1 hour show in all these cases. I'm going to try locking the video output to 4460 MB and try TFF 29.97 fps again. I'm not getting macroblocking on motion, it's just judder.

I wish I knew how Ripbot264's settings worked as maybe I could get rid of the judder that way.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

Hmm, I have just started playing around with 1080i transcoding with x264. I haven't found a need to de-interlace them when I push them back up to my TivoHD. Encoding them either as progressive or interlaced with x264 results in a video stream that looks great on my TivoHD. Maybe you could try encoding a clip without trying to de-interlace to see what you think? Not sure how the PS3 handles it.

Also, are you sure it is judder and not just duplicated frames through the de-interlace process? I don't really know what to do about judder. That sounds like a playback issue/phenomena from a particular TV/projector refresh rate.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> Hmm, I have just started playing around with 1080i transcoding with x264. I haven't found a need to de-interlace them when I push them back up to my TivoHD. Encoding them either as progressive or interlaced with x264 results in a video stream that looks great on my TivoHD. Maybe you could try encoding a clip without trying to de-interlace to see what you think? Not sure how the PS3 handles it.
> 
> Also, are you sure it is judder and not just duplicated frames through the de-interlace process? I don't really know what to do about judder. That sounds like a playback issue/phenomena from a particular TV/projector refresh rate.


I tried not de-interlacing the content and it was UNWATCHABLE.  See below.

As for judder vs. duplicated frames. I'm not sure. The motion just at certain spots wasn't smooth and was easily spotted and compared to the original material. Here's what I've been converting for my longer test content (which I do really want to archive in HD):
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_white_house_reveal.do recorded from Smithsonian Channel HD
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/In_a_Mirror,_Darkly_(episode) recorded from HDNet

I can supply time indexes, if needed.

Yeah, the judder or intermittently unwatchable non-interlaced content might be specific to my setup. My setup is:
Tivo HD -> Yamaha RX-V1800 receiver -> Samsung HL61A750 61" TV (all via HDMI or HDMI for audio and component for video due to that stupid Tivo HD switching to 720p bug)
PS3 -> same receiver -> same TV (all via HDMI)


cwerdna said:


> In another (a Star Trek Enterprise ep), I tried this:
> ...
> no de-interlacing - horrible weird flashing/judder (hard to describe) but it's *unwatchable*. It's also intermittent. It seems like there could be a bug on the PS3 or TV in how it handles this content as I can sometimes get it to go away. But, if I start skipping around, it'll come back and it's not clear how to "fix" it. I disabling 1080p as an output choice (as a test) on the PS3 but that didn't help.


Update: Ripbot264 converting that Enterprise ep using TFF 29.97 fps to AVCHD and locking the size to 4460 MB didn't help. I still get the same judder in the same scene. When looking at the PS3's bitrate meter, it seems like the bitrate drops quite low (between 2-8 Mbps, is below 6 Mbps for quite awhlie) as the ship's going by while I've seen it generally stay higher on interior scenes. It's almost as if the 2 pass encoding is picking too low a bitrate causing dropped frames.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

Can you cut a short clip of the episodes that you are trying to encode (maybe 30-60s) that you can upload somewhere? I can take a look at them to see if I can find something that works on my end.

update: try to include a portion where you see the judder that you are describing


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> Can you cut a short clip of the episodes that you are trying to encode (maybe 30-60s) that you can upload somewhere? I can take a look at them to see if I can find something that works on my end.
> 
> update: try to include a portion where you see the judder that you are describing


I can try. Do you have any editing/trimming software you can recommend? I only need it to provide you the clips.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> I can try. Do you have any editing/trimming software you can recommend? I only need it to provide you the clips.


Best thing to do is just download the trial version of VideoRedo. You can trim out a 60s section pretty easily with that. The other thing that you can do is download MediaInfo (use Text or Tree view) and/or Gspot and paste the data stream info on here for us to look at in advance.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

I finally took a good look at one of my own 1080i files. It was an episode of Cold Case. At any rate, it was originally filmed as 23.976fps progressive content. It was just run through 3:2 pulldown (like DVDs) and then transmitted in an interlaced package @ 29.97fps. I just had to Inverse Telecine (IVTC) to get back the original film framerate. I think what you are calling judder may be the telecine frames. Try your episode again in Ripbot with Inverse Telecine. See if that fixes the problem for you. If you were able to cut an episode down with VideoRedo, you can use that instead of the whole thing to speed things up.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> I finally took a good look at one of my own 1080i files. It was an episode of Cold Case. At any rate, it was originally filmed as 23.976fps progressive content. It was just run through 3:2 pulldown (like DVDs) and then transmitted in an interlaced package @ 29.97fps. I just had to Inverse Telecine (IVTC) to get back the original film framerate. I think what you are calling judder may be the telecine frames. Try your episode again in Ripbot with Inverse Telecine. See if that fixes the problem for you. If you were able to cut an episode down with VideoRedo, you can use that instead of the whole thing to speed things up.


Amazingly, the author of Ripbot264 suggested IVTC when I posted at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1374626#post1374626 and he was RIGHT for my Enterprise ep. No more judder when using IVTC! I need to try the other show tonight and watch more segments of both shows carefully to be absolutely sure. This is nuts. I figured this stuff was NOT film nor using film frame rates.

I wonder if 23.976 fps is common for 1080i content transmitted over broadcast or cable or FiOS.

When you mention you took a good look at your 1080i file, are you talking about the raw .mpg file (decrypted .tivo file)? If so, can you point me to a good (preferably) free tool to view such properties so that I can always be sure to pick the right setting? Or, do I need to use the weird method you point me to?

Is this data not stored as some sort of property or metadata in the header?


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> Amazingly, the author of Ripbot264 suggested IVTC when I posted at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1374626#post1374626 and he was RIGHT for my Enterprise ep. No more judder when using IVTC! I need to try the other show tonight and watch more segments of both shows carefully to be absolutely sure. This is nuts. I figured this stuff was NOT film nor using film frame rates.
> 
> I wonder if 23.976 fps is common for 1080i content transmitted over broadcast or cable or FiOS.
> 
> ...


23.976fps is common for creating film and in the US here, it is also used for television. Most often, the original source from broadcast television if it is a movie or TV show will be 23.976fps film. It appears that everything that is sent over 1080i channels is sent as 29.97fps, which is why film sources are processed with 3:2 pulldown. 720p channels send everything as 59.94fps, so film sources are processed with 3:2 pulldown and then doubled. It gets more confusing when you start dealing with something that was filmed overseas where they tend to use 25/50 fps framerates and then broadcast from our stations at 29.97fps.

The method that I quoted earlier and that you linked above are what you need to use in order to determine what to do with the video. I haven't seen an automated method that works at identifying what the stream really is. The MPEG header does list how the file was encode (progressive or interlaced) but you still don't know what the source was.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Thanks for the info!


txporter said:


> The method that I quoted earlier and that you linked above are what you need to use in order to determine what to do with the video. I haven't seen an automated method that works at identifying what the stream really is. The MPEG header does list how the file was encode (progressive or interlaced) but you still don't know what the source was.


Darn! 


cwerdna said:


> http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_white_house_reveal.do recorded from Smithsonian Channel HD


Unfortunately, for the above show (in 1080i), IVTC didn't work. The resulting show had terrible judder all over the place and was basically unwatchable. I had decimate on in Ripbot264.

I tried re-transcoding w/IVTC and decimate off and I was back to the judder but, only in noticeable some scenes similar to when I used TFF 29.97 fps.  I'll try TFF 29.97 and decimate on (restore to 23.976 fps) tonight. If it's still a problem, I'll try getting you a clip. I have a <30 second repro spot.

I briefly mentioned this "project" to a coworker and he was asking "why are you using single layer discs?" I apparently haven't kept up w/prices and they're much cheaper than before. They used to be well over $1/each, regardless of brand.

Unfortunately, the small raw .mpg (decrypted .tivo files) I've tried don't play at all on my 360. On my PS3, one that had 5.1 audio worked but two shows were silent. PS3 apparently couldn't handle codecs for those two shows since when I presss triangle button for info, it says --- for audio codec.


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## larrs (May 2, 2005)

cwerdna said:


> I can try. Do you have any editing/trimming software you can recommend? I only need it to provide you the clips.


cwerdna:

What kind of times are you looking at?

I am running videoredo and really love it, but on my old PC which is close to the specs of your older desktop, I am seeing 36 hour times to convert a THD file to mp4. Just curious about your times...

I am now adding a new mid level and faster PC, but for what you want, VRD is probably the best you can get and the new V4 is about to add 5.1DD support (2.0 for now).


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

larrs said:


> cwerdna:
> 
> What kind of times are you looking at?


Haven't tried VideoReDo yet but for Ripbot264 to convert 1 hour of 1080i to AVCHD in the [HIGH 4.0] profile w/o changing settings takes 10-15 hours, depending on which deinterlace setting I use. Going to .mkv didn't make a huge difference.

If I start mucking w/some of the settings to try to improve PQ (was really trial and error to get rid of judder, not to improve PQ), it could take 17+ hours.

This is on my Lenovo T61p Core 2 Duo T7500 w/3 gigs of RAM and Vista. Both cores appear maxed out.

Sorry, haven't used my older desktop for trancoding the long recordings much lately because I don't really trust it (long story) and it's only single core, so it'd likely be worse. As I mentioned earlier, when I transcoded standard def video to play on my iPods and iPhone using Handbrake, my laptop was about 2x the speed.

I think I'm going to be putting together and i7-920 system soon. If I only had more hours in the day...


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> Darn!


It really isn't too hard to analyze the data yourself. Here is what you need: avisynth, DGDecode, and VirtualDub. Download avisynth and install it. Download DGDecode and place dgdecode.dll into the avisynth/plugins directory. DGindex will also be part of that package, you will need that to index the file but don't put it in the plugins directory (just put the rest of the files in any directory that you want). Download virtualdub and unzip it to whatever directory you want.

Start DGIndex and open your .mpg file (needs to be a decrypted tivo file). Then go to File, Save Project. It will analyze the .mpg file and create a .d2v file (and it might demux your video and/or audio depending on some of your settings).

Create a text file that looks like this:

```
loadplugin("Path\To\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("nameoffile.d2v")
AssumeTFF()
SeparateFields()
```
Call the text file somename.avs.

Start VirtualDub and then open the .avs file that you just created. You can now step through the video frame by frame. Use the guide that we have linked a couple of times to determine what type of video you have.



cwerdna said:


> Unfortunately, for the above show (in 1080i), IVTC didn't work. The resulting show had terrible judder all over the place and was basically unwatchable. I had decimate on in Ripbot264.
> 
> I tried re-transcoding w/IVTC and decimate off and I was back to the judder but, only in noticeable some scenes similar to when I used TFF 29.97 fps.  I'll try TFF 29.97 and decimate on (restore to 23.976 fps) tonight. If it's still a problem, I'll try getting you a clip. I have a <30 second repro spot.


I am not totally sure what you are doing with what you describe above. IVTC is the process of determining which frames are telecined and then decimating them to restore the original 23.976fps material. Using DGdecode, that is done using two filters: TFM() and Tdecimate(). TFM() identifies the telecined frames and Tdecimate removes them. If you eliminate Tdecimate, then you have identified the frames and then done nothing with them. TFF 29.97fps sounds like a setting to de-interlace the video. You do not want to use decimate with a de-interlacer.

Basically, if you have true video (30i) then you want to de-interlace (no decimate). If the material is instead film (24p) that was pulled down to 30i, you will want to IVTC.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Thanks everyone for the help so far. I haven't had a chance to look at the frames of the screwy http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_white_house_reveal.do video yet.

I now have some breathing room as I received an external USB enclosure I ordered and put in a 200 gig SATA drive I had lying around. (My encoding machine which is also my only >1 core machine is my laptop with its puny 100 gig hard drive.)

After some false starts (runtime errors and a disc that didn't do squat in my PS3), I was able to successfully put multiple AVCHD titles on one DVD-RW thanks to http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/ which I then burned w/ImgBurn. The default menus it creates look decent. The UI and web site looked daunting at first but it turned out to be pretty easy. The app also seems a bit buggy.

I think I'm going to focus on my archiving my 720p content first since it doesn't require de-interlacing setting guesswork/examination of frames then work on those where I have known working settings.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

cwerdna said:


> Thanks everyone for the help so far. I haven't had a chance to look at the frames of the screwy http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_white_house_reveal.do video yet.


It you get a chance to upload them somewhere, I can take a look at them. Did you record them off of TV, or are you downloading them from the link that you put above?


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> It you get a chance to upload them somewhere, I can take a look at them. Did you record them off of TV, or are you downloading them from the link that you put above?


I recorded them off TV. My feed is via Verizon FiOS.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Sigh. More on my saga.... just when I thought 720p content would be easy I'm now trying to archive some 720p content recorded from NGC HD channel, specifically http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/ultimate-factories/4541/Overview and http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/ultimate-factories/4904/Overview.

Using ripbot264, I was able to create judder free AVCHDs and audio sync looks fine at the beginning. But w/both shows, once you skip say 20 minutes or more into the show, audio is WAY off (as in 10+ seconds off). I posted at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1379618#post1379618 and the ripbot264 author is asking me to basically manually remove the commercials. Sigh! 

I'm trying to minimize the amount of work I need to do and don't care that my recordings contain commercials... but... if they're screwing things up...

The Star Trek: Enterprise ep I was transcoding (which had no audio sync probs) had no ads, at least none in the middle, since it came from HDNet.

Maybe I'll give VideoReDo a try soon.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

It's worth giving it a try. You can download a trial version of VideoRedo to test it out, or you could simply let kmttg have a go at it with comskip/comcut (cuts aren't always perfect with any automatic commercial detection software). That will at least tell you if the commercials are really the problem or not. If you are trying to drop the dup frames to get rid of the judder, it is very likely the commercials that are causing the problem. They aren't always 23.976fps source. That can give you your audio sync issues.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> If you are trying to drop the dup frames to get rid of the judder, it is very likely the commercials that are causing the problem. They aren't always 23.976fps source. That can give you your audio sync issues.


To be clear, I didn't notice any judder issues w/the two Ultimate Factories episodes and that content is 720p. But they have the severe audio sync issues once you get far enough into the show.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Ok. Thanks for the suggestion of VideoRedo Quick Stream Fix w/the two Ultimate Factories eps. 

The resulting AVCHDs when viewed on my PS3 (burned to DVD-RW) seem to have good audio sync all the way through, but yet there's another problem. Both eps seem to "lose" their video about 1.5 to 1.75 minutes from the end. 

Basically the video freezes as if it's run out of frames but the audio keeps going, all the way until the end of the show. The original recording on my Tivo HD is fine. I opened the post QSF processed .mpg file (.tivo -> .mpg -> QSFed .mpg) using Intervideo WinDVD and VRD and confirm that all the video and audio is present in the QSF output file. The video's not clipped.

So, maybe there's a bug in x264 that Ripbot264 uses or its tool chain? 

Now what? Try another transcoder? Cut out the ads manually or w/automation to see if it helps? (I'm running VRD Ad Detective now on a recording and will try transcoding again tonight w/Ripbot264.)


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

My guess is that you are having ripbot try to inverse telecine the video. This doesn't work well with commercials in place because the source material for commercial is not always film rate. It should work for you when you remove commercials.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

txporter said:


> My guess is that you are having ripbot try to inverse telecine the video. This doesn't work well with commercials in place because the source material for commercial is not always film rate. It should work for you when you remove commercials.


No, I did not have Ripbot inverse telecine the videos. These two shows (Ultimate Factories eps) are 720p. Transcoding is still going.


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

To the OP, let me ask a basic question. 

Is there a reason that you want them to play them from discs instead of streaming them over a network? 

When you say that you don't want to use an HTPC do you mean that you don't want to have a computer on to stream to the Xbox/PS3 or you don't want to use one as a frontend?

If having one on at all is really a problem (keep in mind that it will be on a lot for all that transcoding), you could get one of the available network drives and/or network drive adapters that support UPNP AV and can thus stream to the Xbox 360 and PS3 without a computer.

There are networking solutions available that are sufficient for streaming ATSC video if you can't lay Ethernet. You also are freed from having to handle and store discs.

This would also free you from having to deal with the time and effort of transcoding. 



F


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

fyodor said:


> Is there a reason that you want them to play them from discs instead of streaming them over a network?
> 
> When you say that you don't want to use an HTPC do you mean that you don't want to have a computer on to stream to the Xbox/PS3 or you don't want to use one as a frontend?


Yes, there are a # of reasons.

1) I don't have a computer I can dedicate as a front-end HTPC nor to stream from. My only machine w/semi-sufficient storage I don't trust (long story... it's an Athlon 64 3200+ w/Nvidia Nforce4 chipset). It's old and in my bedroom, not near me TV. I'll be putting together a new PC soon (probably i7-920 based) but it will NOT be a HTPC.

I DO NOT want to build a dedicated HTPC as front-end either. Not interested at all. I already have too many PCs to maintain (4 at work, 2 at home) and is yet more work for me. I'm so busy these days and will be with taxes soon that I haven't had time to even research new machine #1 thoroughly.

2) I can easily loan out a disc to someone w/a BD player or the proper game console.

3) I'm a little wary of keeping everything on hard drives vs. good DVD +/-R media from 2 different vendors.

From having had lots of drives at home and work, I've had enough fail or develop bad sectors that I'm cautious. Given changes in file formats, file format support, and these freeware tools changing all the time, I've resigned myself to having to keep the decrypted .mpg files somewhere, probably on hard drives. Example: For all I know, Sony could someday break AVCHD playback on my discs someday or Ripbot264, x264, etc. could at some point create a whole bunch of out-of-spec/problem content.


fyodor said:


> If having one on at all is really a problem (keep in mind that it will be on a lot for all that transcoding), you could get one of the available network drives and/or network drive adapters that support UPNP AV and can thus stream to the Xbox 360 and PS3 without a computer.
> 
> There are networking solutions available that are sufficient for streaming ATSC video if you can't lay Ethernet. You also are freed from having to handle and store discs.


Hmm, I hadn't thought about that but that's more money. BTW, I only archive a TINY fraction of what I watch. I won't be doing that much transcoding. My guess is that after this big backlog is done (once I solve all these probs), I'll only archive 2-8 hours of video/month. The amount of viewing time might be even less.

Also, this streaming to consoles may not work either. For kicks, I burned a couple high def .mpg files (were simply decrypted .tivo files thanks to kmttg calling tivodecode) that were small enough to fit on a DVD-RW as a data disc. My 360 could play none of them. My PS3 played all of them, but a couple of them were silent. It couldn't handle the audio codec that was used. IIRC, the PS3's audio codec field for those might've even said ----.

Please do let me know if you succeed in streaming decrypted .tivo files (MPEG2 files) from one of your aforementioned devices to a PS3 or 360 w/o any transcoding or conversion, just .tivo to .mpg via tivodecode.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Ok, crudely cutting (using VRD Ad Detective and fixing it up a bit) out the ads of one of the Ultimate Factories fixed the missing last 1.5 minutes of video problem. It was way too late for me last night to stay up even later and get the cuts perfect.

Ripbot264 of the VRD QSFed video w/o subtitles didn't help, so subtitles weren't screwing things up.

Looks like my workflow (execpt for some problem videos) will be:
1. kmttg to yield .mpg file
2. VideoRedo QSF then Ad Detective Scan (can be done automatically by kmttg) and manually check/fix cuts, save to another .mpg
3. Ripbot264 of .mpg from step 2 to AVCHD
4. Combine multiple AVCHDs into one using MultiAVCHD 
5. Burn AVCHD using ImgBurn

I wonder if a solution for the 360 would require fewer steps and less manual work. DVR-MS format? Can it preserve 5.1 audio and be played off its internal DVD drive?


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## larrs (May 2, 2005)

cwerdna said:


> Ok, crudely cutting (using VRD Ad Detective and fixing it up a bit) out the ads of one of the Ultimate Factories fixed the missing last 1.5 minutes of video problem. It was way too late for me last night to stay up even later and get the cuts perfect.
> 
> Ripbot264 of the VRD QSFed video w/o subtitles didn't help, so subtitles weren't screwing things up.
> 
> ...


Now that VideoRedo has 5.1 support, I am just moving the tivo files to my computer, and converting to mp4 (AVCHD is also supported). That combines your first three steps into one. I am seeing excellent results.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

Side note: I finally have gotten my new system PC and running. I put together an i7-860 and am not overclocking (intentionally). Using the same versions of Ripbot264 and supporting bits, here's how long it took for me to transcode a 44 minute 720p show (commercials were stripped out) using 2 pass encoding w/size locked to 2229 MB to AVCHD.

Lenovo T61p Core 2 Duo T7500 laptop 3 gigs of RAM w/Vista Home Premium: 7 hours 20 minutes
i7-860 system w/Win 7 32-bit 4 gigs of RAM (3 usable): 2 hours 2 minutes

YAY!!! Quad cores, faster CPU and hyperthreading rocks!


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