Converting TiVo to Zen

[kevo777]

I do have a process that uses only free software, only processes the audio and video streams once (preserving as much quality as possible), and maintains A/V sync. BobbyRS, it's my frameserving (with AVISynth and DGIndex) method that I've talked about before. I know I promised earlier in this thread to write up a Tivo-2-Zen guide. Sorry 'bout that. I will *seriously* make it a priority this time.

I use tivodecode (GUI version) or DirectShow Dump to remove the Tivo junk or extract the MPEG-2 and AC-3 streams (however you want to look at it). I then index the MPG file with DGIndex. Indexing is necessary so that AVISynth has an accurate measure of each frame of the video. MPEG compression is temporal and an encoder needs the ability to look back and look ahead in order to "read" P frames and B frames of the source. I then incorporate what DGIndex gives me (a *.d2v file and an *.ac3 file) into an AVISynth script that can in turn manipulate the video to exact Zen specifications - resolution, framerate adjustment (not usually, same as source is always best), color adjustment, deinterlacing for smoother LCD playback, and much *much* more. Even non-linear editing is possible with AVISynth.

I then use MeGUI to do the encoding. For those who don't know, MeGUI is a quite excellent H.264/XviD encoder that accepts...no no...requires AVISynth as input.

I will get a full detail tutorial posted on my blog for anyone interested. Stay tuned...

[CrowdAds]

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by kevo777

BobbyRS, it's my frameserving (with AVISynth and DGIndex) method that I've talked about before. I know I promised earlier in this thread to write up a Tivo-2-Zen guide. Sorry 'bout that. I will *seriously* make it a priority this time.

Originally Posted by kevo777

I will get a full detail tutorial posted on my blog for anyone interested. Stay tuned...

Well, I (and I'm sure plenty others) welcome any help/guide/information you can provide Kevo.

[Smitty]

I highly look forward to kevo777's guide. I've used his other works for encoding other things to great results.

I found that for an hour long TV show the last 5 mins using my method still loses a touch of audio sync.

Thanks guys!

[kevo777]

I apologize guys. Give me a few more days. I'm currently away from home dealing with personal family matters. I have not forgotten about the guide.

Happy Holidays everyone!

[BobbyRS]

No problem kevo. It's understandable. It's that time of year. Take your time, good luck, and happy holidays!

[jangelj]

Originally Posted by jangelj

I've been playing with Mediacoder. you can view the command window and see what it sends to mencoder. here is what I have found that works:

mencoder -ofps 30 -subcp cp1252 -sub-fuzziness 1 -subfont-autoscale 3 -subfont-blur 2 -subfont-outline 2 -vf scale=320:240:0:0:0.00:0.50,eq2,hue,harddup -sws 2 "c:\inputfilename.xxx" -ovc xvid -xvidencopts threads=2:autoaspect:trellis:chroma_me:chroma_opt: hq_ac:quant_type=h263:bquant_ratio=150:bquant_offs et=100:bvhq=1:me_quality=6:vhq=1:max_bframes=0:bit rate=640 -af channels=2 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128:aq=2:highpassfreq=-1:lowpassfreq=-1 -o "C:\outputfilename.avi"

seems to work so far with no sync issues, but I have not fully tested it. I only converted one show from my tivo with it (actually 2). I used directshowdump to pull the mpg from the tivo file, then ran this command line.

someday i'll get around to autmating the process.
JOhn

I've been using this method for a couple of months now and it works perfectly. I still need to automate it so it runs at night.
I use tivodecoder gui to create the .mpg from the .tivo. Then I run the above command line to convert to .avi. this works every time for me.

I've also played around with comskip and comclean. They work well to. I run comskip which produces an .edl and .log file that comclean3.bat uses to remove commercials. Again, I still need to write a batch file of schedule tasks to get this procedure to run automatically.

John

[Smitty]

[swscaler @ 00D24D00]SwScaler: 1920x1080 -> 320x240
videocodec: XviD (320x240 fourcc=44495658 [XVID])
xvid: par=213/160 (ext), displayed=426x240, sampled=320x240
xvid: you must specify one or a valid combination of 'bitrate', 'pass', 'quantiz
er' settings
FATAL: Cannot initialize video driver.
Exiting...

Seems I can't get that command line to work with HD recordings...

[BobbyRS]

Did you specify a bitrate? It looks to be missing. Something like:

-xvidencopts bitrate=1800 (or what ever you want to use)

[jangelj]

Here is my solution. I am using a program called kmttg found here:
http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/

It is a great program. It will pull an episode off your tivo, convert to mpg, run comcut, comclean, and encode to whatever you want. You can even set it to automatically dl shows based on a set of rules. One caveat, it has a profile to encode for zen, but the resulting avi did not work on mine. I just created a new profile using the long command-line in my post above. It works great on my S2 toshibadvd tivo.

Lots of info can be found over at the tivocommunity forums.

JOhn

[kevo777]

After weeks of bad hosting experiences with GoDaddy, shopping around for a new web host, and lots of canoodling with different WordPress themes I finally got around to putting up a walk-through of how I encode Windows Media Video for the Zen from TiVo recordings taken from a Series2 box.

http://kevonet.com/blog/2009/03/12/t...version-guide/

Everyone's mileage will vary but if there are any questions leave comments on the blog or here.

And please...if you want to say how you've found some miracle piece of software that does everything in one click and you only paid $50 for it or whatever, good for you. I've heard it all before. Some people actually care what goes on behind the scenes on these conversions.

Okay, bitter rant: end.

[BobbyRS]

Outstanding kevo! Very nice job. Thanks for taking the time to do this and post here.

[jangelj]

Originally Posted by kevo777

After weeks of bad hosting experiences with GoDaddy, shopping around for a new web host, and lots of canoodling with different WordPress themes I finally got around to putting up a walk-through of how I encode Windows Media Video for the Zen from TiVo recordings taken from a Series2 box.

http://kevonet.com/blog/2009/03/12/t...version-guide/

Everyone's mileage will vary but if there are any questions leave comments on the blog or here.

And please...if you want to say how you've found some miracle piece of software that does everything in one click and you only paid $50 for it or whatever, good for you. I've heard it all before. Some people actually care what goes on behind the scenes on these conversions.

Okay, bitter rant: end.

I'm not sure if that post was directed at me or not, or meant tongue-in-cheek (since there is a smiley), but the kmttg software I mentioned above is free and works pretty well for automating the tivo-to-zen process. If you don't care what goes on behind the scenes and just want to watch the shows on your zen, kmttg will do that (with a little configuration, of course).
If you do care what goes on behind the scenes, you can tweak just about anything you want in kmttg (and create your own profiles, as i had to do). It's nice to have a daily show like Rachel Ray (for my wife, I swear) automatically transfer, decode, remove commercials and convert to avi for the Zen.

Kevo, I did really like your write-up for converting to wmv. It had lots of good info and is a great tutorial for converting tivo-to-wmv. You clearly know a lot more about video conversion than I do (which is probably why I prefer the automated method) Also, I have never used dgindex or virtualdub, I might have to try this method with my cheapo Supertalent mp4 player that I CANNOT get to stay in sync. It progressively gets more out of sync the longer you watch a video. Drives me crazy. I have tried every framerate, audiorate, bitrate, etc and it NEVER stays in sync. Maybe if I demux/remux it will work.

I have not had any audio-sync issues with avi's produced with this method on the Zen, but the longest show I have watched is 1 hour (actually, about 44 mins with commercials removed).

John

[kevo777]

Nah. It wasn't directed at anyone at all. I just wanted to curb any nay-sayers before they had a chance to blow up at me. I'm a free spirit who believes that forums like this are like buffets - take away what you want and quietly sit down if there's something you don't agree with. Expressing opinions is one thing, but some of the less mature members will completely poison a thread with negative comment after negative comment until eventually the thread is no longer educational and the point is lost.

I'm a firm believer in demuxing to try and fix sync issues, however painful the process may be. Sometimes it's just the only way. But often, sync issues come about because of VBR audio streams - a real sync killer! But yeah, breaking down a video file to it's bare nuts and bolts and rebuilding (muxing) is fascinating to me.

Geek moment - over.