Creative Zen Vision: M and sagetv

[teo409]

Hi,

I'm new to the forums here. I've used sagetv for about 6 months now and just got a creative zen vision:M today. It's a great little player that supports mpeg1/2/4-sp, divx, and xvid. Well I got it thinking that I would be able to take my sagetv recordings with me but its not working out as planned, whenever I try to put a recording on the player, it says that the file exceeds the capabilities of the player. The Vision :M is capable of maximum resolutions of 640x480, thats from their website. I've emailed both companies already, just wondering if any of you guys have an answer. Is there anyway to lower the recording resolution of sagetv if thats the case?

Thanks

[gplasky]

You'll need to transcode the Sage video to that size. Same way you would to get it on something like an iPod or a PSP. Sounds like you can keep it in mpeg2 format and just transcode the resolution or transcode it to Divx or Xvid.

Gerry

[SHS]

Sure use CVD profile in sagetv that be 352x480 or if your willing to wait for new hauppauge wing it will be support creative zen player.
But you have do it off-line and I don't know if it really works with zen player being I don't have one.

[teo409]

Originally Posted by SHS

Sure use CVD profile in sagetv that be 352x480 or if your willing to wait for new hauppauge wing it will be support creative zen player.
But you have do it off-line and I don't know if it really works with zen player being I don't have one.

what is the CVD profile and how do I use it?

[gplasky]

I believe he meant the VCD profile.

Gerry

[SHS]

No I mean CVD which mean Chinese Video Disk, was developed in the late 1990s, is a Chinese government-sponsored competitor to the SVCD standard. CVDs use variable bitrate MPEG2 video encoded at 352x480 (NTSC) or 352x576 (PAL) rather than 480x480 (NTSC) or 480x576 (PAL) as with SVCDs. This lower resolution allows for video to be encoded at a lower bitrate without artifacting, which means longer videos are possible. CVDs are more compatible with most DVD players sold in the United States and unlike SVCD which can be a plan in neck to get working on DVD disc.
It under Detailed Setup | Multimedia | Recording Quality just change the Default Quality to CVD but if it not there then add it to your Sage.properties with otu SageTV run and restart SageTV.

mmc/python2_encoding/CVD=videobitrate\=2500000|peakvideobitrate\=3000000|vbr\=1|width\=352|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|outputstreamtype\=0|audiosampling\=48000

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by SHS

No I mean CVD which mean Chinese Video Disk, was developed in the late 1990s, is a Chinese government-sponsored competitor to the SVCD standard. CVDs use variable bitrate MPEG2 video encoded at 352x480 (NTSC) or 352x576 (PAL) rather than 480x480 (NTSC) or 480x576 (PAL) as with SVCDs. This lower resolution allows for video to be encoded at a lower bitrate without artifacting, which means longer videos are possible. CVDs are more compatible with most DVD players sold in the United States and unlike SVCD which can be a plan in neck to get working on DVD disc.
It under Detailed Setup | Multimedia | Recording Quality just change the Default Quality to CVD but if it not there then add it to your Sage.properties with otu SageTV run and restart SageTV.

mmc/python2_encoding/CVD=videobitrate\=2500000|peakvideobitrate\=3000000|vbr\=1|width\=352|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|outputstreamtype\=0|audiosampling\=48000

Wow-who knew? I never heard of it before this.

Gerry

[teo409]

Thanks SHS,

But, I tried the CVD profile and it was still too big, bitrate ended up being 3000, max for vision:m is 2500. VCD is the lowest possible so i'm gonna try that, I'll post to let you guys know if it works

[teo409]

It worked on VCD but now I have a new problem, now on sagetv, livetv won't work, something about no media player available for playback, here's the error message

[teo409]

Ok, i got it to work with SVCD Standard Play. Files transfer with no conversion to my vision:m. Livetv is also displayed as normal. The only thing is the picture doesn't look very good on my monitor, looks great on the vision:m though. I guess its a sacrifice i have to make. Does anyone know the bitrates for each of the recording qualities on sagetv?

[SHS]

SageTV dosen't support MPEG-1 Playback that why you get the error
Well you could alway do this

mmc/python2_encoding/ZenVision=videobitrate\=2000000|peakvideobitrate\=2500000|vbr\=1|width\=352|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|outputstreamtype\=0|audiosampling\=48000

[teo409]

What is that, what does it do, and how do I do that and where do I put it?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by teo409

The only thing is the picture doesn't look very good on my monitor, looks great on the vision:m though. I guess its a sacrifice i have to make.

If it were me, I'd leave Sage alone and have it record at a normal quality for viewing at home, and then recode the files for the Zen. A program like this, http://www.xilisoft.com/mp4-converter.html, would take care of it fairly easily. It mentions the Creative Zen Vision, give it a try and see if it will support the M version.

[SHS]

Read post 6

[up2ng]

I know they take up more space than something made for the 320x240 CV:M but my 1 CD Divx rips of dvds ~700 Mb play fine on it. I have yet to find something that doesn't load up on it. I have a custom Mpeg2 setting for about 2Gb per hour (1.6 to 6mbs VBR 720x480) and it plays those fine. The only thing I haven't tried yet is Firewire captured files from digital cable.

[teo409]

what is your custom mpeg2 setting? Care to post?