AVI Playback Question

[joe123]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Am I understanding correctly that you are converting it to a higher resolution than the original? If so, then why on earth would you ever do that?

Question: In SageTV I record all my shows at "Great 2.0GB/hour" quality.

Since there is no reason to convert to a higher quality as you pointed out, what is the correct conversion for AVI? In other words, in SageTV V6, when I convert a recording to MP4 (AVI) format, what quality setting should I use to keep the same quality as my original?

[stanger89]

Probably either MPEG-4 High Quality AVI or MPEG-4 High Quality Deinterlaced AVI.

I'd probably lean toward the deinterlaced one since most MPEG-4 codecs don't seem to handle interlacing well.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Probably either MPEG-4 High Quality AVI or MPEG-4 High Quality Deinterlaced AVI.

I'd probably lean toward the deinterlaced one since most MPEG-4 codecs don't seem to handle interlacing well.

Which one is best without loosing picture quality on the MediaMVP with Sage? MPEG-4 deinterlaced?

[stanger89]

None. The MVP only supports MPEG-2 so anything that's not MPEG-2 is transcoded into MPEG-2 on the fly. By converting your MPEG-2 recordings to MPEG-4 you're introducing two unnecessary lossy compression steps.

[benjamintm]

CCCP is different then previous codec packs. Previously codec packs builders used multiple versions of the same codec, hacked versions of commercial software, and custom installations. They were rife with installation and uninstallation problems. Hence Blight's declaration that they are evil, but he's was addressing the codec packs of the time (2004/2005)

CCCP is built to install a single decoder (FFDShow) that's been customize to enhance playback. It doesn't use proprietary codecs or hacks. Instead it's a community, open-source effort to provide a robust single install to handle most videos, with the main exceptions of Quicktime and Real.

Ben

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by benjamintm

CCCP is different then previous codec packs. Previously codec packs builders used multiple versions of the same codec, hacked versions of commercial software, and custom installations. They were rife with installation and uninstallation problems. Hence Blight's declaration that they are evil, but he's was addressing the codec packs of the time (2004/2005)

CCCP is built to install a single decoder (FFDShow) that's been customize to enhance playback. It doesn't use proprietary codecs or hacks. Instead it's a community, open-source effort to provide a robust single install to handle most videos, with the main exceptions of Quicktime and Real.

Ben

Little more info and it is not just a single decoder.

Background. While codecs theoretically should not interfere with one another, some of the larger codec packs available on the internet – especially when combined with each other – can cause major slowdowns, seemingly unrelated bugs, systemic instabilities, or simply fail to render the video. The lack of standards and agreements regarding best practices has given rise to a multitude of "all-in-one solution codec packs", which by not being thoroughly tested often prove to be the sources of conflicts and system slowdowns mentioned above. Several of these packs are also notoriously difficult to uninstall and will often, after apparently having been removed, partially remain and cause clandestine and difficult-to-trace problems and incompatibilities. Sometimes the only way to fully remove these packs, or their post-uninstall residues, without becoming overly complicated has been a complete system reinstall.

In 2005, a gathering of representatives from certain video encoding groups joined to create a minimalistic and well-integrated pack intended to require as few computer resources as possible and be fully uninstallable

Note: Installing all of these separately will not have the same effect as installing the CCCP because the ffdshow build (the core video/audio decoding software) is customized and so are all of the components' settings.
Customized build of ffdshow
Haali Media Splitter
FLV Splitter
MPV Decoder
VSFilter
WMV9VCM
CoreWavPack
Media Player Classic
Zoom Player

Supported formats
Container formats: AVI, OGM, MKV, MP4, FLV and TS
Video codecs: MPEG-2, DivX, XviD, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, WMV9, FLV1, Theora, and Generic MPEG-4 ASP (3ivx, lavc, etc.)
Audio codecs: MP1, MP2, MP3, AC3, DTS, AAC, Vorbis, LPCM, FLAC, TTA and WavPack

[edit] Unsupported common formats
RealMedia .rm .rmvb
QuickTime .qt .mov
Indeo

Media Player Classic comes with some of it's own codecs. Zoom player comes with none. But ZP 5 will go out and ask you if you want it to download missing codecs for you and will now download and install them.

(Quotes from Wikipedia)

Gerry

[benjamintm]

Zoomplayer and MPC are both just players. Neither is a codec and instead leverage FFDShow.

Haali Media Splitter, FLV Splitter, MPV Decoder, VSFilter, WMV9VCM, and CoreWavPack are filters that allow FFDShow to decode the filtered file. Kind of like using reading glasses to read a book. Your mind is the decoder, the glasses just help you see the book. In CCCP, the only decoder is FFDShow

The problem with previous codec packs were that they would just put a bunch of codecs into a single installer. In some of the larger codec packs, you'd get multiple versions of the same codec (e.g. DivX 3 and DivX 4). Some installed hacked versions to enable commercial capabilities or eliminate trail period timeouts. Because of these single-installers, uninstalling became a huge problem.

CCCP avoids all of this by providing a single decoder, FFDShow, with the filters. Install is easier, uninstall is even easier, and the legality of installing CCCP is not an issue.

As you pointed out, Wikipedia has a great entry on it that gives more information.

Ben

[joe123]

For us simple users who don't understand all the lingo, can someone just point and tell us what we need to do in SageTV to have normal/good conversions from MPEG2 to AVI to display on our MVP's?

Or is the bottom line of this thread saying it's not possible?

[benjamintm]

If it plays in MediaMVP, then the SageTV encoding is probably encoding correctly. Windows doesn't come with an MP4 decoder by default, so you need to install one. I recommend CCCP for my previously stated reasons, although I haven't tried it with WMP11, so YMMV.

Ben

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by joe123

For us simple users who don't understand all the lingo, can someone just point and tell us what we need to do in SageTV to have normal/good conversions from MPEG2 to AVI to display on our MVP's?

Or is the bottom line of this thread saying it's not possible?

Its not impossible, It just takes some CPU horsepower to transcode AVI on the fly for your MVP, and there will be a picture quality loss since the video on the MVP will have been converted twice, once from MPEG2>AVI, and again from AVI>MPEG2.

to get good conversions, I'd say to record in a high-quality MPEG2 format and convert to a high-quality AVI format. Then play the AVI on Sage/SageClient to see if it is still good enough. Then try to play it on the MVP and see if the quality is still good enough. It is mainly a personal preference to what level of quality is acceptable to each person.