Transcoding HD PVR files

[jelwood]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

I do too but use my laptop. Do you simply prefer the smaller screen or do you not bring your laptop with you?

For me, it's all about battery life. Obviously, the bigger screen is better and so I do use my laptop sometimes. However, most of the time I need to save my battery for actual work. I can load the IPod touch with shows and music and the battery lasts all day. This saves my laptop battery and then I can use it for a full day as well (I could carry multiple laptop batteries, but they are heavier than the IPod touch).

Another reason I use the small screen is anytime I watch a movie with a rating over PG. There are times when I want to watch an action movie on the plane. However, I don't want to subject everyone around me to all the violence (there might be children around). In these cases I prefer the small screen.

[TorontoSage]

All very good reasons. I use a 3M Privacy Filter which is a plastic screen that does not allow anyone to view my screen from the side. Aside from not allowing someone to view a non-PG movie, more importantly it keeps company documents confidential.

As for conserving battery life, I travel mainly Air Canada and almost all their airplanes have standard electrical receptacles at each seat so I never have to worry about conserving battery power. I have noticed, though, that US airlines use much older planes these days and there are no receptacles.

So I don't think I'll be doing transcoding on my new SageTV system.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by thorforyou

I use the following with the most recent ffmpeg revision 16596
-f matroska -vcodec mpeg4 -qscale 6 -acodec copy

This provides a good quality rip from the hd-pvr files that are 720p.

It usually works with 1080i, but not always.

The release notes from the latest ffmpeg .05 seem to indicate that the paff header problem might be resolved. I hope that someone compiles the new version for windows soon.

so, with the release of 6.6, we still have the HD-PVR converting audio sync problem. It was working for a while during the beta, but then there were problems with audio dropouts, when that was fixed the sync problems returned. Is it still a problem with the ffmpeg code base itself?

Or is it because I'm using older HD-PVR drivers maybe? I think mine are still from Oct. '08, which I keep using because everything "just works." I'm still getting that high pitched tone at the start of the recording, not sure, maybe that was something to do with the conversion issues and was fixed in a later driver.

[Dahrl]

Originally Posted by phelme

so, with the release of 6.6, we still have the HD-PVR converting audio sync problem. It was working for a while during the beta, but then there were problems with audio dropouts, when that was fixed the sync problems returned. Is it still a problem with the ffmpeg code base itself?

Or is it because I'm using older HD-PVR drivers maybe? I think mine are still from Oct. '08, which I keep using because everything "just works." I'm still getting that high pitched tone at the start of the recording, not sure, maybe that was something to do with the conversion issues and was fixed in a later driver.

I just tried this out also and the converting worked fine with the exception of the audio sync. So much for watching stuff while taking the bus to the office etc.

And I am using the latest drivers for the HD-PVR.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Dahrl

I just tried this out also and the converting worked fine with the exception of the audio sync. So much for watching stuff while taking the bus to the office etc.

And I am using the latest drivers for the HD-PVR.

OK, it's not my drivers and it's still broken. Bummer.

I find Mediacoder (using mencoder as the backend) works OK for conversions.

[babgvant]

FWIW, I ended up rolling my own solution to this problem.

[briands]

Looking for recommendations for transcoding for my daughters netbook... it would make the car trips much more enjoyable. I seems to choke on files as recorded.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by briands

Looking for recommendations for transcoding for my daughters netbook... it would make the car trips much more enjoyable. I seems to choke on files as recorded.

First off make sure you are recording in 720p format. Once I set my cable box to output 720p format, I had no problems with the sagetv transcoder. I would recommend iPhone format. It looks good on a screen that size, and it's small on the HD.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by briands

Looking for recommendations for transcoding for my daughters netbook... it would make the car trips much more enjoyable. I seems to choke on files as recorded.

At least until recently, all netbooks only had hardware MPEG2 decoding and so therefore any h.264 encoded videos will choke on it. So keep that in mind when transcoding.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

At least until recently, all netbooks only had hardware MPEG2 decoding and so therefore any h.264 encoded videos will choke on it. So keep that in mind when transcoding.

HD ones yes, but the profile I recommended (iPhone), does not choke it. I have a Lenovo netbook, which is the same as all the other netbooks, and I have watched a few videos this way.

[Evil_Attorney]

It looks like there hasn't been any progress on this. I am using the latest v7 beta and am trying to automatically transcode HDPVR 1080i files to apple widescreen format, but the audio is either way out of sync of choppy. Switching my boxes to only 720p severely degrade the picture quality of the 1080i channels, so that's not an option. Anyone else have any luck getting this working?

[Evil_Attorney]

Ok, there may be a fix/workaround for transcoding troubles with the HDPVR. Apparently there are issues with the DTS data in the files that the HDPVR creates. Sage support offered the following solution. I am in the process of testing it now:

"OK, I finally figured this one out. It's due to the HDPVR generating bad
files (technically, their DTS values are incorrect and lag behind the PTS
way too much). We've seen this before and have no idea why it occurs; but
it's something wrong with the HDPVR. Fortunately....there's a solution.

If you set this in your Sage.properties file, it'll workaround the problem
in the transcoder. I'm pretty sure this won't break other files; let me know
the results either way.

Set:

xcode_fix_broken_hdpvr_streams=true

in your Sage.properties file and do it while SageTV is not running. Then do
the transcoding of the files and the result should then have good A/V sync."

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

Ok, there may be a fix/workaround for transcoding troubles with the HDPVR. Apparently there are issues with the DTS data in the files that the HDPVR creates. Sage support offered the following solution. I am in the process of testing it now:

"OK, I finally figured this one out. It's due to the HDPVR generating bad
files (technically, their DTS values are incorrect and lag behind the PTS
way too much). We've seen this before and have no idea why it occurs; but
it's something wrong with the HDPVR. Fortunately....there's a solution.

If you set this in your Sage.properties file, it'll workaround the problem
in the transcoder. I'm pretty sure this won't break other files; let me know
the results either way.

Set:

xcode_fix_broken_hdpvr_streams=true

in your Sage.properties file and do it while SageTV is not running. Then do
the transcoding of the files and the result should then have good A/V sync."

Does this affect a fix in the transcoding process or in the original as its recording?

I have a recording from last night (Work of Art, on Bravo) that was out of sync the first time I tried to transcode it. I'll try it again with the flag changed and see what happens.

[Evil_Attorney]

I believe it affects transcoding process, not the HDPVR file. I think only Hauppauge can fix the issues with the DTS in the files.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

I believe it affects transcoding process, not the HDPVR file. I think only Hauppauge can fix the issues with the DTS in the files.

Cool. Running my own test now and I'll report back...

[phelme]

Well, it does work better.... with a caveat.

Look at the attached screen grab and you'll see what you get if you play through the Haali 1.10.175.0 splitter and WMP. It looks like a 3D image with the colors blurred and there is what must be a sync thingie at the bottom. However, if I play it through Sage via DirectShow, SageTVPlayer or VLC, it stutters for about 10 seconds first but then plays fine. Wheee!

While this is great progress , I will say that Handbrake does HD-PVR conversion without the initial stutter and can copy the 5.1 channel AC3 track too.

[Evil_Attorney]

What format are you transcoding to? I'm in the process of transcoding my first test file to the AppleTV format (for accessing via my iPad with AirVideo).

I also filed a complaint with Hauppauge about this. Maybe they can fix things with their next driver version.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

What format are you transcoding to? I'm in the process of transcoding my first test file to the AppleTV format (for accessing via my iPad with AirVideo).

I also filed a complaint with Hauppauge about this. Maybe they can fix things with their next driver version.

AppleTV High Quality.

[derfel]

The only thing holding me back from switching from BeyondTV to Sage is the automatic transcoding of HD-PVR files.

So I understand from this thread that this is not working properly?

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by derfel

The only thing holding me back from switching from BeyondTV to Sage is the automatic transcoding of HD-PVR files.

So I understand from this thread that this is not working properly?

Well, there were a few issues when converting HD-PVR files to the AppleTV High Quality format. If you modifiy the Sage properties file as mentioned above, the AppleTV formatted file will play in Quicktime, iPad and iPhone without issues. However, some computer codecs may have issues with it (see above posts).