How can I play DVR-MS properly?

[Yutani]

Hi,

I have Vista Media Center and want to watch my recorded TV broadcasts (DVB-S, 720x576) on my other PCs in my home network.

When I play them on my other machines, the videos are cropped, i.e. the bottom is missing.

Then I looked at the video properties in Windows Media Player and it shows that the video has only 704x480 (this could explain the cropping) with some weird aspect ratio of 2.09:1. Videos that are broadcasted in anamorphic 16:9 look normally at the first sight, but they are missing the bottom, too. No matter what player or codec I try, all videos look the same.

The next step I tried was converting DVR-MS to MPEG2 (without re-encoding). The video is normal now, no cropping, the resolution is 720x576 and the aspect ratio is normal again.

What can I do to play these files properly without always converting them to MPEG2?

Thanks in advance!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Did you try MPlayer yet? It should be able to handle DRV-MS :)

http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home/?page=projects#mplayer

[Yutani]

Thanks, but with MPlayer I have the same problem. I also tried different players/codecs on different PCs, always with the same result.

It occured to me that the DVR-MS container gives the player a wrong resolution and a wrong aspect ratio. In another forum some guy has a problem playing DVR-MS files with a resolution of 1280x720. They are played with 704x480 and are cropped, just like my files.

There must be a solution for this issue. :/

Any help with this is appreciated!

[setarip_old]

@Yutani

Hi!The next step I tried was converting DVR-MS to MPEG2 (without re-encoding). The video is normal now, no cropping, the resolution is 720x576 and the aspect ratio is normal again. What can I do to play these files properly without always converting them to MPEG2?From everything I've read about such files, converting to MPEG-2 appears to be the only acceptable solution. Since you don't state what methodology you've used to do this, I've included the following Google primary link for you. It may provide you with information about faster methodologies:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22DVR-MS+to+MPEG2%22&aq=f&oq=

[Yutani]

OK, I found the culprit: ffdshow

I installed Dscaler 5 as MPEG2 decoder and the video plays normal. The resolution is 704x576, although it was broadcasted with 720x576, but the video is uncropped and with correct aspect ratio.

I'll try PureVideo now, because DScaler 5 seems to lack the nice deinterlacing algorithms, it only has bob and weave.