Guide: Backing up DirecTV TiVo Recordings to DVDR

[TRILIGHT]

I know it's a niche market but I decided since I was figuring it out for myself, I may as well write a quick guide for it. I'm going to get with Doom9 to see if he wants to add it here to the site or not. Until then, you can access it here...

http://dvdguides.trilight.net

EDIT: I updated the link so it is now valid and I removed the old information that was posted here. The current info is listed in the "Tivo to DVDR" section on the above site.

[TRILIGHT]

WARNING!! I think I may have sung the praises of BeSweet too early. I did not have any trouble in my preliminary testing but it has TOTALLY distorted my audio on louder dynamic sections. I'm going to have to devise another way of working with the audio.

EDIT: I've corrected the guide in order to take into account working with the audio such that you will not get distortion. Stick to WinAmp and SoftEncode and you will be fine.

[DSPguru]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
WARNING!! I think I may have sung the praises of BeSweet too early. I did not have any trouble in my preliminary testing but it has TOTALLY distorted my audio on louder dynamic sections. I'm going to have to devise another way of working with the audio.ac3enc.dll is indeed problematic.

but for users who encode mpeg audio streams (rather than ac3), BeSweet should give you an end-to-end solution.

i see from your post that mpeg audio isn't officialy supported by dvd specs. i can't argue with this because i'm sure you've checked it, but i must say that it sounds very strange to me that mpeg streams (vob) doesn't support mpeg audio.
not to mention that most dvd-players also plays (s)vcds, that uses mpeg audio.

EDIT :
i've read that mpeg audio is supported in PAL streams, but not supported for NTSC.

[TRILIGHT]

Hey DSPguru! Certainly didn't mean to "knock" your software or anything. It does a lot of things very well. It just didn't work out for me without distortion on dynamic passages. Thanks for the info on the dll! Look forward to future versions!

[atreides93]

This is really interesting! I just got a DirecTIVO a few weeks ago, and the way I usually back stuff up is through the analog ports, but this method kicks ass!!

But I have to find out how to even do this...I upgraded the hard drive in my old SA tivo but I never looked into the network addons you could do to it.

[TRILIGHT]

All the hardware you need is at 9thtee.com. It's a lot of reading, but I highly recommend you read everything here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=25) to learn all the in's and out's to all things DirecTiVo related. I used to capture things via analog as well and this is definitely a huge improvement over it. It's faster than realtime and it's perfect quality. (Or at least every bit as good as whatever compression DirecTV is sending)

[atreides93]

I've visited that site before when I wanted to learn about upgrading my SA Tivo's hard drive. That was pretty easy and the results were great. I turned my 14 hour unit into a 61 hour unit :)

I'll probalby upgrade my DirecTIVO too but I'm waiting for the warranty to expire. I'm not sure what kind of warranty it has actually hmmmm

[TRILIGHT]

Well, if it's just the original, it's only 1 year. I bought the extended warranty which covered it for 5 because a lot of people were reporting failed modems that cost $90 to replace. Since that's how much the extended warranty was, I figured I would cover it for everything for 5 years. hehe :) Anyway, I'm sure I voided it a long time ago. Besides, with the hacks, you can use the turbonet card to "dial out" over the Internet instead of having to use the phoneline. Should the hard drive go to crap, I'll just buy another and reload my image. Would take too long to ship my unit off anyway.

Back on topic though, I will update the guide at some point to include editing the MPEG streams so that you can remove commercials. It's sort of a painful process at first but so is re-authoring when you don't know what you're doing. ;) Once you get used to it, it's not so bad. I'll post here when I get a chance.

[TRILIGHT]

I know this thread is old as hell but I wanted to keep info relevant for anyone searching. I've updated the guide on my site. It includes an easier way to edit commercials out and is more reliable than the old method I had posted.

[jfcarbel]

At the end of your guide you mention:
"What if I still can't get anything in sync no matter what?"

Do you sometimes experience audio sync problems with the MPEG-VCR software when cutting out the commercials? How often does this problem happen?

Don't most newer DVD Authoring programs have bundled MPEG2 editors included. Most of these newer ones are GOP editors as well so they do not reencode.

Have you tried the MPEG2 editors in TMPG DVDAuthor, Nero 6, or Ulead? Can others comment if they use other apps to edit the MPEG2 of TIVO - I ask because I do not own MPEG-VCR.

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by jfcarbel
At the end of your guide you mention:
"What if I still can't get anything in sync no matter what?"

Do you sometimes experience audio sync problems with the MPEG-VCR software when cutting out the commercials? How often does this problem happen?

No, it actually does not happen very often at all for me because I have filtered through a TON of different processes to come up with what I do now. The others were inconsistent. The steps I follow now are not. The only reason I included that section at the bottom was because it was the old process I used to follow. I figured it was still valid if someone had a corrupt recording. If their original recording had rain fade in it or something, and it interrupted the normal flow, it might create a more difficult situation to deal with. I've not run into the problem myself but I figured I would list the method anyway as it will obviously put anything together correctly no matter what.

Don't most newer DVD Authoring programs have bundled MPEG2 editors included. Most of these newer ones are GOP editors as well so they do not reencode.

Not that I have seen. The authoring software I work with is all professional level software but none of it supports editing of MPEG2 streams. I have not had the opportunity to test out Adobe Encore or Sonic DVD Producer so I do not know if they do or not. This all being said, even if they do, you also have the added hurdle of getting the software to accept the non-compliant video stream that DirecTV sends out. The DVD patching trick might not work.

Have you tried the MPEG2 editors in TMPG DVDAuthor, Nero 6, or Ulead? Can others comment if they use other apps to edit the MPEG2 of TIVO - I ask because I do not own MPEG-VCR.

No, I have not tried those editors. I already had MPEG-VCR and know many others who have it as well. Since it worked flawlessly for the process and was reliable and consistent, I did not see a need to continue looking. By all means, if you have the software you listed, try it out and let me know how it works for you.

[TRILIGHT]

Just FYI... I've updated the TiVo section of the site to include information on doing a project in DVD-Lab instead of DVD Maestro.