Cova
16th January 2006, 04:15
I recently got my HTPC setup to record HD over firewire from my DCT6200, and I keep running into different problems while trying to convert my recordings into things I can use/archive. I'm currently recording with capdvhs to transport-stream files (and will likely continue to do this for things I want to archive), with plans to play with a few different PVR packages that can use the firewire directly (SageTV and XP MCE are currently planned for testing).
Anyways - I've been reading and searching these forums for the best way to trim my recordings, they all have extra crap at the start/end because I start recording a few mins early, and and for a little extra time because clocks never seem to be in sync. I haven't had to deal with commercials yet, but this same procedure should be usable when I do enounter them. Once both audio and video are trimmed, they'll need to be encoded and placed into some type of container. And by "best way" to do all this, I mean highest-quality - I don't care how long it takes to encode as long as I can play it back without dropping frames and such (playback devices may include my PC (intel 3.2 EE), HTPC (AthlonXP 2500+ - may need an upgrade), XBOX with XBMC, and XBOX-360).
From my research, it seems the best way to get started is with DGIndex, demux everything and make a project file. I've got that part working well. I've also tried PVAStrumento - it keeps telling me my audio format is changing like every 10 minutes and splits the movie into a LOT of pieces and I'd rather not deal with putting them back together. My AC3 track does change format once during the stream a couple minutes in where it goes from stereo to 5.1 as the crap at the begging ends and the movie starts, but I don't know where the rest of those format changes are coming from - parsing the resulting AC3s shows they are all 5.1 except the first which is 2.0.
Next up is the trimming, and this is where I'm currently stuck. I'm loading the video into VDubMod through an AVS script (currently just a 1-liner source) with the intent to use the trim() function thats been posted in a few threads. The video loads just fine, and I can deinterlace and stuff with avisynth. My problem is that when I save my processing settings after selecting and deleting unwanted parts, the resulting .vcf file doesn't have anything in it about how I trimmed the video. This is with VDubMod 1.5.10.2 btw. I think it is trimming the AC3 properly as it's spitting a file back out thats smaller by about the right percentage. I saw in a different thread here that there was an issue and I should be using a 1.4 series VDubMod - I downloaded one but since it's so old (dated from 2003) I can't find it's DLL pack anymore (no-longer on source-forge with the rest of the stuff) and I can't get it to run.
And once I've got that last bit working - I'm going to have to encode the video from the avs file, and then mux the trimmed audio back into it (or re-encode the audio). I'm currently considering x264 video and AC3 audio at full HD resolution, hoping a movie will fit on a single DVD-R - this should playback on my PC and HTPC (HTPC may need a CPU upgrade). The other option I'm considering is WMV-HD - this will require re-encoding the audio, but the xbox-360 will be able to play it. As long as 1 thing in my living room can play it it's ok. If anyone has any better idea's about how to encode with maximum quality, fit on a DVD-R, and playback on something in my living room (HTPC, XBOX with XBMC, or XBOX-360), I'm all ears.
And also - thanks for everything. Not just help with these problems, but all of the information gathered here, the guides, the software development that goes on, etc. I've been following doom9 since DivX 3 with the smiley (and encoding/capturing/transfering various video sources around) - it's amazing the amount of progress thats been made in video-related software since then. In all that time the information on this site's been good enough that I haven't had to post with specific questions - this is the first time I've been fast enough moving to a new technology that there wasn't a large guide (or 5) already covering what I want to do before I want to do it. Just need a good HD guide now.
Anyways - I've been reading and searching these forums for the best way to trim my recordings, they all have extra crap at the start/end because I start recording a few mins early, and and for a little extra time because clocks never seem to be in sync. I haven't had to deal with commercials yet, but this same procedure should be usable when I do enounter them. Once both audio and video are trimmed, they'll need to be encoded and placed into some type of container. And by "best way" to do all this, I mean highest-quality - I don't care how long it takes to encode as long as I can play it back without dropping frames and such (playback devices may include my PC (intel 3.2 EE), HTPC (AthlonXP 2500+ - may need an upgrade), XBOX with XBMC, and XBOX-360).
From my research, it seems the best way to get started is with DGIndex, demux everything and make a project file. I've got that part working well. I've also tried PVAStrumento - it keeps telling me my audio format is changing like every 10 minutes and splits the movie into a LOT of pieces and I'd rather not deal with putting them back together. My AC3 track does change format once during the stream a couple minutes in where it goes from stereo to 5.1 as the crap at the begging ends and the movie starts, but I don't know where the rest of those format changes are coming from - parsing the resulting AC3s shows they are all 5.1 except the first which is 2.0.
Next up is the trimming, and this is where I'm currently stuck. I'm loading the video into VDubMod through an AVS script (currently just a 1-liner source) with the intent to use the trim() function thats been posted in a few threads. The video loads just fine, and I can deinterlace and stuff with avisynth. My problem is that when I save my processing settings after selecting and deleting unwanted parts, the resulting .vcf file doesn't have anything in it about how I trimmed the video. This is with VDubMod 1.5.10.2 btw. I think it is trimming the AC3 properly as it's spitting a file back out thats smaller by about the right percentage. I saw in a different thread here that there was an issue and I should be using a 1.4 series VDubMod - I downloaded one but since it's so old (dated from 2003) I can't find it's DLL pack anymore (no-longer on source-forge with the rest of the stuff) and I can't get it to run.
And once I've got that last bit working - I'm going to have to encode the video from the avs file, and then mux the trimmed audio back into it (or re-encode the audio). I'm currently considering x264 video and AC3 audio at full HD resolution, hoping a movie will fit on a single DVD-R - this should playback on my PC and HTPC (HTPC may need a CPU upgrade). The other option I'm considering is WMV-HD - this will require re-encoding the audio, but the xbox-360 will be able to play it. As long as 1 thing in my living room can play it it's ok. If anyone has any better idea's about how to encode with maximum quality, fit on a DVD-R, and playback on something in my living room (HTPC, XBOX with XBMC, or XBOX-360), I'm all ears.
And also - thanks for everything. Not just help with these problems, but all of the information gathered here, the guides, the software development that goes on, etc. I've been following doom9 since DivX 3 with the smiley (and encoding/capturing/transfering various video sources around) - it's amazing the amount of progress thats been made in video-related software since then. In all that time the information on this site's been good enough that I haven't had to post with specific questions - this is the first time I've been fast enough moving to a new technology that there wasn't a large guide (or 5) already covering what I want to do before I want to do it. Just need a good HD guide now.