theeo - A tool to assist in encoding HDTV

[FreQi]

*EDIT* You can find the latest release here (http://freqi.net/theeo/)

This has been a long time in the making (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=544424#post544424), but I think theeo is finally ready for some public scrutiny.

http://freqi.net/theeo/theeo-1.00.00.png

What does theeo do?
With some exceptions, theeo automates a lot of the work that it takes to encode your recorded HDTV transport streams as I described almost 2 years ago (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=285754#post285754). First, theeo will run the file(s) through DGIndex to generate the .d2v video project and demux the .ac3 audio. It then opens them in VirtualDubMod so you can cut commercials or other unwanted video. Once you save your vdmod processing settings (make sure you check the box for "Include selection and edit list"), theeo will generate the AVISynth script you can use to encode the video and cut the audio that will be in perfect sync with it, with no need for dealy.

I've intentionally left it rather opened ended so you can use theeo to encode your HDTV to whatever you want, however I have included a couple sample templates that I use to encode "HighRes" XviD's as well as a Lower Resolution variant and even NTSC DVD. For the moment, I leave it to you to actually feed the final .avs into your encoder of choice and figure your bitrates and such.

You can get it from http://freqi.net/theeo

[Pookie]

Whoa ! Thanks a bunch :)

[FreQi]

Sure, let me know your impressions. Making the templates work for you is probably the most cumbersome part of the setup, but if you're already editing your .avs files manually, it should be fairly simple to understand what the templates are used for.

[zeus163]

Sweet. I'm trying it out right now. I had an HD NBC clip that I had made sitting here from Coldplay on Leno. So, I'll see how it goes. I can't wait until transcoding/encoding are implemented using CCE for encoding to DVD specs. Will that ever be added?

Thanks a bunch!

[FreQi]

I can already make theeo calculate bitrates and produce .ecl's for CCE, so that's all but a guaranteed option in a future release. Figuring out the best way to implement it is the dilemma I face. I'm trying to come up with the best way to manage dvd output vs avi.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I also set what I call the natural chapter points, which is where you cut out the commercials and such. I originally wrote theeo to make dvd's out of HD recordings, so there's a lot of that stuff already written. However, I've since moved back to XviD being my target output of choice, so there's a lot of work I will be doing in that direction.

[zeus163]

The resulting file was great. I just need to test it out on my DVD player.

This program is sounding better and better. I've never really done xvid, but would if I knew the proper settings in VDM.

[FreQi]

I've never really done xvid, but would if I knew the proper settings in VDM.

If you mean the "proper" settings in XviD, that's an answer that is pretty subjective. Everyone will tell you something different, but if you want, I can post screen shots of my settings to give you a baseline. I don't make changes from one encode to another. All I set is the bitrate so I hit a target size, and I'm quite pleased with the resulting videos. I also don't transcode the audio, I leave the AC3 untouched with the exception of trimming and fixing it of course. So I end up with a video that's higher resolution than DVD with the original audio in half the file size that DVD takes. I find it hard to beat. IMO, the only thing dvd has on an xvid is the portability. Everyone has a low definition dvd player, but not everyone runs Xbox Media Center in HD.

[zeus163]

Oh man, that question was loaded and I didn't really mean for my question to come across that way. What I'm interested in are the settings that you use for your Xvid files. I plan on using the original AC3 file as well.

A screenshot would be marvelous and then the next thing I have to learn how to do is trim in VDM as I've never done that before! I usually trim my files first.

Thanks!

[FreQi]

Trimming in VDMod is pretty easy. I appologize if I am being too detailed...I'm just pretending like you've never seen VDMod before.

The first thing I do is click the [Start] button to move the slider all the way to the beginning. It's the 4th button from the left with a "|<" on it. Then you click the "Mark In" button to mark the beginning of your selection; it's the button second from the right which looks like a half arrow pointing left (I perfer to use the Home key on my keyboard as opposed to clicking the button). Now you need to move the slider past all the video you want to trim out and mark the end of your selection. I usually drag the cursor with the mouse to approximatly where I want to cut, then I use the Page Up or Page Down keys to jump 50 frames at a time, then the left and right arrow keys to move one at a time until I find the specific frame I want to cut on. Then you can click the [Mark Out] button wich is the right-most button with the half arrow pointing right, or use the End key on your keyboard. You now have a range selected, and that range has all the frames you want to drop, so Pick Delete from the Edit menu, or hit the Delete key on your keyboard. Now that you've got the first part trimmed, scroll around and find the other segments you want to cut by marking the beginning frame and end frame then hitting delete until you've got nothing left but the video you want.

This is the important part...Now select "Save processing settings" from the file menu or hit Ctrl+S. If you save the file as the same as your Base Name you set in theeo, it'll make things a little easier for you. If you're using VDMod 1.5, make sure you have "Include selection and edit list" checked. It's located at the very bottom left of the Save dialoge box. If this is not checked, your trim's will not be put in the file and theeo will not know where you wanted to cut the video. Click Save and close VDMod and theeo should find the .vcf file, then generate your final AVISynth script, cut the AC3 to match the trims yous did and fix it using whatever AC3 Fixer you have set as default.

[Ac3Dc3]

ths is a great tool freQi. i think version 1 deserves a better icon ; )

i get this error when theeo tries to process the demuxed ac3 file
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at theeo.Form2.FixTrimmedAC3()
maybe the regex is a little off. would you get this error in that scenario? its about time i brushed up on regeular expressions

[FreQi]

I downlaoded a couple images of Theo Huckstable to make a .ico but I don't know if that'll be a good idea...copywrite issues and all. If someone wants to submit something I'd be happy to put it in there ;] For the next release I'll probably just use my avatar or the .ico on my web site.

As for the error you're getting, theeo handles not finding the demuxed ac3 a little more gracefully that that, so it's probably finding the AC3 (if it's listed on the Sources tab in the AC3 box, you're fine there). I guess I'll have to include some logging or something so i can see exactly what happening in your case, but what is the full path to your project and the base name you're using? Now that I think of it, I've only tested using paths with numbers, letters, periods and hyphens. If you have []'() or some other "unusual" charaters I can't say for sure what'll happen.

[Zag]

Sorry for sounding to noobish but can the generated .avs script be used in megui? What does this do that megui fails to do besides the editing of the file. Can it be used with HD recorded from DVB-S cards (Program Streams)?

[FreQi]

Sorry for sounding to noobish but can the generated .avs script be used in megui?Sure it can. In fact, MeGUI seems to pick up where theeo leaves off.

What does this do that megui fails to do besides the editing of the file.I have not used MeGUI, so I can not speak with too much athority on this, but it seems to me that MeGUI simply takes an input AVS script and audio file (the result from using theeo) and encodes them. So theeo does everything before that including puppeteering DGIndex, generating the .avs and preparing your source audio.

Can it be used with HD recorded from DVB-S cards (Program Streams)?If DGIndex can read it, theeo can feed it to it. You may need to add the file type to the list of allowed file types on the Settings tab however.

[Zag]

Thank you for the quick answers and what looks to be a great product. I will definately give it a go.

[zeus163]

thanks FreQi for the detailed VDM trim walk-through. I'll give it a go.

I'd love to see your VDM screenshots though for xvid encoding. Thanks for this program. Grand!

[FreQi]

I just took a screen shot of every window in the XviD configuration. I am using an older version than what's "current", but the basic stuff should be the same. Feel free to criticize, at least...constructively.

http://freqi.net/theeo/xvid/

[zeus163]

There's no reason for me to criticize since I don't usually enoce to xvid. I'll give it a whirl!

thanks!

[Ac3Dc3]

probably finding the AC3 (if it's listed on the Sources tab in the AC3 box)
yup, its there

theeo is in a C:\theeotest\theeo directory, the mpg (basename cbstest) is in C:\theeotest

actually, virtualdub throws some exceptions before that, notifying me in a messagebox - " Member 'stream' not found " (before saving the .vcf) and " Overloaded method (string,string,int) not found " (after saving the .vcf). this is using 1.4.13.2 but the same occurs with the latest version, only less detailed error analysis.

a minor detail you might want to change is the dragenter event on the listbox. the cursor changes to the plus sign thang even when you drag a file over of type not allowed (if that makes sense)

[FreQi]

I might need to get a sample of your sources so I can figure this one out. I'll PM you with some details on how to get it to me.

As for the Drag-Enter event, I only have theeo check the allowed file types after you drop the items, but that's because you can also drag and drop a directory and theeo will just find all the allowed file types. I figure this leads to less frequent checking (processing) as opposed to checking all the files every time you drag over. Unless I am not understanding your comment...

[BlueIce]

I used theeo tonight on Medium and it worked perfectly. One thing I wish it had was a log like you mentioned so we can see more specifically what it's doing and when it's done.

One more thing:
I moved theeo to another HD after running it and needed to update the templates location to the new one (everything else seemed to work fine in the new location) but the browse for folder button in the Settings tab doesn't save the location, but that's probably why it is greyed out in the first place.
I just updated the location in the xml file and theeo found them fine. Good tool you have there, with a log window it will be similar to Gordian Knot :)

Some stuff I dream about:
- Cropping window like in GK and TMPGEnc (would be the only realtime cropping for HDTV I know of, besides DGIndex's which is weird and you can't specify profiles)

- XviD setting profiles (templates I guess you can call them) and having theeo be able to then load the resulting avs it outputs into VDM with these profiles and either wait for me to add another show to the queue or begin encoding.

That can already be done with the .jobs files you can save in VDM so you would only have to code a way to load them after the avs.

Sorry for the long post and maybe outlandish feature requests ;)

[FreQi]

I used theeo tonight on Medium and it worked perfectly. One thing I wish it had was a log like you mentioned so we can see more specifically what it's doing and when it's done.I'll probably be making a Log tab to accomodate this. I had a log on earlier drafts of theeo, but I didn't figure other people would find it that interesting to watch as it's working. We'll see what I come up with, but I agree that a log is going to be an important thing to have.

One more thing:
I moved theeo to another HD after running it and needed to update the templates location to the new one (everything else seemed to work fine in the new location) but the browse for folder button in the Settings tab doesn't save the location, but that's probably why it is greyed out in the first place.It should save the Template Dir on the Settings tab. You just have to click the Save button at the bottom. It's only grey'd out because I want to force you to pick the directory rather than type it in. I've come up with another way to indicate when a file or directory doesn't exist (see the Post Trim AVS text box) and I'll probably use that method more throughout theeo in later revisions.

I just updated the location in the xml file and theeo found them fine. Good tool you have there, with a log window it will be similar to Gordian Knot :)There are a couple things in the xml file that are not listed on the Settings tab yet because there are other features I had in earlier drafts that I haven't put into v1 yet, like generating .ecl files and finding chaper points, calculating bitrates and target sizes, etc.

Some stuff I dream about:
- Cropping window like in GK and TMPGEnc (would be the only realtime cropping for HDTV I know of, besides DGIndex's which is weird and you can't specify profiles)Stuff like this is why I added a button on the Video Processing tab in the Post-Trim section to "Open in VDMod". After you've cut the commercials, you can open the "final" avs in VDMod and do whatever tweaks you want by using it's AVS Editer. Just hit Ctrl-E and you can adjust the cropping. If I were to add a GUI to adjust cropping within theeo, it'll be quite a ways off unless someone can help me out with some .Net code.

But on something of a side note, I have found VDMod 1.5 to be...cumbersome to work with in theeo. I intend to distribute VDMod v1.4 with theeo since you can't seem to get a one click download for it anymore (the dependancy .dll's are missing from sourceforge). If someone knows where to get it from these days, please let me know. I'll explain more on why I like 1.4 better than 1.5 later, unless someone wants to know right away.

- XviD setting profiles (templates I guess you can call them) and having theeo be able to then load the resulting avs it outputs into VDM with these profiles and either wait for me to add another show to the queue or begin encoding.

That can already be done with the .jobs files you can save in VDM so you would only have to code a way to load them after the avs.

I was thinking about making theeo's own encoding queue using AVS2AVI and EclCCE. With AVS2AVI, you would be given a dialog box to pick your AVI codec, in most cases I assume this would be XviD, but it'll allow you to pick anything else like DivX and whatever you kids are using these days. I should be able to generate .ecl files that EclCCE can use to encode to DVD, and theeo should be able to puppeteer the whole thing so your computer is just encoding one thing at a time. How's that sound?

Sorry for the long post and maybe outlandish feature requests ;)Nah, I like to see what people what. LMK what else you're looking for.

[zeus163]

I would love this:

"I was thinking about making theeo's own encoding queue using AVS2AVI and EclCCE. With AVS2AVI, you would be given a dialog box to pick your AVI codec, in most cases I assume this would be XviD, but it'll allow you to pick anything else like DivX and whatever you kids are using these days. I should be able to generate .ecl files that EclCCE can use to encode to DVD, and theeo should be able to puppeteer the whole thing so your computer is just encoding one thing at a time. How's that sound?"

Also, I'm quite inept at figuring out how to make templates. I want to get a template made for CBS HD, but haven't done that yet since I haven't had time, plus, I'm not sure I could pull it off!

I love the way the theeo is going!

[FreQi]

I've just released theeo v1.01.00 (http://freqi.net/theeo/) which features the ability to use existing D2V projects like ones you make with ProjectX or ones you've already made with older versions of DGindex.

@zeus163
Making a template shouldn't be too hard if you use the examples I included. Just find out what your station boradcasts and what the PID's are and the rest is whatever you want to do. To find that info, I recommend dropping the transport streams in HDTVtoMpeg2 (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~balazer/HDTVtoMPEG2/).

[zeus163]

I just tried creating my own template and I'm having some issues. I keep getting this Sylia script error that states Member 'DeleteComments' not found. I can get through VDM, but then it I get a .Net error and the program closes. Oh well, I'll keep experimenting with this.

[FreQi]

A Sylia script is what vdub uses, the .vcf file. So your problem lies there. Make sure that the template has the right vcf script for the version of vdmod you are uing, and if you are using v1.4, you need to download and extract all 4 thing I linked in the vdmod directory in theeo-1.01.00.

[zeus163]

Thanks. I set everything up for VDM 1.4 and it appears to work. I'm going to encode the file now and see what happens.

Thanks!

[BlueIce]

An Add File button for Transport Stream sources would be nice.

[FreQi]

An Add File button for Transport Stream sources would be nice.

I never liked the Add File button since I am a big fan of Drag-n-Drop, but I figure I will move the AC3 RegEx to the Settings tab which frees up some space on there. I could probably stick a button on there.

[FreQi]

I just posted v1.02.00 which features a log as well as several UI changes. I posted links to all the dependancies theeo has on the we bsite to make it a little easier to get things up and running for first time users.

If you're upgrading from an existing version, you should start from scratch and delete your theeo.xml settings file.

http://freqi.net/theeo/theeo-1.02.00.png

[FreQi]

I just posted a bug-fix release version 1.02.01. Previous versions didn't let you pick the locations of DGIndex and VirtualDubMod on the Settings tab. I also added the location of the default decoder, DGDecode.dll and slightly changed the way the Log is printed to prevent it from jumping all over the place.

[tomos]

will give this new one a go tonight. tried the last one, and couldnt get it to run properly. would open but half the options were hidden away (weird, i know)

[DrivenByDemons]

Wow, this program is sweet. Perfect for TS to XVID for my Xbox Media Center. Had some trouble using my existing verison of VdubMod but once I D/L'd the versions in your links everything worked great... Thanks again FreQi!!!

[laserfan]

I can't get past an error with theeo v1.02.01--I get "An unhandled exception":

parsing "D:\Theeo\ER (AC3 )?(PID \d{3})? T\d{2} (\d_\d)ch (\d+)Kbps DELAY (\d+|\-\d+)ms\.ac3" - Unrecognized escape sequence \T.

D:\Theeo is my working folder, the project name is "ER" and the file name is "ERtod.ts" and I have under Settings "Find AC3 Using" the following:

D:\Theeo\[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3})? T\d{2} (\d_\d)ch (\d+)Kbps DELAY (\d+|\-\d+)ms\.ac3

The file that is in D:\Theo is named:

ER PID 1001 T01 3_2ch 384Kbps DELAY 32ms.ac3

Can anyone suggest to me how to fix this?

[FreQi]

The "Find AC3 Using" should not contain the directory name since theeo already looks in the "Work in" directory for the file. So it should just be:

[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3})? T\d{2} (\d_\d)ch (\d+)Kbps DELAY (\d+|\-\d+)ms\.ac3

The reason it is dying is because in Regular Expressions, the \ indicates a special character, and it's trying to escape the T in the first part where you have "D:\Theeo". If you really wanted to use that (which I don't recommend) you would need to use "D:\\Theeo [...".

The only reason to change this would be if you're using something other than DGIndex to make your D2V and AC3 files, and it makes the AC3 with a different naming convention, or if you come up with something better. This should work too actually...

[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3})? T\d{2} (\d_\d)ch (\d+)Kbps DELAY (\-?\d+)ms\.ac3

You should also note that theeo replaces [theeoBaseName] with whatever is in the "Name" field on the "Project Sources" tab. So there's potential to mess up a RegEx there if you use something other than letters and numbers (periods and dashes seem to be fine in my testing)

[laserfan]

Thanks FreQi I will look hard at this again, but the reason I'd put the directory in there in the first place is that I kept getting "Can't find AC3" errors, despite that the file was in the working directory.

Nothing funny about my naming either, even took spaces out.

If you have any other ideas by all means let me have them; I'll keep trying.

My motivation is that my Thursday night ER 1080i transport streams don't want to convert to XviD nicely--there is something very peculiar about how these are encoded (I think) and so I want very much to try your tool & NBC template.

[FreQi]

I wonder if it's because the directory you're working in is named "Theeo" ... I never tried that. It might be replacing it and be looking for something totally wrong.

Make sure you use the right PID's. My NBC could be different from yours. Just edit the template in notepad and change it to what you need.

Try posting your log here for me to peak at it. I may need to make some changes.

[laserfan]

Found the problem--the PIDs (1000 and 1001) meant that in

[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3})?...

the \d{3} needed to become \d{4}

Congratulate me FreQi! I am NOT a programmer! ;)

Next problem was finding the zlib.dll for VDubMod (!!!??) but now I'm looking at the VirtualDubMod screen so I oughta be good from here.

Thanks for juicing the 'ol brain cells.

[FreQi]

I had no idea the PID's could even be that high... You might want to use something like this then:

[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3,4})?...

That'll match 3 and 4 digit PID's. Just to be safe, you could use \d{2,4} which would match 2, 3 and 4 digit PID's, or use \d+ to match as many digits as it can find.

As for zlib.dll, you can get that from the old CVS archive (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/virtualdubmod/VirtualDubMod_Required_DLLs/) for VDMod 1.4 which I linked from my web site. For some reason I thought it was included in the "Required DLL's" package. I really should just post an All Dependancies file on my site to make it easier to get started...

Oh, and Congrats on figuring out some RegEx action. That stuff can be hard to wrap your head around. ;]

[TheLegend]

Ahhh finally I can post, stupid 5 day rule ;)

First of all, awesome tool, I was actually at the verge of writing something like that myself, and then luckily I found that someone else had done it already :)

I used it to reencode 24 (Fox, 720p) a week ago, which worked flawless, everything fine, but then when I tried the same with the NAACP Image Awards (also on Fox, 720p), I ended up with audio being out of synch in the finished XviD. I did exactly the same as with 24, cut out my commercials etc., any ideas why the one was fine while the other was out of synch? As for the argument that 24 wasn't long enough to show as much asynchronity as the Image Awards, it is already very noticable after 30-40 minutes into the video.

Can you explain to me why you prefer VirtualDubMod 1.4 over 1.5? I'm using theeo on a AMD64 machine, and VDubMod 1.5 (32 bit version, though) just seems to run so much better on that machine. At least someone reported the zlib.dll issue already, I had the same thing but figured it out.

Then I made a test recording from WB the other day (1080i), I think it was an episode of Blind Date, and there I had problems with the audio where it gave me errors when trimming/fixing the audio.

Unfortunately I tried so many different iterations of settings and program versions that I can't recall the exact errors and configurations anymore, I will have to rerun my scenarios and then post back into this thread, but I was wondering if you maybe had an idea already what might cause the audio to become asynchronous with the video despite all the DelayCut, Trimming, Fixing etc.

Also, I'm sure you are aware that theeo throws an exception if the vcf doesn't have the exact name it is expecting. Are you by any chance thinking about open sourcing theeo? I might not be as good with creating the vcfs and avs as you, but I'm a pretty good .NET programmer and wouldn't mind contributing :)

Thanks,
Legend

[Pookie]

I'm digging this app and I hope you continue developing it. :)

[jthunder]

I am trying to use this tool to process recorded mpeg2 files saved by mytheatre (dvb-s). The source file is 720p with ac3 audio.

I get the error "Original Demuxed AC3 not found" error

dgindex spits out the following filename for the ac3 file.

"060227 T01 3_2ch 384Kbps DELAY 3ms.ac3"

I'm using a working path of c:\temp\dvbrecordings\

Any help?

Thanks

JT

[FreQi]

I get the error "Original Demuxed AC3 not found" errorIt's probably failing because your AC3 doesn't have the PID section in the filename. I thought I took care of the cases when it's not there, but after looking at it I can see now that it would expect two spaces after the basename. Try using this as your AC3 RegEx:

[theeoBaseName] (AC3 )?(PID \d{3} )?T\d{2} (\d_\d)ch (\d+)Kbps DELAY (-?\d+)ms.ac3

I'm digging this app and I hope you continue developing it. :)Thanks, and I do!

I ended up with audio being out of synchThere are several things (obviously) that can lead to desync, but let me address what is probably the most common reason, and it has to do with your local tv stations.

There are many stations that like to broadcast the audio of their programming in one format that is different from the audio durring the commercials. Some just change the 5.1 audio of the programming to 2.0 on commercials, while others also change the bitrate from 448kbit to 386kbit or 386k to 192k or something. Theeo, and more specifically, VirtualDubMod, can deal with the 5.1 to 2.0 switching just fine, it's the swithing for bitrate that screws the pooch. VirtualDubMod seems to identify the bitrate of your AC3 from the first frame of the audio stream, and that bitrate is used to calculate the cut points when you trim. If your source files start out in the lower bitrate, you will have horrible synch problem and it'll appear to have not worked at all. But if you start out in the bitrate of the programming, you'll be fine, with possible exception of when you place your trims. If you happen to cut your segments on the wrong side of the bitrate change, you could throw off sync, so it's a good idea to try to stay really close to the begining and ending of fade-in's and -out's of the shows.

There are a couple fixes or work arounds that you can try. First and always, make sure your sources start out in the bitrate you intend to keep. If you need to, you can simply record a few second clip of the station in question and use it as the first source file in theeo to trick virtualdubmod. Second, try redoing the trim's. If you left a couple frames of commercial in there where the bitrate drops down, you could throw off the next point at which vdmod is going to trim the audio. Third, you can try using ProjectX and it's option to patch replace 2.0 with 5.1 audio. The only down side to that is ProjectX only knows how to replace it with (I think it is) 384kbit 5.1 audio. so if you're like me and you have 448k 5.1 on FOX, that won't do you much good. I am just hoping for the day when DGIndex deals with this. /me nudges neuron2 ;]

Can you explain to me why you prefer VirtualDubMod 1.4 over 1.5?It's really a bunch of nitpicky stuff, but here's my list:

- When you save processing settings, 1.4 will make the default save location the same as the location you opened the video file from (the avs script). With 1.5 you have to browse to the right place. This makes it really easy to put it someplace theeo doesn't expect to look. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally saved the settings to the root of the hard drive instead of the working directory...

- When saving processing settings, 1.4 always keeps the "Selected Segments" or whatever it calls the non-deleted ranges. In 1.5 you have to check a box to tell it to include them. Not too cumbersome if you know to do it, but if you don't have these ranges in the .vcf, theeo doesn't know what you wanted to trim out. So a simple mistake leads to repeating what is really the most time consuming part of using theeo.

- Again, when saving the Processing Settings, 1.4 pre-fills the filename with the same as the video file. This may seem a little silly since you could overwrite your video file, but it does save you the effort of re-typing the filename. I just hit backspace until I delete -theeo.avs and click the Save button. in v1.5 you have to type it out (in addition to setting the location).

- When loading the AC3, 1.4 will tell you what the bitrate and number of channels are. While I have mixed feelings about this, you can just click OK or hit the space bar to make it go away, or a few second later it'll go away by itself. In v1.5, it parses the file for a few seconds so matter what, but it doesn't seem to give you any information. If v1.5 would have a status bar somepalce that would tell you current bitrate and number of channels as you scrolled through the video I would be in love with it and be mroe than happy to wait for it to parse the ac3 file, but I just don't see it being useful in this case.

With that being said, I do like how v1.5 allows you to modify the video codec and processing mode right on the Save As dialog as opposed to v1.4 where you had to set that first. I also like v1.5's Stream List for multiple audio streams, but I only need the one so...

At least someone reported the zlib.dll issue alreadyI've added a link for this on my web site as well. for the next release I'll probably just put together a Dependancy Pack or something. I have to look over the licensing for each app to see what restrictions they have on redistributing them.

I had problems with the audio where it gave me errors when trimming/fixing the audio.Excessive errors happen sometimes as the result of drops in the transport stream, but I have seen them sometimes when the trimmed AC3 was cut someplace that can't be dealt with very well. In a lot of cases, if you trim the show again it'll be fine, but it's also pretty safe to try fixing the audio with a different utility. If you edit AudioFixes.ini you can add any command line audio fixer you want. I've included several "tags" that theeo can replace for you on launch, the only thing you need to be sure of is that the fixer generates a file named [theeoBaseName]-fixed.ac3. I recommend trying ac3fix.exe (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ac3fix.htm) or dspguru's besplit (http://dspguru.doom9.org/). BeSliced seems to fix the most errors, but I would end up with sync problems more often than if I used AC3Fix.

theeo throws an exception if the vcf doesn't have the exact name it is expecting.You mean the PostTrim VCF? I wasn't aware of that. I'll have to look into it.

Are you by any chance thinking about open sourcing theeo?It's crossed my mind, but I am still undecided. I am currently re-writting theeo (again) in VisualStudio2005 so I'm using VB.Net 2 and making some custom controls and stuff. We'll see what I decide in the comming months I guess, but by all means keep the suggestions and error reports coming.

Oh yeah, and welcome to the forum!

[jthunder]

Wow, this program is sweet. Perfect for TS to XVID for my Xbox Media Center. Had some trouble using my existing verison of VdubMod but once I D/L'd the versions in your links everything worked great... Thanks again FreQi!!!

I am also trying to encode mpeg/dvb (720p) to xvid for xbmc.

I have theeo working great except I'm not sure of the steps to take once I've made all the trims using theeo/vdubmod, what application should I use to encode the .avs file? Vdubmod? MeGUI?

I'd like to encode the 720p source files using an hr.hdtv (960x544) resolution, and at half the framerate (60fps --> 24? 29?/fps).

Obviously my nuub status is shining here, but any help would be great! (sorry if this is a little off topic too, but I hope this tool will make it easy to make repetitive hr.hdtv encodes for xbmc easy)

Thanks

JT

[FreQi]

In it's current incarnation, theeo v1.02.01 will leave you with an .avs script and a -fixed.ac3 file and you can do whatever you want with them. Personally, I actually used VDMod 1.5 to encode an HR.XviD. Just open the .AVS then set up Pass1 and Pass2 using the .ac3 for your bitrate calculation and when you're done encoding, use VDMod 1.5 to mux them together.

Those instructions are pretty vauge, but if you need more details, just ask.

[jthunder]

Ok, thanks for the info.

I'll do some test runs using what I think are the right settings for xvid then try remuxing the files back together to see what happens...

Where in the process does the framerate get cut? Will the audio be out of sync because of this?

JT

[FreQi]

Getting to 23.976fps is done in my templates for 720p or 1080i to FILM. It's done in the AVISynth script that theeo makes after you trim commercials, and no, the audio should stay in perfect sync with the video. That is, afterall, the whole point ;]

[laserfan]

Hi FreQi, I got your tool to work (once I got past that PID 1000 problem) but was disappointed that your NBC template didn't work on my HD transport stream of an "ER" episode. It's a 1080i and to my knowledge the local affiliate doesn't monkey with it at all, but I've had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to deinterlace & IVTC the thing in order to get smooth, non-blurry playback.

I probably need to learn how to analyze these programs field-by-field to figure out how to convert them properly (I re-encode to XviD) but until I get smarter about this stuff, do you have any insight as to what you see from NBC that caused you to set-up the template the way you did?

[FreQi]

Keep in mind that my templates are set up for the network affiliates in my location. My NBC station happens to broadcast in 1080i (actually, it's 1088i). Your affiliate may be totally different. The best way I can suggest you figure this out is first, look at the station details your HDTV Card can tell you. Every card is different, but it should tell you if it's 1080i or 720p or anything else and what frame rate it's running at. If you can't find it in there, open your recorded file in HDTVtoMPEG2. (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~balazer/HDTVtoMPEG2/) It'll tell you not only the Resolution and FPS, but it'll also tell you what PID's to use for the channel you want. I never used it for cutting or anything (mainly because you cannot do frame-accurate cuts with it), but for stream analysis it's a great tool.

[TheLegend]

Keep in mind that my templates are set up for the network affiliates in my location. My NBC station happens to broadcast in 1080i (actually, it's 1088i). Your affiliate may be totally different.

You must be somewhere close to where I am, or at least West Coast, since your templates are perfect for me! The only thing I did is I created copies of all templates, one for VDub 1.4 and one for 1.5, so it's easy for me to switch around while testing.

Thanks for your tips and explanations, however all things you said about VDub 1.5 don't seem to apply to me. The save location and file name is prefilled the same way it is for VDub 1.4, but you are definitely right about the AC3 properties dialog.

I will try your suggestions and make sure to cut closer to the HDTV stream and to not keep frames of the commercials. I'll get back to you as soon as I learned more, I have one pass running right now.

For anyone who's interested, I am using GordianKnot 0.35 to generate my final XviD. I open the .avs in GK but then close the Video window that opens up, then I select the size I want (usually something like 700 MB for 1.5 hours of video) and the AC3 file so that it calculates the file size correctly, and then on the Encoder tab I add a job, which then already has the .avs and .ac3 file prefilled (but you need to click Just Mux for the AC3), and that's pretty much it. I set the GK XviD defaults to Freqi's suggested XviD settings, which work fine for me as well. The advantage of using GK for the encoding is that it helps you reach a certain file size, which might not be what you want if you prefer having a constant bitrate no matter how long your recording is.

Legend

[jthunder]

It sounds like you guys are using HDTV capture cards to record your programming in TS format. I on the other hand use a DVB-S card to capture the programming in .mpg format, which looks a lot like the ts format with some minor differences.

Your 720p template for NBC works great for my recordings of 720p. I think that the programming must match exactly in resolution and framerate (isn't this standard res. of 720p? --> 1280x720?)

For me the size of the resulting file is not an big issue (although always nice to have smaller files), just the quality of the encode and the ability of xbmc/xbox to decode the file effectively.

Anyway great job! -- I look forward to any enhancements you decide to do (I might have a few suggestions after I get into testing).

Thanks again.

JT