HDPVR Support on the Mac (HDPVRCapture) - Page 3

I'd just like to add my support to your work Stoth. I haven't logged in for a year, but I saw this thread, and am very excited about the possibility of capturing component video from my satellite receiver to my Mac. I use a Mac-mini as a media server to my HDTV. Putting a Hauppauge HD PVR in the loop and recording to the Mac-mini is just what I'm looking for.

I have used Terminal on occasion, but as was noted earlier, a GUI app is what most people like me are looking for. I'll certainly be checking back often to see the progress, and may be buying the PVR soon. Thanks for your efforts.

I would also like to say that this is something that I would definitely be interested in. I have been using mac's since the IIci, and as soon as DVHS became available I bought one. I have read about Hauppauge and was very interested until I realized that it would not work with a mac. I am an artist by trade, so for me, and I think most mac users, the idea of having to use command lines to run an application is something that is kind of scary. So I definitely agree that GUI is very important.

maybe I missed this in a older post but how are you guys cutting commercials out of your recordings?

just curious.

Jeff

You're leaving out the universe of Mac users who want a mechanism to digitize their High Definition content for archival and playback purposes.

Since NO OTHER hardware device exists that will do this for the complete HD universe, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that they will be happy to have the HD-PVR do this and then grow to the other features as time goes on.

What is my basis for this view: I own two DirecTV HR10-250's and three DirecTV HR20-700 before I obtained a HR20-100 as the dedicated receiver for my HD-PVR.

I now have about 80% of my 1T external hard drive filled with my video and music library (and backed up nightly to my other 1T HD).

Whereas before I digitized 100% in SD, I now digitize 50/50, with the momentum going towards more HD: HDNet Movies, MGM-HD, Showtime HD, HBO HD, TMC HD, CineMAX HD, FX HD, USA HD, ABC HD, NBC HD, CBS HD, FOX HD, etc. and now AC3/5.1: all transcoded with either VisualHub or Handbrake 0.9.3 , edited with MPEG Streamclip and viewable on either of my two networked AppleTVs (one of which I travel with)...

Just some feed back;

The captured files play fine in XBMC for Mac/Linux/Windows. On a 2GHz MacBook 720p runs from 120 to 150 percent cpu depending on bitrate settings and bitrate_mode.

This needs to get down to 50 percent cpu to play back on the AppleTV using XBMC for Mac. Under the AppleTV iTunes native, higher rates are possible since quicktime under the AppleTV does use h.264 hardware acceleration. Still investigating the boundaries of this.

A few comments to the post by chefklc;

While a GUI app is what Mac users expect, a capture only App without scheduling and auto record capabilities is of limited use. Expecting a user to be sitting at their Mac which must be close to their HDTV and start capturing their favorite show manually all the time is just silly. Once or twice, yes but all the time will get very old quickly.

Please don't discount the AppleTV connection, it's larger than anyone outside of Apple thinks. The download count for atvusb-creator is over 40,000 in a little over a month. All this simple OSX app does it enable the creation of an AppleTV patchstick for installing ssh and xbmc/boxee on the AppleTV. This number is huge considering the so called analysts say only about 500k have been sold. atvusb-creator is free but consider half the download numbers at $10 is $200k in one month. Think iPhone apps

Personally I think the analysts are dead wrong and the numbers are more in the 1 to 3 million range. The reason for the 40k downloads is not just the creation of the patchstick but including the ability to run xbmc/boxee native on the AppleTV, launchable from a AppleTV plugin. So leveraging a high profile application like XBMC or MythTV is certainly a way to gain rapid exposure.

Anyway, so far looks good. It's a no brainer for me and well worth $30 when you are ready for payments.

Nobody is actually using anything quite yet, since the app hasn't been released in anything other than a two-minute-limited demo, but I've verified that MPEG Streamclip will edit .mov (and probably .mp4, although I haven't tried that yet) files created with HDPVRCapture.

I certainly did not intend to seem like this is what I was saying. On the contrary: I think all Mac TV users want this mechanism (whether or not they realize it yet), *but* that some are already used to having more functionality and don't want to give that up for HD.

These full solutions I was referring to earlier in the thread give you both your tivo-like live TV experience along with a laundry list of post-recording options including archiving, transcoding, exporting and streaming. There shouldn't be a reason that you couldn't record your shows with eyeTV and use it's built-in tool to chop out the commercials and send it to your AppleTV for future viewing. Right now the only reason you can't is that there is not yet support for the 1212.



Would iMovie HD work? macworld dot com /article/59414/2007/08/imoviehd.html

Not sure how relevant this is, but I tested the 13.7MBPS file linked in the Samples section on this page:
mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_HD-PVR
...which dropped frames using VLC on my Mac Pro Quad 2.66/7GB RAM/2x500GB SATA striped RAID. Seemed to be only using one CPU core. I was able to open it in eyeTV and it played smoothly using 120% CPU (all cores). Initial tests showed that the "editor" tool is not available for this file -- not sure why but that would be a really quick way to chop the commercials out.

--
Aaron

P.S. Sorry about the weird URLs -- the forum software gave me this when I tried to post:
You are only allowed to post URLs once you have at least 3 posts. If you are a spammer, please go elsewhere. If not, sorry for this issue the spammers have made for.

Having given it a bit more rational thought (for one chomping at the bit for HD) I think I could survive for a while, and would pay for this app as part of a dual-encoder diet that includes:

- eyeTV 200 being used for live TV
- 1212 being used for pre-recording HD shows for archiving and future watching

To be survivable, though, I think scheduled recording will be necessary (so you don't have to be at your computer to initiate and stop recording)

Also auto-converting to a format that can be opened in eyeTV for viewing will be key. Sounds like that might already work -- if anyone can post a sample video I can download it, test, and report back. I can also set up an SFTP server if that would help.

Lastly: Has anyone had any problems with dropped frames when writing to their HDs? Would it make sense to allow users to target the HD recorded to if they were to set up a RAID for speed?

Ok. I'll stop flogging the eyeTV horse now.

I agree with Will: there seems to be no centralized forum for Mac HD digitizers who are not HTPC users. So we need to spread the word out to the various forums that touch on these issues, and link them back to this forum post...

Just sat down to do some testing and I must say this is just awesome!!

-P 1 right to iTunes what more can you ask for..

I can't wait till Steve posts the full version details..

Here is my last output..

mobiledesk:bin jlloyd$ ./HDPVRCapture -B CBR -b 20000000 -P1

HDPVRCapture v0.9.7 (Nov 10 2008 @ 00:17:26)
Copyright 2008, Steven Toth (http://www.steventoth.net/hdpvrcapture)

Output filename: 2008.11.12-200529.ts
Duration: 00:00:10 (10 seconds)
Monitor via VLC: No (default)
Bitrate: 20000000 bps
Peak Bitrate: 20000000 bps
Device: 0 (default)
Audio Boost: Disabled (default)
Audio Encode: AAC
Audio Input Mux: RCA
Video Input Mux: COMPONENT
Bitrate Mode: CBR
GOP Mode: SIMPLE (default)
Lights: OFF (default)
Ir Blaster:
Region:
Device:
Vendor:
Codeset:
Channel#: 707
Min digits to send: 4
Needs Enter: No (default)
Post Processing with profile #33139
Searching for HDPVR devices, vendor ID=0x2040 product ID=0x4900

Found HDPVR, serial number = 00A2602F
Captured: 199770112 bytes, success.

Starting post processing for profile#1
Extracting Video
Extracting Audio
Creating staging file
Creating .MP4
Cleaning up
Adding content to iTunes
Post processing complete


I really see no need for the vlc part but everyone is different..

I was doing this on a macbookpro 15" load was less then 0.50

I'm using a Motorola DCH 3416 HD-PVR cable box to record shows. I can capture non-copy protected shows through firewire using FireRecord. I can play the .ts files in VLC, but I haven't found a way to get the .ts files over to iTunes so I can view them on my AppleTV, and/or Front Row. Will this app help with that aspect at all, or is it just designed for the Hauppauge 1212 device?

Chris

Read this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1043012

and use the latest snapshot version of Handbrake. Works fine.

Steve,

When do you think we can expect a full version to be released?

Jeff

Realized last night that J&R down the street sells the 1212 so I grabbed my lunatic club card and went down to pick one up as I've become compelled to join the ranks of the early (early) adopters of HD recording on Mac.

Since I have a Windows XP BootCamp installation I figured I'd play with the dark side a bit to pass the time since I can't program for hardware.

Early impressions are that it's a full bag of hurt and nails;
- IR software installed but only loaded up a blank screen when configuring.
- The remote control is actually advertised as *not* working with the provided software (!!!),
- You have to use a handful of different programs to do different things, each of which has a WILDLY different skin and interface.
- Live TV watching, if possible, was not intuitive or immediately apparent.

I can say that when I finally got a (non-scheduled) program to record I did, in fact get a .ts file (720p, maxiumum bitrate) and it was beautiful.

I was able to use the provided software to also transcode to m4p for AppleTV (though I don't have one) and copied them both to the Mac side for testing.

Didn't have a lot of time (and have to run to work right now) but:

VLC
plays the .ts file but it's a bit jerky -- very frustrating that VLC can't use more than 1 of the 4 cores on this machine. I know this is the heart of the problem...

Though the playback is jerky you can arbitrarily skip around and playback resumes quickly

same experience with the .m4v file

eyeTV
surprisingly, this played the .ts file. Used all 4 cores and was smooth at full screen. Using the remote to jump forward in 30 second intervals froze the picture but the sound skipped ahead correctly. Once the image is frozen it does not recover.

the m4p plays a little jerky so I think it has to do with the transcoding.

in reading a separate thread on encoding I grabbed the latest HandBrake to try to do something with the .ts file. Maybe that was a mistake. Crashes and burns when I attempt to load the file.

Will probably grab a trial of SageTV and BeyondTV and see what they're all about, but if they're anything like TotalMediaExtreme it is just going to make the desire for a Mac solution burn even brighter. Very best case is they work well to good and I am annoyed that I have to shut down my dozen programs I have open for work and put my files away before booting to Windows to take a TV break, still making a Mac solution the better one.

Since I am familiar with the command line I'm on board for future tests.

eyetv... humm

I just did something pretty amazing that a lot of you are going to love me for

1. record your show
2. Open EyeTV ( I am using Version 3 )
3. Hold Down Thew CTRL key then Click Open Quicktime Movie
4. Select your rerecording the .ts file
5. This will open the file up
6. Click Play and Then Record
7. Watch the whole program, once this is done you video will be in Recordings.
8. Now you can play/edit/export to your hearts content!!

someone owes me a beer !!!

Basically you have to lie to it. Go to the menu:

File -> Open Quicktime Movie

...and select the .ts file and it will open and begin playing.

I don't see a way to "import" it so it shows in the eyeTV "Library" under recordings, though.

Same with the m4p. Dragging these files into the Recordings section makes the window highlight as if it's going to take the file, then doesn't do anything.

Similarly if I drag these files into the eyeTV library folder on the HD (I keep mine on a separate drive from the OS, which is a nice feature about eyeTV) and re-open the app it does not register them.

ALSO if I change the extension to .eyetv it still doesn't show them. Was worth a try, though, right?

jezz, I would buy the 0.97 release right now.. and then just allow me to get the 1.0 whenever it comes out... days weeks months.. I just want it in my home directory


I am so pumped to find that the .ts works with eyetv for importing and taking out the commercials!!!

Whoops! in my haste I may have been not detailed enough about my (very preliminary) eyeTV observations. To clarify:

- you can open and *view* .ts files in eyeTV
- you can NOT time shift reliably (at least with the compression I chose, will continue to test this...)
- you can NOT "import" .ts files into your eyeTV library
- you can NOT open the editor for files that are not in your eyeTV library (View -> Open Editor menu is grayed out)

As of post time I am on the latest public build of eyeTV (3.0.4 (4270). They have been promising a beta for the 1212 for quite some time now and have been eerily silent despite pretty regular prodding by folks on their forums at elgato.com

you are not correct on all your points...

I just imported a .ts file recorded it in eyetv and now Iam exporting it

Hey dr01dy,

This is great news (and a good case to be wrong). Questions:

- Are we defining "import" the same way? I see only "open" as an option. If your experience is different, what are you doing to "import" this .ts file?
- Where are you finding the export options?

hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard then click file open quicktime file..