HDTVtoMPEG2 latest version - Page 9

I have a problem with joining ts files and ac3. All my files are misflagged after joining to 2 channel ac3 (when they were 5.1). I have used several apps to examine the resulting streams. I am using HDTV2Mpeg 1.10.5 . Thanks

All the sudden I have been having problems with this App and DiscoveryHD.

At MANY breaks (changes from bumpers to program, inserts,rejoins etc), the one step button will not go any further. It hits a brickwall and will not move past that point.

I can use the 10 or 60 to jump past and move backwards one step at a time until it also hits the wall from the other direction.

It's like you changed channels, except the video doesn't go blank on the app.

Thus far, only on Discovery HD.

Anyone else noticed this?

I've had the same problems too. And also with Discovery. If I can't get through it, sometimes I revert to an older version of this program, and it will get past the problem area.

I've also had this problem with streams from a couple OTA stations recorded with MyHD. Usually there is a problem with the stream. I haven't gone to the trouble to analyze further, I just use the 10sec jump and go from the other side. The un-steppable sections are usually quite small - like 1 or 2 I-frames unless there was a big dropout in the signal.

I'm using 1.10.3.

- Mike

I have noticed that the problems are usually right at a source change - ie, Promo into Program etc.

This was not with MyHD, but direct 1394 to computer.

I did not have this problem in the past - just recently started.

Also, on some files if you hit the >> it doesn't go to the end....just sits there.

<< always seems to work though.

Anyone else having problems with their 5.1 streams being flagged as 2.0 when joining multiple TS files?

Just started using this program. I have converted a TS to mpeg2 file. How are people playing the mpeg2 files ? Windows media player v9 is saying it doesn't have the codec.

Just started using this program. I have converted a TS to mpeg2 file. How are people playing the mpeg2 files ? Windows media player v9 is saying it doesn't have the codec.



dozens: I use the moonlight elecard mpeg decoder. Google it up. It works better than any others I've run across. With that codec installed, WM9HD encoder will handle mpeg as well as TS streams directly. Tod

Ok I could use some help here. I just cannot get the sound to follow to the MPEG file. I can get the audio in my saved .ts file, but when I play the MPEG I have no audio. Does anyone have any ideas?

thanks,
Schmitter

One of the things that can cause H2 to drop the audio when converting a TS file to a MPEG file is if the audio in the TS file is not AC-3. If it is, for example, mpeg-2 audio, H2 will ignore it.

I encountered the problem with MPEG2 video and MPEG1 audio.

I used Moonlight's Xmuxer to demultiplex then remultiplex into a MPEG2 Program stream.

Late!

I've been happily using H2 more recently, with good success on my Fusion QAM stripped streams. These are typically at a bit rate that I can often fit an hour HD show on one DVD-R without re-encoding.

But I notiice the Comcast QAM HD streams are typically using PID's 0x0800/0x0801 and/or 0x0880/0x0881. These work fine if I enter the 4 digit hex digits but do not seemed to be automatically found if I just load the stream or try the drop down box.

Is there any hard coded range where H2 looks for PID's?

- Tom

Tom,

I don't remember seeing a hard coded range for PID's. Its more likely that something in the code is causing the PID's to be skipped for some reason and not added to the list. For example, H2 will report the auido pid as 0xfffff(the default value) if the audio stream is mpeg-1 audio instead of ac-3 audio. H2 basically ignores audio streams that aren't ac-3.

It's possible I might be able to fix your problem if I had a sample file.

Cris

A couple of Q's for you:

1. By "stripped streams," do you mean removing NULL packets only, or do you remove unwanted sub-channels as well?
2. What are you using to strip the streams?
3. Do you archive TS or MPEG?
4. Any idea how well these play back on the MyHD? Do you note any issues at the edit points (commercial removal points)?

Xesdeeni

1. I remove sub-channels and Null Packets from MyHD .tp files.
2. I use NullPacketStripper to do this.
3. I keep everything as transport streams.
4. MyHD playback varies depending on channel. I have successfully stripped PBS (KQED) NBC (KNTV) and WB (KBWB). However, I have not been able to get MyHD to play back stripped Alias streams recorded from ABC (KGO) without the "long pause problem" in MyHD. If you're not familiar, the MyHD software reads through the whole file (unresponsive in the meantime), then starts error-free playback. I will be trying the programs from the TS to ATSC Remuxers thread to see if it will fix up the sub-channel stripped Alias streams.

Edit points behave well, but in order to have uninterrupted playback in MyHD, I have H2 displaying the first I-frame of the commercial at the cut-out and the last I-frame of the commercial at cut-in. I originally tried cutting during the black frames, but I never got smooth playback.

- Mike

That's some great info!

5. How long does NPS take (say, for an hour long program)?

6. I don't think I've seen the "long pause problem." Does this occur on edited streams only?

7. I tried editing on the I-frames of commercials as you said you did. But I get a frozen picture for several seconds sometimes, or a scrambled picture (now and then I get a good edit). Which version of HDTVtoMPEG2 are you using?

8. Do you edit first and the strip or vice-versa?

Xesdeeni

The only thing that ever cured the long-pause problem for me was to switch to TSreader to strip out unwanted sub-channels.

5. NPS is a little slower than H2 because it's Java and my desktop PC is CPU-bound using an old 400MHz P3. H2 is I/O-bound because it's usually going through a 100Mbit network to the media server or the HTPC.

6. The "long pause problem" definitely occurs on stripped-only streams. I'm not sure what happens with edited-only streams. I usually do both. I may try TSreader again, but I only have the limited demo version. It's probably worth the money to buy it if I can successfully strip down all of Alias Season 4. I'm missing one or two ep's so I'm pissed they're not re-running them. What's up with that???

7. I've gotten the frozen picture once or twice, but if I backed up the edit point on the cut-in another I-frame or two, it would clear itself up. The scrambled picture I would get only if I didn't follow the rules stated above. It may still be happening, but who's going to see a blocky breakup if the screen is all faded to black? I'm using 1.10.3 with the preview display off.

8. I started using 2000MB file size in MyHD. This made it easier to edit (combining files) and then stripping a single edited file. NPS does not have automatic next file processing when using the MyHD file naming convention. It may work with HiPix naming convention - not sure. I use 9000MB file size now in MyHD, so it probably doesn't matter for hour-long programs - and may decrease processing time for sub-channel stripped streams since the files are smaller before they get to H2.

- Mike

Chris -

It is ac3 audio. I can use my older version of DVD2AVI on the streams just fine. Do you have anywhere I could post a short section? Or I could mail you a DVD or CD?

- Tom

Xesdeeni -

These appear to be single program transport streams not padded with nulls. The ability to record in this format is one of the options of my F3Q card. I don't need to run any other program to convert them.

I have most always archved by converting to Xvid, or sometimes WM9. But I've been capturing some 25 minute Noir episodes recently that have no imbedded commercials and can fit two on a DVD-R so I've started at least temporarily staging them to disc.

Sadly the single program F3Q recordings can NOT play on my HiDTV card which still drives my RPTV. And the card is still in an 866 P3, which rules out software playback. But since much of this is likely to change soon I might start capturing in compact TS format anyway, just because I'm lazy and DVD-R's have become so cheap.

- Tom

Tom,

I don't currently have a place you could upload too. You will have to send me a DVD or CD. I'll PM you my address.

Cris

I am using vers 1.10.5 of H2. The dolby 5.1 audio within the streams I'm capturing with a MyHd card ( Olympics ) do not appear in the file when I convert to mpeg with H2. I get video, but no audio in the resultant .mpg file. It works fine for 2 ch dolby digital, as the local commercials come through OK. Weird huh? I have a work around for this, but it involves using DVD2AVI to demux the audio. So, I use H2 to edit content and remove commercials, and save one file as .mpg and another identical as .ts. I use dvd2 to demux ac3 5.1 from the .ts. I then recompress the .mpg file without sound to .avi in virtual dub at 720px1280 using wm9 codec. Finally, I re-mux in the ac3 5.1 to the .avi file. Lot's of steps in the process. If I try to re-mux the audio in virtual dub while compressing to .avi, I only get 2 ch dolby digital. There's probably a fix for that too, but I haven't figured it out. Anyhow, it'd be nice if there was more "control" in the way H2 converts streams. Any suggestions are welcomed. Tod

Hello All,

First, thanks to Chris and everybody who's worked on this great tool. Sorry if this is a little long...

I'm trying to create a DVD for archival purposes of a program that I recorded from the History channel on Comcast as a .TRP. My process was to use H2 to convert the file to MPEG, and then use a toolset I've found that converts MPEG to DVD. I am using vers 1.10.5 of H2.

When I convert to MPEG, I find that Windows Media Player cannot play the audio, just the video. I hunted around and found a reference to using Media Player Classic, and telling it to use a different audio filter. I experimeneted and found that with the DVICO Demo AC3 Decoder from Fusion, I was able to play back the audio (and video) from the MPEG file. So the audio is in the MPEG, just not where WMP can find it. (Using WMP is not my desire, it was just a "viability of the MPEG" test after I ran into the problems with the MPEG.)

But when I use the toolset (it's a Meedio Plugin called MPGII2DVD) to create the DVD, it fails on MPEGs (like this one) that were created from TRPs via H2. I admit I'm pretty much a novice with this stuff, so I don't know what all of the components do, but I can tell you that the plugin uses BBDMUX, cPVAS, dvdauthor and mkisofs.

I've read through this thread looking for clues, so I know that the conversion to MPEG is considered iffy, but I wondered if anyone could offer any suggestions. Could specifying a different Audio PID help (H2 is currently using 0x102 for Audio PID)? Clearly H2 is finding Audio content, since I can tweak Media Player Classic to find it in the MPEG.

Thanks for any help you can offer,
Blair

Blair--

I've had some luck with "Nero Video Express 2" in creating regular DVDs from SDTV streams converted to MPG by H2.

I have had good luck playing mpegs from H2 on Windows Media player vers. 9. I have the AC3filter registered in my system. I'm not sure if WM9 actually uses AC3filter for playback, as there is no way to see the filter graph in Windows media player. I use virtualdub to convert everything to WM9 / .avi files anyhow to save space. Going that route would ad an extra step for you, but there are many "tools" to convert .avi back into mpegs and .vob's.

TPeterson, thanks for the excellent advice, and all-around help ! I'm 2 hours into a download of Nero Vision Express 2, so I'll see if that helps.

tecqboy, thanks for the tip. Are you using virtualdub to convert MPEG2 files to avi? I'm willing to go an extra step if it will solve this problem.

Blair

I just checked and Wimdows Media 9 player does play mpegs which were transport streams converted by H2. No need for any further steps. However, I do convert from 1080i to 720p in Virtualdub and use the WM9 codec. That allows for about 90 minutes of HD content on a 4.7 gig DVD. On a native 768x1360 monitor, I can see little difference between the original and the new 1/3 size .avi HD file. BTW, .wmv's created by Windows Media Encoder and the wm9 .avi's created by virtualdub are essentially indentical. However, Virtualdub has many more options and allows for greater control over the finished product. I use the GUI version of Virtualdub as it is easier to master than the AVsynth method. For more info, search this forum for Windows Media 9.

Tecqboy,

I'm using WMP 9, guess I just need the AC-3 filter? I need to try WMP 9 with some other transport ->MPEG, not just this one capture.

I'll look more at virtualdub. Your 90 minutes on a DVD+R sounds perfect to me for most of my needs.

Thanks again,
Blair

Hi everyone,

I've been using wme9 to encode HD movies from myHD. I've had no problems, but most times, I first edit the tp streams with HDTV2MPEG, and save the resulting file as an MPEG (to deal with only the HD stream). If I try to play the mpeg file, the time codes are wrong in most players I've tried. It essentially reports that the file is the same size as the first fragment of the original edit (i.e. the first cut becomes the end of the file for the player). Since wme9 is still able to encode the whole thing fine, that would not be too much of a problem if it did not also prevent me from experimenting with DivX encoding with Dr.Divx: Dr.Divx apprently uses that time code info to stop the encoding at that first cut...

anyone knows of a utility that can repair these time codes, effectively reporting the whole length (maybe something that uses size to bitrate ratios)

thanks for the help

Julien

I believe that TMPGen Mpeg Editor from Pegasus will do what you want, but it's not a free utility and their license arragement sucks. (IMHO). But you can download the trial version and find out. It's a cripple; i.e. no audio, but you can find out if it works on the video and then buy it if it suits your needs. Google it up. No instructions included, but it won't take you long to figure it out.

Also, if you are familiar with working with DSK Graphedit, you could build a source file / demux / remux / dump file from a number of free filters available. I use the Elecard Moonlight filters for this to "re-clock" my mpegs before I process them to WM9 in Virtual Dub, but I never worry about the time stamps. If you are using the Microsoft WM9 encoder, you'll find that VirtualDub is much more versatile, particularly at resizing and de-interlacing. I convert 1080i to 720p and can get 90 minutes of excellent quality (Q90) HD video onto one 4.7 gig DVD. At Q85, you could get 2 hours, but then there are minor artifacts in the chroma. VirtualDub will encode to WM9, but as .avi file. No difference in quality to .wmv files, but no license support.