[reyzor]

I'm only looking to record & play on the HTPC, not really interested in burning to dvd format and transporting. I'm wanting to have as high quality as possible because it is being viewed on a 62" DLP.


.ts is obviously too big but highest quality...


DVD/mpeg2 not really efficient/decreases quality of broadcast.


divx/xvid/.avi possible solution...


wmv/wmv-HD. Is there any consumer sw to convert to wmv-hd? I am impressed by the wmv-hd demos you can download.


Any thoughts?

 

[balazer]

Why are transport streams too big? That's how I save my recordings.

 

[Sergei Esenin]

Currently I convert to 2-pass XviD using the SixOfNine-HVS matrix. Because of the ability to use custom matrices, XviD can provide slightly higher quality than WMV9--but more importantly for me, it's more widely supported with excellent third-party software and native ffdshow decoding. While WMV9 has become an open standard as VC-1, and decoding is mandated for HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it still isn't getting much third-party support and the industry seems to lean towards favoring its competitor MPEG-4 AVC.


As soon as I have a faster CPU though I'll switch from XviD (which is the best standards-compliant MPEG-4 ASP encoder) to Nero's fairly new MPEG-4 AVC codec, since it can provide similar quality to XviD or WMV9 at an even lower bitrate but requires a lot of CPU to decode at high resolutions when using all the features.


BTW, the forums at Doom9.org are a great way to keep abreast of codec developments.

Quote:

Why are transport streams too big? That's how I save my recordings.

For me, every GB counts, and if I can maintain 98% of the quality in 20-25% of the space I'll do it. As importantly, 1080i can sometimes be run through Avisynth to recover the natively progressive frames of certain streams.

 

[foti]

Sergi,


Correct me if I'm wrong but Nero's fairly new MPEG-4 AVC codec only can be played back in Nero.


reyzor,


I second your request, does anyone know of any commercially available software to convert ts (transport streams) to wmv-hd? I have been pleased with the play back quality of wmv-hd, and would love to convert the ts recordings like the Superbowl, and fit them on one single or dual layer DVD.


Foti

 

[HiDefDon]

I just save the transport streams...


1) I am not willing to sacrifice any HDTV quality.


2) Disk space is pretty cheap these days (my HTPC has ~700GB worth of hard drives). I swap recordings on 200GB disks between my two PCs using portable IDE disk trays. Both PCs have DTV tuner cards.


3) I really don't care to deal with all the conversion tools (my time, reduced quality issues, play back issues, audio sync issues).


4) HDTVtoMPEG2 is a wonderful tool if you want to quickly edit a transport stream recording.


DonP

 

[Antebios]

this sounds very interesting.

 

[Sergei Esenin]

Quote:

Originally posted by foti Sergi, Correct me if I'm wrong but Nero's fairly new MPEG-4 AVC codec only can be played back in Nero.

The codec produces standards-compliant MPEG-4 AVC files, so many decoders (and other encoders) will be available soon. Right now though support has been added already to recent CVS builds of the ffdshow codec and the VLC player. This is in stark contrast to VC-1 (WMV9), which no third parties and open source developers seem very interested in developing for fear of Microsoft's lash.

Quote:

1) I am not willing to sacrifice any HDTV quality.

Realistically you aren't going to notice the difference, ever, if you know what you're doing. MPEG-2 really is that inefficient. Even more interestingly, many broadcast streams are natively progressive and employ forms of pulldown to create artificial interlacing, so if you recover the progressive stream before re-encoding, your recompressed files will look better than the originals when you're able to upgrade to the large progressive HDTV displays we'll all have in the future.

Quote:

2) Disk space is pretty cheap these days (my HTPC has ~700GB worth of hard drives). I swap recordings on 200GB disks between my two PCs using portable IDE disk trays. Both PCs have DTV tuner cards.

Good for you, but I have 1.8TB of hard disks already, and I always need more space. When your collection is that large already and you're still adding more every week, then get back to me about whether you still want bulky transport streams instead of convenient MPEG-4's.

 

[RalphArch]

Quote:

Originally posted by HiDefDon I just save the transport streams... 1) I am not willing to sacrifice any HDTV quality. .... 4) HDTVtoMPEG2 is a wonderful tool if you want to quickly edit a transport stream recording. DonP

Is this the tool used to reduce TS file size by stripping null packets and sidestreams?


Currently most of my HD is from the cable box via firewire and the resulting TS files are quite a bit smaller (maybe 12 gig for a 2 hour show) than what I get from MyHD OTA

 

[madpoet]

I strip the null packets and leave it in .ts format whenever possible. Once you've downconverted it, there's no going back.


Ralph, they do not insert null packets in cable which is why they are smaller. It's also why MyHD can't FF/RW them

 

[rockytt]

Here's what you're looking for:
nullpacketsaver

works great-usually cuts the file size in half

 

[madpoet]

Only if the files HAVE nullpackets

 

[JDLIVE]

I have been trying to convert to xVid/WM9 with varying degrees of success. The stuff I really care about I am saving as transport streams to DVD-R as necessary. Of course, now that Comcast has re-enabled the 5C flag back on my 6412, I'm not doing much archiving of anything.

 

[RalphArch]

Thanks - that was what I was looking for to reduce ATSC files (as well as some more hard drives) as I also don't want to lose the HD by converting. At the moment anyway it seems too hard to figure out if the other schemes are easy enough and non-proprietary to allow close to lossless compression with hard drives being so cheap. I just use an usb to ide external connector and don't mount the drive - and when I fill that up just put it on the shelf use a fresh HD.

 

[TPeterson]

Quote:

Originally posted by madpoet Only if the files HAVE nullpackets

Actually, MP, as Jacob said in another thread, the raw QAM streams also contain null packets to make them constant bit rate (as you can confirm with TSReader on MyHD QAM files). Yes, Ralph, H2 (aka HDTVtoMPEG2) does strip nulls and side subchannels so you get OTA files to the same program sizes as Fusion and Firewire captures produce from QAM.

 

[madpoet]

You know what, you're right. I keep forgetting the fact that the Fusion card strips them by default, and until recently that was my only source of QAM recording.

 

[HiDefDon]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sergei Esenin The codec produces standards-compliant MPEG-4 AVC files, so many decoders (and other encoders) will be available soon. ... Realistically you aren't going to notice the difference, ever, if you know what you're doing. MPEG-2 really is that inefficient. ... Good for you, but I have 1.8TB of hard disks already, and I always need more space. When your collection is that large already and you're still adding more every week, then get back to me about whether you still want bulky transport streams instead of convenient MPEG-4's.

Actually, I can get back to you right now because I have been archiving movies for a couple of years. I am saving transport streams files on DVD-R media and have ~1.5TB worth of transport streams on DVDs (almost 400 disks) in addition to the 700GB on my hard drives.


At some point I am been planning to switch to a more efficient compression scheme on higher capacity media such as Blu-Ray DVDs. I appreciate your comments and recommendation for MPEG-4. All my family and friends think I am a "leading edge" guy with my ability to record and archive high definition material but it is clear you are significantlly ahead of the rest of us in the pack.


Right now I really appreciate the dependability of my HiDTV and MyHD tuner cards with their dedicated video and audio connections. Since these cards work with stardard transport streams, it makes sense to record that format for now even if this is not the most efficient use of disk and DVD capacity.


DonP

 

[sjchmura]

CAn you use AUTOGK (so easy) with


SixOfNine-HVS matrix


Is this "standard" so the new XVID players will play this back??


Also how do you get nero to do 5.1 channel TS conversion to m4p???

 

[HomerJay]

I have been archiving to WM9 for about a year now. I've had pretty good success with it. Unless there is a major error with the source file that I need to edit around, the process is pretty painless.


I guess I got way to used to ReplayTV ... I like my shows ad-free ... . Plus, I use Fusion to record most of the HD shows ... and the software hasn't proven to be the best playback method.


For shows that overlap, I'll tape the second show to D-VHS and then import with CapDVHS before encoding. That's where I've had the most troubles. Hopefully, the Mitsubishi deck arriving this week will do a better job with the cable recordings.

 

[fingersdlp]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sergei Esenin Currently I convert to 2-pass XviD using the SixOfNine-HVS matrix.

I have done the same with SixOfNine-HVS. I have also played with using a constant quantizer of 3 with the B-Frame settings set to 2, 1, 1. This gives I,P frames at quality 3 and the B frames of quality 4. Very good results and a file size usually fits on DVD for average length movies since I resize to 1280x720. Also they encode faster with the single pass. I have also tried constant q=2.75 or q=2.90 with B-Frames set to 2, 1.2, 1 which gives even better results but larger file (16% and 8% on average). FYI YMMV. I keep them on hard drives with DVD for backup / safe keeping.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sergei Esenin As soon as I have a faster CPU though I'll switch from XviD (which is the best standards-compliant MPEG-4 ASP encoder) to Nero's fairly new MPEG-4 AVC codec, since it can provide similar quality to XviD or WMV9 at an even lower bitrate but requires a lot of CPU to decode at high resolutions when using all the features.

I have also played with Nero Recode2. I have to turn off the Macroblock partitions and the weighted prediction to get them to play back. Even then they sometimes need more CPU then my P4 3.4. Also don't like that you have to convert to AAC audio. I have tried keeping the AC3 audio with a mkv file but the current specialty splitter needed does not like the HD data rates and chokes on playback.


My second choice is WM9 with a constant quality - I have had bad experiences with 2-pass for WM9 but constant quality 90 or 93 gives good results for me.


Some other encoders I have tried include: VP6, X.264, and 3ivx. Not as good as XVID or WM9 IMHO.


Anything I really like I back up the ts file to DVD after encoding to XVID.


Brian

 

[hifijames]

Quote:

Originally posted by HiDefDon Actually, I can get back to you right now because I have been archiving movies for a couple of years. I am saving transport streams files on DVD-R media and have ~1.5TB worth of transport streams on DVDs (almost 400 disks) in addition to the 700GB on my hard drives. DonP

This is OT, but I am just curious, do you guys really have time to watch those archived shows? Even archiving them is eating up your spare time Or better yet, you get paid to do that