andy vt's tools & blog

jelwood:

jelwood:

auldar:

I've got a standard analog captured PAL recording which should have MPEG2 audio and video, which is not encoding properly.

It appears it's detecting it as AC3 audio..

 

The file is 2GB, so I don't particularly want to upload it..

This is the first file I've seen that fails the audio detection.  Can you try using DVREdit to make a smaller clip and then post the smaller clip to www.megaupload.com?  Of course, once you create the smaller clip please test it against Mencoder to make sure it still fails the audio detection.

Don't worry about creating the clip for me.  I'm going to be posting a new version.  Please try it and let me know if it improves things for you.

 

Much better! It didn't bomb out on this file either! 

auldar:

I really like the profiles, however I'm puzzled why the default vertical res. is 320.. Shouldn't you have a special set of profiles for low res encodes? My preference would be to use as little scale reduction as possible as the default profiles, and have some low res profiles for handheld/portable recordings..

320 is the default because that's why my portable device uses.  However, we shouldn't need different profiles for every resolution.  The GUI that babgvant is building will allow you to select any resolution you want.

For now, everyone will have to just modify the profile to the desired resolution.

jelwood:

Keystone, I noticed that you are setting both the input and output fps.  Are you having issues with the fps?

Just not knowing any better. ;)  The harddup option solved all my a/v synch issues.

jelwood:

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/misc/entry3412.aspx

Above is the link to the latest version of Mencoder.

Can't wait to test it. Great community effort.

 

Rock On!
 

Hi guys,

 

I just got an ATSC tuner setup on my MCE, I think some of you have one as as well - could you share your XviD encode command line that you use for ATSC recordings with me. Do you downmix to stereo or retain 5.1 - I can see the need to do it both ways.

Pretty neat how an $11 antenna brings in a dozen HD Channels, bummer that I need a new $1,500 TV to take advantage of it. :)

 Thanks much,

 

Randy 

randyharris:

I just got an ATSC tuner setup on my MCE, I think some of you have one as as well - could you share your XviD encode command line that you use for ATSC recordings with me. Do you downmix to stereo or retain 5.1 - I can see the need to do it both ways.

Pretty neat how an $11 antenna brings in a dozen HD Channels, bummer that I need a new $1,500 TV to take advantage of it. :) 

I use the profiles that were included in Mencoder Version 8.  It does downmix to mp3 because my portable player won't handle AC3.  However, the advantage is I can use the same profile for my SD and HD shows.

jelwood:

randyharris:

I just got an ATSC tuner setup on my MCE, I think some of you have one as as well - could you share your XviD encode command line that you use for ATSC recordings with me. Do you downmix to stereo or retain 5.1 - I can see the need to do it both ways.

Pretty neat how an $11 antenna brings in a dozen HD Channels, bummer that I need a new $1,500 TV to take advantage of it. :) 

I use the profiles that were included in Mencoder Version 8.  It does downmix to mp3 because my portable player won't handle AC3.  However, the advantage is I can use the same profile for my SD and HD shows.

At the moment I'm using the same profile for everything. Just starting my Mencoder 8 testings so who knows.

Couple of questions:

Are we sure MCE records all 6 (5.1) channels in the first place?

If it can record them, does it do it independently of how you have your speakers set up in MCE? I mean, if you told it you only have 2 speakers hooked up via a mini plug (standard PC style instead of to your amp via toslink or something like that) do you still get all 6 channels? 

What's the best method of testing were getting all channels if we don't want to go the downmix route?

 

When using this version of MEncoder i get a audio lag when going from a file type to WMV.  This wasnt the case with previous versions.  Im using this with Transcode 360 and if anyone out there knows anything about coding please let me know what I can do, to change settings within transcode 360's scripting file.

Asadd:

When using this version of MEncoder i get a audio lag when going from a file type to WMV.  This wasnt the case with previous versions.  Im using this with Transcode 360 and if anyone out there knows anything about coding please let me know what I can do, to change settings within transcode 360's scripting file.

I don't know much about Transcode 360 (I don't use it).  When using Transcode 360 what is your source file?  This version of Mencoder was specifically built to read dvr-ms files and convert them into other formats.  I thought Transcode 360 reads AVI files and converts them into WMV, if so that could be a problem with this version (it isn’t a standard Mencoder version).

Anyway, let me know a few more details and I’ll try to help.

 

It works for various file formats.  The version out now uses MEncoder to covert mpg, avi and NOW thanks to you dvr-ms into wmv for playback.  The reason I wanted DVR-MS support that you now provide is that I can use it for my original xbox instead of shelling out a min of $300 for another 360.  All I have been doing is replacing the files you provide with the ones that are used for transcode 360.  I now have DVR-MS HD support that allows me to watch recorded HD TV on my box. I can upload the script file for Transcode 360 later tonight.  I opened it up in notepad, though I know nothing about programing so the various profiles you all are creating seem foreign to me =(

Asadd:

It works for various file formats.  The version out now uses MEncoder to covert mpg, avi and NOW thanks to you dvr-ms into wmv for playback.  The reason I wanted DVR-MS support that you now provide is that I can use it for my original xbox instead of shelling out a min of $300 for another 360.  All I have been doing is replacing the files you provide with the ones that are used for transcode 360.  I now have DVR-MS HD support that allows me to watch recorded HD TV on my box. I can upload the script file for Transcode 360 later tonight.  I opened it up in notepad, though I know nothing about programing so the various profiles you all are creating seem foreign to me =(

Interesting…I never thought of using Transcode 360 to watch HD content on V1 extenders.  If you send me the scripts I’ll look at them.  The big thing that you have to look at is to make sure they aren’t using the –demuxer 35 option for dvr-ms files.  If they are, then you are using the ffmpeg demuxer to read the dvr-ms format, and that explains why you are seeing AV sync issues.  Right now, I’m in the middle of porting the code to ffmpeg, however, one of the big remaining issues we have is some AV sync issues.  Anyway, the last compile of Mencoder included this ffmpeg code, so if you are using the –demuxer 35 option, I would expect AV sync issues.  If you don’t use the –demuxer 35 option, Mencoder will use the MPlayer demuxer and that is the demuxer you’ll want to use right now for reading dvr-ms files.

If you can’t figure out if the –demuxer 35 option is being used, please see if one of the Transcode 360 developers will contact me.  I’ll be happy to share the source code with them.  Right now this code is being used in the XBMC, DVRMSToolbox (soon), and Crunchie projects, I’d be happy to have the Transcode 360 project join us.

 

I'm just getting started with this effort (and I'm uber enthusiastic to participate!) and am hoping someone can double-check some of my thoughts/logic.

I really like the "Xvid-Good" profile. I would like to modify it so that the width of the output recording is 624 pixels wide and the final file output size is 350MB. If I modified the Xvid profile to the below example, would that get me what I'm looking for? I've bolded the changes I made.

Please excuse the n00b factor. :) Thanks! 

[Xvid-Good]
profile-desc="Xvid/MP3 Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,scale=624:-2,harddup
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=fixed_quant=4:threads=2
# the next line sets the video to Divx 5 (more hardware players support Divx 5 than Xvid)
ffourcc=DX50
oac=mp3lame=yes
lameopts=fast=yes:preset=medium
endpos=350mb
#DtbExtension=avi

himay:

I'm just getting started with this effort (and I'm uber enthusiastic to participate!) and am hoping someone can double-check some of my thoughts/logic.

I really like the "Xvid-Good" profile. I would like to modify it so that the width of the output recording is 624 pixels wide and the final file output size is 350MB. If I modified the Xvid profile to the below example, would that get me what I'm looking for? I've bolded the changes I made.

Please excuse the n00b factor. :) Thanks! 

[Xvid-Good]
profile-desc="Xvid/MP3 Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,scale=624:-2,harddup
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=fixed_quant=4:threads=2
# the next line sets the video to Divx 5 (more hardware players support Divx 5 than Xvid)
ffourcc=DX50
oac=mp3lame=yes
lameopts=fast=yes:preset=medium
endpos=350mb
#DtbExtension=avi

You don’t have to apologize for being new, I still consider myself new.  I didn’t know must about mencoder until I started this project in January and since then I’ve spend all my time looking at the code.  As a result, all the people in this forum figured out the best switch options to use, so, this is truly a community effort.

Anyway, your changes to the profile look fine.  However, please understand that this is a hard limit.  Meaning once the AVI file gets to 350mb it will just stop encoding (and you will loose the remaining piece of the show).  It isn’t a “target” file size where the compression and bit rate are automatically adjusted to fit the whole show into that file size. 

 

jelwood:

[Xvid-Good]
profile-desc="Xvid/MP3 Good Quality"
lavdopts=threads=2
vf=pp=md,scale=624:-2,harddup
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=fixed_quant=4:threads=2
# the next line sets the video to Divx 5 (more hardware players support Divx 5 than Xvid)
ffourcc=DX50
oac=mp3lame=yes
lameopts=fast=yes:preset=medium
endpos=350mb
#DtbExtension=avi

You don’t have to apologize for being new, I still consider myself new.  I didn’t know must about mencoder until I started this project in January and since then I’ve spend all my time looking at the code.  As a result, all the people in this forum figured out the best switch options to use, so, this is truly a community effort.

Anyway, your changes to the profile look fine.  However, please understand that this is a hard limit.  Meaning once the AVI file gets to 350mb it will just stop encoding (and you will loose the remaining piece of the show).  It isn’t a “target” file size where the compression and bit rate are automatically adjusted to fit the whole show into that file size. 

Aha! Thanks for letting me know about the endpos switch--I had no idea it functioned like that and it would have set me back a few days to figure it out. :) The wife would have killed me for losing the last bit of General Hospital.

I gather from your feedback that there isn't a "target" file size option; so I figure to achieve that I'll need to get jiggy with a bitrate calculator and go with some trial-and-error tests to see which gets me closest to the desired file size. Unless you know of another way to achieve this goal? Or could this be considered as a feature request?

And thanks for being so welcoming. It's refreshing to join a forum where people are decent and helpful and not snarky. :)
 

himay:

Aha! Thanks for letting me know about the endpos switch--I had no idea it functioned like that and it would have set me back a few days to figure it out. :) The wife would have killed me for losing the last bit of General Hospital.

I gather from your feedback that there isn't a "target" file size option; so I figure to achieve that I'll need to get jiggy with a bitrate calculator and go with some trial-and-error tests to see which gets me closest to the desired file size. Unless you know of another way to achieve this goal? Or could this be considered as a feature request?

And thanks for being so welcoming. It's refreshing to join a forum where people are decent and helpful and not snarky. :) 

Sorry, but I don’t know of any way to make Mencoder do this.