2008-01-12, 04:33 PM
Hello!
I been here a couple weeks and have asked a lot of questions and searched the forums like a mad man searching and learning and I am pleased to say that the developers in this community are top notch and stand up in respect to answer all of our hard and confusing questions and they are eager and seem to enjoy the challenge of helping others so that others can enjoy this really grade a piece of software. I would like to simply ask everyone that has the electronic means of using paypal to please make a donation to sub so that he can continue to have the spare time to help others in need and code.
cheers guys!
Now I have decided to post my findings of what I am using for my PVR that works best for what i want and that is to record endless amounts of television so I can watch things whenever I choose at the best quality my system will allow.
Dell Dimension 5100 (Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 1,000 MB RAM, 500GB HDD 320GB HDD, XP Pro SP2 ATI x300)
WinTV-PVR-500 MCE with MCE remote
that is a dual tuner card so I can record local cable and satellite shows at the same time.
Now the goods:
For the best possible recordings my settings are as follows...
config.exe/capture sources/edit/recording sources/pvr150:
My quality profile settings are as follows:
Medium Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 720x480
Constant - 6,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
The reason my medium quality settings are so high is because the quick record button uses medium only so that every recording I make is at this quality... (plus it is easy to record many shows in blocks with the quick record button
if I want to record stuff I delete right away like the news etc... I use a low profile with these settings:
Low Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 480x480
Constant - 2,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
For Live TV my settings are:
Live TV Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 720x480
Variable Bit Rate - 7,000 - 11,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
Overkill but essential when you want to view the most detail with the least artifacts....
Now I bet you think this setup is nuts as the file sizes will be huge.
Medium profile 1.7 Gigabytes per 30 minutes or almost 7 gigs every 2 hours. 20 movies - 140 gigs estimated... as you can disc space can disapear in a couple weeks if you are like me and get confused on which show I have seen and other times taking weeks to press play on a particular movie..
To solve the disc space problem I tried my best to learn about how to transcode these big files so that they will be smaller in size while still holding some kinda quality. Unfortunately almost all the transcode settings in GBPVR resulted in blocky youtube kinda video that took forever to complete.
My best solution was to use AutoGK using the max file size option using 750mb per movie using 2 pass. the quality is wonderful yet it is simply too frustrating since I could not get it to monitor a directory to convert files and I lost all the movie info.....
I wanted something as easy as the transcode button in GBPVR. under the options you can select different codecs but the one I used was the divx since I couldn't figure out how to change the bitrate for xvid in the config.xml. I changed the Divx profile to a higher bitrate and this produced livable results.
You can change the bitrate by opening config.xml in the GBPVR dierctory with notepad and open the find menu and type "divx". that will take you to the transcode settings:
Here is mine: I change it from 1000k to 2500k
Now you can open PVRX2 and go to the Video Library and select a video and transcode it to a smaller size when you are running low on space.
That codec is fast and was a great start to my learning. Still not satisfied I used the search feature in the forums and discovered the AVIVO tool to encode video at a super fast rate. If you have an ATI AVIVO Video card then you know what I mean. If you don't then you can try some modified drivers that will work. The AVIVO compression tool does not use your video card to compress but is a highly optimized software compression utlillity that speeds the encoding process for fast computer users.
More info on AVIVO and links to the drivers can be found here.
This encoder is fast so I wanted to get it to work with the transcoder cause i'm impatient with encoding things... hehe A 30 minutes video I made at my medium settings takes 7 minutes to encode versus 20 minutes with the ffdmpg Divx transcode in GBPVR.
If you have the ATI AVIVO drivers installed and want to use it in the transcode menu simply add this line where you search for DiVX in config.xml:
You will need to copy atixcode.exe and place it in the "Third Party" directory of GBPVR: you can find it here
C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\
If you are using a none ATI card with the modified drivers then you will need to locate an older ATI driver pack and pull the file out of the data1.cab.
The bad thing about the transcode button in GBPVR is that it won't que files so you have to keep going back to select another file after the que is done.
This led me onto the Skiptool that allows for QUE'ing files.
If you have SkipTool installed and AVIVO drivers than you can navigate to:
C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\Plugins\SkipTool\scriptoptions.txt
And open in notepad and add the following under the $EXECUTABLE header:
$EXECUTABLE
AVIVO;C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\avivo.bat;Turbo Avivo
Save it and create a new menu under GBPVR called AVIVO:
C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\
You will need to copy atixcode.exe and place it there...
Now open notepade and paste the following:
Save the file as to
C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\
as avivo.bat a close notepad
Now you can que up the AVIVO encoder to transcode the files.
CONTINUED
I been here a couple weeks and have asked a lot of questions and searched the forums like a mad man searching and learning and I am pleased to say that the developers in this community are top notch and stand up in respect to answer all of our hard and confusing questions and they are eager and seem to enjoy the challenge of helping others so that others can enjoy this really grade a piece of software. I would like to simply ask everyone that has the electronic means of using paypal to please make a donation to sub so that he can continue to have the spare time to help others in need and code.
cheers guys!
Now I have decided to post my findings of what I am using for my PVR that works best for what i want and that is to record endless amounts of television so I can watch things whenever I choose at the best quality my system will allow.
Dell Dimension 5100 (Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 1,000 MB RAM, 500GB HDD 320GB HDD, XP Pro SP2 ATI x300)
WinTV-PVR-500 MCE with MCE remote
that is a dual tuner card so I can record local cable and satellite shows at the same time.
Now the goods:
For the best possible recordings my settings are as follows...
config.exe/capture sources/edit/recording sources/pvr150:
My quality profile settings are as follows:
Medium Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 720x480
Constant - 6,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
The reason my medium quality settings are so high is because the quick record button uses medium only so that every recording I make is at this quality... (plus it is easy to record many shows in blocks with the quick record button
if I want to record stuff I delete right away like the news etc... I use a low profile with these settings:
Low Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 480x480
Constant - 2,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
For Live TV my settings are:
Live TV Quality - modified to:
Video Resolution - 720x480
Variable Bit Rate - 7,000 - 11,000
Audio Bit Rate - 320
Audio Sample Rate 48k
Overkill but essential when you want to view the most detail with the least artifacts....
Now I bet you think this setup is nuts as the file sizes will be huge.
Medium profile 1.7 Gigabytes per 30 minutes or almost 7 gigs every 2 hours. 20 movies - 140 gigs estimated... as you can disc space can disapear in a couple weeks if you are like me and get confused on which show I have seen and other times taking weeks to press play on a particular movie..
To solve the disc space problem I tried my best to learn about how to transcode these big files so that they will be smaller in size while still holding some kinda quality. Unfortunately almost all the transcode settings in GBPVR resulted in blocky youtube kinda video that took forever to complete.
My best solution was to use AutoGK using the max file size option using 750mb per movie using 2 pass. the quality is wonderful yet it is simply too frustrating since I could not get it to monitor a directory to convert files and I lost all the movie info.....
I wanted something as easy as the transcode button in GBPVR. under the options you can select different codecs but the one I used was the divx since I couldn't figure out how to change the bitrate for xvid in the config.xml. I changed the Divx profile to a higher bitrate and this produced livable results.
You can change the bitrate by opening config.xml in the GBPVR dierctory with notepad and open the find menu and type "divx". that will take you to the transcode settings:
Here is mine: I change it from 1000k to 2500k
Code:
<Conversion name="DivX" cmd="-y -i {SOURCE_FILE} -f avi -ab 224 -ac 2 -acodec mp3 -vcodec mpeg4 -b [COLOR=Red]2500k[/COLOR] -vtag DIVX {DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".avi" />That codec is fast and was a great start to my learning. Still not satisfied I used the search feature in the forums and discovered the AVIVO tool to encode video at a super fast rate. If you have an ATI AVIVO Video card then you know what I mean. If you don't then you can try some modified drivers that will work. The AVIVO compression tool does not use your video card to compress but is a highly optimized software compression utlillity that speeds the encoding process for fast computer users.
More info on AVIVO and links to the drivers can be found here.
This encoder is fast so I wanted to get it to work with the transcoder cause i'm impatient with encoding things... hehe A 30 minutes video I made at my medium settings takes 7 minutes to encode versus 20 minutes with the ffdmpg Divx transcode in GBPVR.
If you have the ATI AVIVO drivers installed and want to use it in the transcode menu simply add this line where you search for DiVX in config.xml:
Code:
<Conversion name="AvivoXcode" exe="atixcode.exe" cmd=" IDLE /F{SOURCE_FILE} /A0 /S0 /R0 /EMPG /V4 /Q1 /X0 /D{DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".avi" />Code:
Important switches for your desired compressor:
/Vn Output Video Format (1 - MPEG1, 2 - MPEG2, 3 - VCD, 4 - SDVD, 5-DVD, 6 - MPEG4 DIVX, 7 - WMV9, 8 - WMV9 PMC, 9 - H264, 10 - MPEG4 (PSP compatible video), 11 - H.264 (iPod compatible video)
/Qn Quality (/Q2=default, 1 (low), 2 (medium), 3 (high))C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\
If you are using a none ATI card with the modified drivers then you will need to locate an older ATI driver pack and pull the file out of the data1.cab.
The bad thing about the transcode button in GBPVR is that it won't que files so you have to keep going back to select another file after the que is done.
This led me onto the Skiptool that allows for QUE'ing files.
If you have SkipTool installed and AVIVO drivers than you can navigate to:
C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\Plugins\SkipTool\scriptoptions.txt
And open in notepad and add the following under the $EXECUTABLE header:
$EXECUTABLE
AVIVO;C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\avivo.bat;Turbo Avivo
Save it and create a new menu under GBPVR called AVIVO:
C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\
You will need to copy atixcode.exe and place it there...
Now open notepade and paste the following:
Code:
c:\Progra~1\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\AtiXcode IDLE /A0 /S0 /R0 /EMPG /V4 /Q1 /X0 /F"%~1" /D"%~dpn1.avi"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\avivo\
as avivo.bat a close notepad
Now you can que up the AVIVO encoder to transcode the files.
CONTINUED