MediaMVP and Pre-recorded Video's

[HtV]

So whats going on here? Does anyone have a reliable means of video compression that can be used to stream video content to the MediaMVP other than MPEG1 or MPEG2? If so what compression are you using and what methods are you using to compress the video? (tools, process, etc?)

It sounds a bit weird to me, to record to mpeg2, then transcode to divx/xvid, then transcode back to mpeg2 again to watch it on the mvp.:confused:

[Woodrow Collins]

Yea I would agree that for watching purposes to keep it in MPEG2 format would be ideal and it also sounds odd to go back and forth between formats how ever there is a significantly large difference in file sizes when comparing the two compressions. For typical tvshows that my wife or I watch is no big deal but I record a number of cartoons for our children and when your talking about a file size difference of 800+ megs your adding ALOT of storage overhead. I would rather save on the storage space and work a processor out a little more. And no I am not one of those guys running a dinky hard drive crying about storage space. I have over a terabyte of storage available. But as I mentioned when you have a gig per file you eat storage up rather rapidly.

[sub]

I understand why you're wanting to do it, but the reality is that the MVP is not well suited to playing anything other than MPEG2 files.

Some things you may not have thought about:

- There is no chance of resuming playback of a movie at a later stage, since transcoding needs to start from the beginning each time, and you can only skip forward as far as the transcoding has progressed.

- It requires significant amounts of CPU to transcode non-MPEG2 files for MPEG2 for playback, so no chance of have two or more MVP clients both watching non-MPEG2 files at the same time. The high CPU usage may interfere with other people (or applications) running on the server machine.

- Transcoding reduces the audio/video quality.

- Transcoding is prone to audio/video sync issues, particularly if you skip forward or backwards during playback.

[Woodrow Collins]

I understand why you're wanting to do it, but the reality is that the MVP is not well suited to playing anything other than MPEG2 files.

Some things you may not have thought about:

- There is no chance of resuming playback of a movie at a later stage, since transcoding needs to start from the beginning each time, and you can only skip forward as far as the transcoding has progressed.

- It requires significant amounts of CPU to transcode non-MPEG2 files for MPEG2 for playback, so no chance of have two or more MVP clients both watching non-MPEG2 files at the same time. The high CPU usage may interfere with other people (or applications) running on the server machine.

- Transcoding reduces the audio/video quality.

- Transcoding is prone to audio/video sync issues, particularly if you skip forward or backwards during playback.

Yes I have taken those into account. The only concern I have really is the resuming of playback and decided to try things before condoning the complete idea of compressing the video. As far as the rest I have done many performance tests involving transcoding on the current machine I have and the machine can easily handle 3 transcoding sessions plus a typical user at my house with out a problem so far. Infact usually the only thing that has slowed this machine down so far is the fact that I only have 2 drive controllers to cache content (both eide which is SLOW!) on at the moment and I could use a couple more sata drives to get the other two controllers up and running. Plus I didnt plan on ever having more than one MVP going at once (though I do own 2). And quality is of no concern for the content I am trying to compress. As I mentioned earlier most the content I am intersted in storing is cartoons for the children. And if you have ever done any video editing or processing cartoons (or animation) requires reasonably low bitrate to keep good to great picture quality. At most I expect the load to be MPEG2 video's for movies and "parent" content and a transcoding session for any "children" content. Even with 2 streams of "children" content transcoding sessions this machine should be able to handle it.

[Woodrow Collins]

Sorry clicked to quick, I was just hoping there was some one out there that had experienced the issue and knew of an easy way to work with a better video compression. Thanks for all the help and I will keep tinkering. If anyone knows of anything else let me know.

[zehd]

Woodrow, I've been following this thread. Thought I'd chime in.

First off, I want to say I have the greatest respect for sub, tipster and the rest. They got me into this mess I mean hobby.... But let me voice my opinions.

I know why sub has been so negative towards transcoding on the fly. It takes away from the greater GB-PVR user experience. Basically, the MVP only does MPG and to work with anything else, you are jumping through hoops.

The Hauppauge MVP box is a tad misleading. The asterix: footnote says you need to transcode on the fly with their software.

Therefore, you will have issues if you have any format other than MPG (and MP3)...

Recording in MPG then transcoding to divx and then transcoding back to mpg for MVP is crazy, but that's life.

ZProcess has helped with many of these issues, it will even resume video (* see footnote), and has made strides to make better skipping fw/rw, BUT sub is right, even if he hasn't said it outright. Transcoding on-the-fly is a Pain in the A$$...
Actually I think he said

Transcoding is evil

That said... I agree that if you have terabytes of space, than leave your video in MPG. Or you could transcode it down to a different dimensions and bitrate so the MPG is smaller....but stays in MPG...

And from my own experience, kids have less patience for transcoding on the fly. You push the button and it takes a few seconds for the video to start...

So the long and the short of it is: IMHO, transcoding is not evil, just nasty. ZProcess can help a lot to alleviate some of the problems with transcoding, BUT even I have all my kids shows in MPG (just downsized)

And I bought a big drive JUST for that....

[Woodrow Collins]

BUT even I have all my kids shows in MPG (just downsized)

And I bought a big drive JUST for that....

By chance what video / audio quality settings are you using for your MPG's?

[zehd]

By chance what video / audio quality settings are you using for your MPG's?

Here is a sample command line that ZProcess has generated. It's VCD which would be fine for Cartoons, and really a small file size...

Code:

"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\Third Party\FFmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -y -i "D:\My Documents\My Videos\Residential Retrofit Installation\Disc1.avi" -target ntsc-vcd  -b 1150k -vcodec mpeg1video -ab 224 -ar 44100 -acodec mp2 -ac 2 -r 29.97002997003 -s 352x240 -padtop 0 -padbottom 0 -aspect 4:3  "D:\My Documents\Stuff\TV\Override\Disc1.mpg"

[zehd]

In my previous example, the input file is a Divx. I should point out that it does not matter what the input filename is. FFmpeg takes 'whatever' and converts to the output

[sixgun]

Just thought i'd offer a possible solution.

Since the MVP can handle MPEG1 and 2, you could try converting the cartoons to MPEG1 at a lower resolution, which the MVP would then scale up. I'm sure i read a while back that the MVP will upscale MPEG1 352x288 (?) video files to full screen. Since they're only cartoons they might look good enough, and they'd be much smaller files.