Transcoding DivX -- how to configure / what to install?

[Spartan]

Well, one thing that I did discover is that you need to have the Hauppauge MediaMVP drivers installed -- I did not know this before and perhaps will fix my problem.

As for not having enough horsepower, the machine that I was previously testing on was an Athlon XP 3200+ (2.4GHz) w/ 400MHz FSB & 1GB dual-channel RAM -- WAY more than enough horsepower. My current "Media Server" only has Athlon XP 2000+ processors (1.67GHz) -- but 2 of them. I doubt that transcoding can use both procs, but if one is pegged, the other one is available for other work. Nevertheless, they're there.

Now, back to the MediaMVP drivers. If I understand it correctly, I need to install the latest beta drivers (MediaMVP beta version 2.4) and then make sure the MediaMVP service does not run by shutting down via the "services" panel.

[sub]

Well, one thing that I did discover is that you need to have the Hauppauge MediaMVP drivers installed -- I did not know this before and perhaps will fix my problem.

Yes, you absolutely have to have the Hauppauge software installed if you want to watch AVI files. GB-PVR reuses the transcoding components.

Yes, install the latest beta version, then stop the two MediaMVP services and set them to "Manual Start".

[Spartan]

WooHoo! Now we're in business! Now I have to try and figure out how to center it vertically on my screen (orig avi was in HD)

[Spartan]

Update: The transcoding makes it about 5 minutes into the divx file and stops. I belive this means that my PC is not fast enough although to my surprise Trans2MVP is using both cpus at about 67%, so there is still headroom there. (CPUs are 1.67GHz)

Just a question -- if the transcoding cannot occur fast enough, is an error generated anywhere?

[wrocky]

An interesting thread that I'm following closely as I want to do the same.

My test box is the same spec's as Spartans and everything thus far works well, although I haven't done Divx yet. My plan is to move it over to a 2K3 server running a Celeron 2.2 with 512M RAM and I'm curious if there will be enough horsepower to transcode divx.

Are there any guidelines as to what constitutes an acceptable MVP Divx server?

Wrocky

[jorm]

Hauppauge says it requires about a 1.8 ghz

[Spartan]

Well, in order to actually watch the programs, I used VLC to convert to MPEG2. Here is the interesting bit -- VLC generated a number of errors along the way, but did eventually transcode all 3 of my divx files.

When we actually sat down to watch the programs last night, There were spots in the show where it was almost like the frame froze, then "melted" into the next one. It was a very cool, albeit annoying affect. My theory is that those were the spots that had commercials that were removed (and were probably related to the errors that VLC spit out).

I am going to assume that I did indeed have enough horsepower, but that Trans2MVP hit those spots where the commercials were ripped, and exited gracefully w/o error code.

We'll see what happens when I create my own (unsplit) divx...

[johnburton]

I can advise that even with my rig I get the same problem as Spartan reported yesterday - that is when playing an AVI through a MVP it freezes crashes. Nothing in the logs. It runs ok if I just play it on the PC. I haven't checked the format of the AVI's at this stage - I recorded them on my cam in widescreen mode.

[boondoggle]

The concensus on this thread seems to be that these problems are not the
product of GB-PVR. I disagree.

Bottom line: The MediaMVP, using Hauppauge's MediaMVP software, plays ALL
my AVIs fine. GB-PVR, using Hauppauge's libraries, does not. It's that simple.
Clearly, GB-PVR is not using Hauppauge's (MainConcept's) code quite as
it was intended. This is no slight to Sub. He's working somewhat blind on
this, as Hauppauge does not support him at all as far as I know.

I think a nice plug-in right now would hook into a stand-alone MPEG encoder
such as CinemaCraft, which has a command-line interface (and is fast as
all get-out -- better than realtime, with nice quality too). The resulting
MPEG could be played "on-the-fly". Nicely written, this plug-in could be
configured to any MPEG encoder that could do batch, real-time encoding...

-Boondoggle

[TrevorW]

Try unchecking the 'force ffdshow for transcode' setting to see if it make any difference.

Is there any way I can check ffdshow is working? Changing the settings on the ffdshow control panel is making no difference to aspect ratio etc.