Convert mpg to dvr-ms

[djones]

Is this possible to do by altering any configs ayway? I see the option for the other way round but want to do go from mpg to dvr-ms instead!

Thanks, David.

[sub]

Why would you want to?

[bgowland]

Why would you want to?

ASF metadata? It's about the only advantage I can think of.

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

Why would you want to?

Probably for the reasons I hate dvr-ms, MCE, and HD 1080p on the xbox 360.

Martin

[djones]

A bit convoluted I know but...

I run Vista on my HTPC but only have intergrated graphics at the moment (and will have for a little while yet!). For me, VMC plays all DVDs and Recorded TV flawlessly but GBPVR doesn't. However, the actual recording, scheduling and client abilities is light years better using GBPVR. I use the webadmin to schedule, record and stream Live and Recorded TV and watch DVDs from client PCs. I tried Webguide4 for VMC but, despite a fantastic looking interface, didn't have the configurability I was after. I also use an MVP to playback Recorded TV. I use a projector to watch DVDs (using VMC for reliable playback) in my living room and would sometimes lilke to be able to watch recorded movies using this too. For the sake of the WAF I would like to be able to do this through the same interface as DVDs and that means VMC. Unfortunately, VMC doesn't show MPG files in the recorded tv section and this caused problems with the WAF.

I would like to have GBPVR create a copy of the recorded tv file and convert it to dvr-ms so that it shows natively in VMC.

There you go! If there is a better way anyone can think to achieve the same result, fire away!

Thank you, Dave.

[bgowland]

I googled for "convert mpeg2 to dvr-ms" (including quotes to make it an exact phrase search). The only applications mentioned in the few search results I got were DVREdit and AVS Video Convertor.

Both seem to do the job but neither seem to have a command-line interface so they couldn't be used automatically to post-process GB-PVR recordings.

Have you thought about transcoding to one of the WMV formats?

Cheers,
Brian

[djones]

Have you thought about transcoding to one of the WMV formats?

I have but wasn't too sure what the quality would be like in comparison - I haven't have chance to try it yet! A bit lame I know!

[mvallevand]

Can't you just add the GBPVR recording directory to the VMC/WMC/MCE Setup and play the mpeg file as a Video?

Martin

[djones]

Yeah I can but the WAF goes down significantly because of the utterly illogical and absurd menu structure and file type restrictions within VMC! I thought it might be more straight forward to have the files show up in the "recorded tv" menu. Unfortunately, this will only show dvr-ms and wmv files. I am going to try converting to wmv instead.

Does anyone know the relative file sizes / quality of the resulting wmv files in comparison to the original mpg files? I am a tad ignorant when it comes to converting between formats.

[bgowland]

Does anyone know the relative file sizes / quality of the resulting wmv files in comparison to the original mpg files? I am a tad ignorant when it comes to converting between formats.

You can get good quality and compression with WMV but it's all pretty variable. The transcode time can also be fairly long depending on the settings you use.

I'd say it would be worth setting to auto-transcode to WMV format but turn off the 'Delete original file after conversion' option in Config. See what you think.

Cheers,
Brian