is mvp the way to go

***sub*** · 2008-01-11, 10:09 PM

fausto Wrote:Could you explain this a bit more, please? Are you saying GBPVR converts avi to mpeg if an MVP requests it?........but it won't do this (for itself) on the server PC??? That's doesn't make a lot of sense to a newbie like me :confused:

I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.

The MVP hardware is only capable of playing MPEG1/MPEG2 and MP3 files.

If you try playing an AVI file on the MVP, the application starts transcoding that file to a temporary .mpg (MPEG2) file, then starts playing that file while the transcoding is still in progress. After you finish watching it, the temporary .mpg file is deleted.

Quote:p.s. my 1G PIII is not what I'd call grunty but it plays back avi files via the MVP fine :confused::confused::confused:

Most people only have seem to require about a 2GHz machine to ensure they are about to do this real time transcoding to .mpg, but you might get lucky if you're playing low resolution avi files, or if they have a low bit rate. I'm sure you'll come across avi files that your machine cant keep up with when transcoding for playback on the MVP.

petewxm · 2008-01-11, 11:01 PM

sub Wrote:I doubt that machine would be able to transcode three divx/xvid streams at the same time. A 2GHz P4 often struggles to transcode code in the required faster than real time for one MVP client.

I thought so, I`ll convert everything to mpeg.

Thanks

Pete

fausto · 2008-01-14, 08:31 AM

sub Wrote:I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.

The MVP hardware is only capable of playing MPEG1/MPEG2 and MP3 files.

If you try playing an AVI file on the MVP, the application starts transcoding that file to a temporary .mpg (MPEG2) file, then starts playing that file while the transcoding is still in progress. After you finish watching it, the temporary .mpg file is deleted.

I understood that bit (except which application is doing the transcoding; GBPVR or the MVP?) but you didn't address the second part of my question, i.e. why doesn't this transcoding happen when I try to watch avi files through GBPVR on the main server PC?

psycik · 2008-01-14, 09:12 AM

fausto Wrote:I understood that bit (except which application is doing the transcoding; GBPVR or the MVP?) but you didn't address the second part of my question, i.e. why doesn't this transcoding happen when I try to watch avi files through GBPVR on the main server PC?

GBPVR is transcoding from AVI to Mpeg2 to deliver the video to the MVP.

And when watching the AVI on the gbpvr server, the file does not need to be transcoded as PCs are cable of displaying AVI files (with the appropriate codec - which if you can see the video, you already have it installed).

Quite different technologies since the mvp and the pc have quite different capabilities.

petewxm · 2008-01-14, 10:22 AM

petewxm Wrote:I thought so, I`ll convert everything to mpeg.

Thanks

Pete

I have started yet but plan on converting everything in the next couple of weeks.
Whats the best/quickest software to convert from DVD/Xvid etc to MPEG.

Thanks for any advice

Pete Smile

fausto · 2008-01-21, 01:17 PM

psycik Wrote:And when watching the AVI on the gbpvr server, the file does not need to be transcoded as PCs are cable of displaying AVI files (with the appropriate codec - which if you can see the video, you already have it installed).

I can view avi files on the PC, but not via the GBPVR menu system. Is this to be expected?

psycik · 2008-01-21, 07:21 PM

fausto Wrote:I can view avi files on the PC, but not via the GBPVR menu system. Is this to be expected?

As in you press ok on an avi file, get the sound but no video?? If so, then you do not have the codec installed - go to http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html to download.

mvallevand · 2008-01-22, 12:59 AM

fausto, avi files will show in the video list by default on the mvp unless you changed your config.xml file <VideoLibraryExtensions>. If it gets listed but doesn't play that shouldn't happen unless the file inside the container is a format that ffmpeg can't transcode or if your machine can't keep up. I think I remember you saying you could play divx on your slow machine so it might be the later.

psycik, on-the-fly transcoding to the mvp is done via the command line specified by <MVPFFmpegTranscodeCmdLinePAL(orNTSC)>, which defaults to ffmpeg, but can use mencoder, or vlc, or ZProcess calling one of these. I guess you could call a Windows app that requires a codec but I think that would be unnecessary.

Martin

SeanJ · 2008-01-28, 12:18 PM

petewxm Wrote:I have started yet but plan on converting everything in the next couple of weeks.
Whats the best/quickest software to convert from DVD/Xvid etc to MPEG.

If I understand correctly, the files are getting converted to MPEG before they are streamed to the MVP. The temporary MPEG file is deleted once it is no longer needed. Is there any way to configure the software so that the temporary files are moved to somewhere useful, rather than being deleted?

If you could do this then you wouldn't need to go through the tedious process of converting all of your AVI files in one go; they would be converted on the first time that they are watched via an MVP.

(By the way, DVD is already MPEG2. You shouldn't need to transcode the video data, just extract the correct streams and mux them.)