Feedback on Zprocess - Pre-release

[htewam]

Hi Zehd...

Thought I would start a new thread here since this is feedback on Zprocess. Tried to install & run your tools that have the first cut at TS transcode improvements for MediaMVP:
ZProcess 2.0.321
ZTranscode 2.1.233
Trans2MVP.exe 0.0.8

Installed per your instructions (I think)... but I ran in to a couple of hiccups since I wasn't planning to install Mencoder and I put it into another directory other then what you expected as a "default"... this caused the initial installation to give me pop-up warnings and it messed up the sequence a bit but I think that I got it quiet.

I recorded a 10 minute Clear Qam broadcast from my cable provider (using GBPVR)... HD with AC3. I double checked and the .ts file was correctly generated in the recordings directory. Fired up MediaMVP and connected to GBPVR.... when I try to play the recording back, I get a blank screen on my TV and MVP resets after about 10 seconds.

I zipped the config.xml and logs... but I don't see any additional logs for Zprocess (although your posts talk about them)... I'm guessing that Zprocess was never kicked off but I'm pretty clueless about all the gbpvr processing steps.

[htewam]

So I did some additional investigation on the issue noted in my previous post. After digging through the gbpvr logs, I did find the invocation of Zprocess. After trying this from the command line I discovered at least one issue. While I "knew" that the ffmpeg should be named ffmpeg-alt.exe, I did not check that the version that was provided in the zip file was still called ffmpeg.exe. After renaming, I at least got things going... it creates a 0-length mpg file. I found where the Zprocess logs are stashed and have attached them.

[zehd]

So I did some additional investigation on the issue noted in my previous post. After digging through the gbpvr logs, I did find the invocation of Zprocess. After trying this from the command line I discovered at least one issue. While I "knew" that the ffmpeg should be named ffmpeg-alt.exe, I did not check that the version that was provided in the zip file was still called ffmpeg.exe. After renaming, I at least got things going... it creates a 0-length mpg file. I found where the Zprocess logs are stashed and have attached them.

Rename the default ffmpeg back to ffmpeg. It should still be in its default directory

Download the ffmpeg-alt.exe and copy into the ZProcess folder...

To be sure that things are right, open ZTrancode (not ZProcess -- at least for now because I know this is confusing), go to settings, select a Trans2MVP profile. In preferred transcoders, you should see ffmpeg-alt.

[jerryheynow]

Thanks again for the good work.

As for the ffmpeg-alt.zip, the executable is named ffmeg inside the zip. SHould it be renamed to ffmpeg-alt inside the Ztools folder?

Jerry

[zehd]

Thanks again for the good work.

As for the ffmpeg-alt.zip, the executable is named ffmeg inside the zip. SHould it be renamed to ffmpeg-alt inside the Ztools folder?

Jerry

yes

[htewam]

A Happy New Year to all! Some additional feedback -- basically I got stymied by several things on getting the updated Zprocess to work on my system -- I'm sure that this due to my lack of understanding about the transcoding process and inter-related complexities. In the end, I realized I was less concerned about viewing "live" Clear QAM / TS recordings via MediaMVP then I was getting record/playback to MediaMVP working with TS files.

With that in mind, I went back and beat my head against the wall trying to figure out the AutoConvertTSToFormat config option and why it wasn't working for me. The ah-ha moment came after I understood that <AutoConvertTSToFormat> must point to one of the <CustomFFmpegConversions> and that MPEG-2 listed in the Config menu but was NOT actually defined anywhere. I had been assuming that the <AutoConvertTSCommand> line would be what was called for post-record transcoding (it is not... at least not in this case).

Anyway, after messing around a bit, I am finding the following config lines seem to be working well for me for MOST of the ClearQAM channels -- where I mostly needed to render basic SD mpegs but force the conversion from AC3 to MVP-compatible audio:

Code:

<AutoConvertTSToFormat>TsToMpg</AutoConvertTSToFormat>

  <AutoConvertTSCommand>-y -i "{SOURCE_FILE}" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f dvd "{DEST_FILE}"</AutoConvertTSCommand>
      (Note: in my experiments, the line above isn't even used so I left it as default)
:
<CustomFFmpegConversions>
:
    <Conversion name="TsToMpg" cmd="-y -i {SOURCE_FILE} -target ntsc-dvd -s 640x480 -acodec mp2 -ar 48000 -ab 224k -ac 2 {DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".mpg" />
  </CustomFFmpegConversions>

I went with using the -t ntsc-dvd versus the -f specifier since it seemed to behave better for me and the transcode conversion seems to work okay with the ffmpeg shipped with 1.3.7 (didn't find a need to go to ffmpeg-alt)

I think that Zprocess is probably the way to go in the future so that I have some flexibility but right now I just want to take a breather and have a stable system for a bit... even if it isn't quite perfect.

[zehd]

A Happy New Year to all! Some additional feedback -- basically I got stymied by several things on getting the updated Zprocess to work on my system -- I'm sure that this due to my lack of understanding about the transcoding process and inter-related complexities. In the end, I realized I was less concerned about viewing "live" Clear QAM / TS recordings via MediaMVP then I was getting record/playback to MediaMVP working with TS files.

With that in mind, I went back and beat my head against the wall trying to figure out the AutoConvertTSToFormat config option and why it wasn't working for me. The ah-ha moment came after I understood that <AutoConvertTSToFormat> must point to one of the <CustomFFmpegConversions> and that MPEG-2 listed in the Config menu but was NOT actually defined anywhere. I had been assuming that the <AutoConvertTSCommand> line would be what was called for post-record transcoding (it is not... at least not in this case).

Anyway, after messing around a bit, I am finding the following config lines seem to be working well for me for MOST of the ClearQAM channels -- where I mostly needed to render basic SD mpegs but force the conversion from AC3 to MVP-compatible audio:

Code:

<AutoConvertTSToFormat>TsToMpg</AutoConvertTSToFormat>

  <AutoConvertTSCommand>-y -i "{SOURCE_FILE}" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f dvd "{DEST_FILE}"</AutoConvertTSCommand>
      (Note: in my experiments, the line above isn't even used so I left it as default)
:
<CustomFFmpegConversions>
:
    <Conversion name="TsToMpg" cmd="-y -i {SOURCE_FILE} -target ntsc-dvd -s 640x480 -acodec mp2 -ar 48000 -ab 224k -ac 2 {DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".mpg" />
  </CustomFFmpegConversions>

I went with using the -t ntsc-dvd versus the -f specifier since it seemed to behave better for me and the transcode conversion seems to work okay with the ffmpeg shipped with 1.3.7 (didn't find a need to go to ffmpeg-alt)

I think that Zprocess is probably the way to go in the future so that I have some flexibility but right now I just want to take a breather and have a stable system for a bit... even if it isn't quite perfect.

THanks for the leg work. I'm gonna look into that stuff. If you don't mind, would you be able to make available a small sample of one of your TS files? Thanks

Happy New Year

[htewam]

THanks for the leg work. I'm gonna look into that stuff. If you don't mind, would you be able to make available a small sample of one of your TS files? Thanks

Happy New Year

My pleasure... but (as you know) these files get to be monsters... I figure that I can capture a couple of samples SD, HD, etc. Do you have a place for me to upload (PM me)... otherwise, I can try to grab a really short segment of each and (try to) upload as a zip.

[zehd]

My pleasure... but (as you know) these files get to be monsters... I figure that I can capture a couple of samples SD, HD, etc. Do you have a place for me to upload (PM me)... otherwise, I can try to grab a really short segment of each and (try to) upload as a zip.

Let's wait just a bit. My max for Hotmail is 10 MBs, but that might not be enough. There are free fileservers you might want to try, or I might have something for you in the new year, next week