Converting TS files to small size on the fly

[Over]

Hello

A few months ago, I purchase WD Green 2TB drive just for storing OTA TV shows thinking that would be more than enough. As it turns out, the recording are in TS format and taking up 6GB for a 1 hour show. I have 37 shows stored on the hard drive taking up 1.27 TB!

Hoping to avoid purchasing another hard drive/deleting episodes.

Prefer to keep the metadata and do a on the fly conversion it to another format.

So, I have 2 question:

1) Does anyone know what program will convert to a different file format using command line?

2) If so, what would be the command line parameters for use in PostProcessing.bat?

[Reddwarf]

You could use ffmpeg to convert .ts to .mp4 or .mkv but is pretty cpu intensive. What processor do you have?

Edit: I'd recommend .mkv and h.264 codec since the container also can contain other streams than video/audio and h.264 gives the smallest file. To do it on-the-fly you would do the conversion in ParalellProcessing.bat.

[johnsonx42]

there are a ton of ways to do it. some people use ffmpeg which is actually included with NPVR. one of the users here has written up a guide for using something called "MCEBuddy" which I believe uses mencoder behind the scenes: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...-TS-To-MP4

if you want to roll your own with ffmpeg or any other tool, you'll have to sort out most of the details yourself. the only important thing you need to know is that NPVR passes the full filename of the recording to postprocessing.bat as %1. if you replace the .ts file with another file of the same base name but a different video extension, NPVR should recognize the replaced file and keep it in the database.

[Graham]

WD Green 2TB drive ... 6GB for a 1 hour show.

Does that compute to space for more than 300 one hour shows? Is someting wonky with your drive or its content?

[NYPlayer]

The new MCEBUDDY will read the xml rename if you want .. it can also if setup correctly update the NPVR db with the new name. It uses handbrake with hardware acceleration on my Intel i7 it takes 10 minutes to do a 1 hr HD show to mp4. I had written something real quick for MCEBUDDY https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/573577 If it is jut encoding no rename then it is even easier ... MCEBUDDy wiill do the work for you out of the box.

[Over]

All:

I would like to thank you for your input. I Found a program called MKV Buddy.

MKV Buddy:
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/extensio.../mkv-buddy
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/thread...os.127297/

I would not mind trying MCEBuddy to compare it to MKV Buddy. However you have to donate to it, before you can try it.

Over

[gEd]

As it turns out, the recording are in TS format and taking up 6GB for a 1 hour show. I have 37 shows stored on the hard drive taking up 1.27 TB!

6GB/hour seems like "quite a lot". I know we have different broadcast standards but here in the UK, 1hour of H264 1080i takes 2.86 GB.
I know we only have 25fps to the US's 30fps but that shouldn't double the disk space.

I was making the point just in case there were extra unneeded channels in the TS mux you could just somehow dump or if you have some uber-audio standard than you could downmix/re-code. Transcoding video takes an age unless you have a high power cpu.. (which maybe you have).

Code:

(from MPC-HC)
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920x1080 25fps [V: h264 high L4.0, yuv420p, 1920x1080]
Audio: AAC(LATM) 48000Hz stereo [A: English [eng] (aac (latm), 48000 Hz, stereo)]
Subtitle [S: English [eng] (dvbsub)]
Subtitle: UTF-8 [S: No subtitles]

General
ID                             : 1 (0x1)
Complete name                  : \\Mediapc\r\Recordings\Secret Britain\Secret Britain.S02E01.Water World of Wales.ts
Format                         : MPEG-TS
File size                      : 2.86 GiB
Duration                       : 1h 1mn
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 6 598 Kbps

Video
ID                             : 6601 (0x19C9)
Menu ID                        : 17540 (0x4484)
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : 27
Duration                       : 1h 1mn
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate                     : 25.000 fps
Standard                       : Component
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : MBAFF
Color primaries                : BT.709
Transfer characteristics       : BT.709
Matrix coefficients            : BT.709

Audio
ID                             : 6602 (0x19CA)
Menu ID                        : 17540 (0x4484)
Format                         : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                 : LC
Muxing mode                    : LATM
Codec ID                       : 17
Duration                       : 1h 1mn
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode               : Lossy
Delay relative to video        : -1s 213ms
Language                       : English

Text
ID                             : 6605 (0x19CD)
Menu ID                        : 17540 (0x4484)
Format                         : DVB Subtitle
Codec ID                       : 6
Duration                       : 1h 1mn
Delay relative to video        : 3s 246ms
Language                       : English

Menu
ID                             : 6600 (0x19C8)
Menu ID                        : 17540 (0x4484)
Duration                       : 1h 1mn
List                           : 6601 (0x19C9) (AVC) / 6602 (0x19CA) (AAC, English) / 6605 (0x19CD) (DVB Subtitle, English) / 6650 (0x19FA) () / 7302 (0x1C86) ()
Language                       :  / English / English

[sub]

6GB/hour seems like "quite a lot". I know we have different broadcast standards but here in the UK, 1hour of H264 1080i takes 2.86 GB.

Remember, HD in the US is MPEG2, so your lower bitrate H.264 HD probably looks as good if not better than his much higher bitrate MPEG2 HD.

[mvallevand]

The difference in North America is the OTA and cable are just MPEG-2 encoding not h264. Here's a 1/2 hour 1080i TBBT

Code:

Theory.S08E19.The Skywalker Incursion.ts
Format                                   : MPEG-TS
File size                                : 4.06 GiB
Duration                                 : 31mn 51s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 18.3 Mbps
Law rating                               : 14+

The OP's math is still way off as Graham pointed He should get 250 hours at that bit rate and there a some channels (here anyway) that do 720p


Martin

[gEd]

ahhh MPEG-2 at 18Mbps, that explains it. Crikey 4Gb for a 30mins show!
So the fact that the UK had to wait 13 years (after the US) to finally get 1080 did come with some advantages..