Converting TS files to small size on the fly

[mvallevand]

Whilst I agree with the main sentiment of your post, this part is not quite correct. NextPVR can search for alternative file extensions if the .ts file is not there (configurable in config.xml) so if you convert myshow.ts to myshow.mp4, it will work fine.

Not quite, if you don't use ts files then you can only play the file on the host PC. The only client that might work is x-newa via a share.

Martin

[gEd]

Not quite, if you don't use ts files then you can only play the file on the host PC. The only client that might work is x-newa via a share.

Martin

The guy who resurrected this old thread only made reference to "the front end" which (in the absence of any reference to other clients), I inferred as being the native NextPVR client.

I've converted quite a few files to H265 using MCEBuddy (across home network by my 8 core Ryzen machine) and the recordings play great. However for a set-and-forget setup for parents, simplicity is key so I would just throw in a 4TB HD and you're basically sorted for a long time (esp as UK H264 content is pretty efficient at about 2.5GB /hour)

[scJohn]

I have spent close to 4 weeks on a postprocessing.bat file that will transcode an mpeg2.ts file to mkv file with h264 and copy audio(ac3) using Intel qsv and ffmpeg. I hope I finally got qsv to reliable work, but there are regression errors that have been introduced over the past releases that have not been fixed(including 4.0). When it works, it is fast. On my old I3-4400 a 30 minute recording takes around 5 minutes and a 1 hour recording is about 11 minutes with about a 55% reduction in file size. This is transcoding 1 file at a time. I have transcoded 4 files at a time(not on purpose) but all this does is double the trans code time. Doing 4 files at a time keeps CPU and GPU utilization at 100%. Doing 1 file at a time has CPU in the 50% range and GPU at 100%. All of the above is with software decoding of the mpeg2 stream and hardware encoding to h264. There is a regression that prevents direct hardware decoding of mpeg2. There is a work around and when I can get to work the CPU load drops from the 50% area to the 7-8% area. But wall clock time on a 30 minute video transcode is only reduced by about 20 seconds.

Conclusion. If you are a watch once and delete(me), I can not recommend transcoding your files. If you are a collector, HDD drives are cheap. The only case I can make for transcoding is to make playback easier, now and into the future, on your devices and that means converting to an mp4 container. Support for mpeg2 is declining rapidly in new devices. They don't want to pay the royalties so they never enable the silicon. Here in the US, ATSC 3.0 is still a good 5-7 years off.