Help configuring codecs

[blcookin]

I setup GBPVR to convert the TS recordings into DivX and the result doesn't look that great. I know that with compressing the video you're going to lose quality, but since a 30 minute show took up about 300mb I figured the quality would be a bit better. I used to be able to convert a full movie into a 700mb file and have better quality than what the video looks like now so I'm assuming I just need to configure the code properly. However, I'm not having any luck finding where to configure the codec.

Also, on a side note, I originally had it set to convert the TS recording to MPEG-2 format but when ffmpeg launched after the recording it didn't seem to do anything.

My goal is to convert the video into a format that takes up less space than 3.5gb per 30 minutes (TS format) but that I can stream to my PS3. I believe it will support DivX, Xvid, or the MPEG-2 format. I don't want to compress the videos down to a point where the lose a lot of quality though. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[psycik]

The default video library transcodes are pretty basic single pass encodings.

If you want to convert for high quality storage, you should look at something like autogk for xvid conversion, or handbrake or megui for x264 encoding. You'll want to run two pass.

[blcookin]

I'll take a look around to see what's out there. Is there any plan to allow codec configuration in GB-PVR so that it can handle a two pass conversion? Even back in the days of DivX 3.11 a two pass conversion looked pretty good so I'm assuming with DivX 6 that it should look as good if not better. I haven't really kept up with video conversion anymore. It used to take so long to convert a DVD into an AVI that I got tired of it. On my old PC with DivX 3.11 it used to take like 12 hours to convert one, though of course most of that is the PC running on its own.

With cable prices getting more and more ridiculous, and the ATSC broadcast format looking pretty good I'm tempted to drop cable all together (except the internet) and then just use bit torrent for the couple non-cable channels I watch (Comedy Central and Adult Swim). It's hard to justify paying like $75 a month for a DVR with HDTV subscription when the majority of what I watch is broadcast over the air for free.

[martint123]

Put the $$$ you save towards bigger drives

[sub]

If you can find any command line converter that you're happy with the quality of the conversions, then it can be plugged into GB-PVR with some simple changes to to config.xml.

[Deusxmachina]

Two-pass is generally a waste of time imo unless you're trying to hit a very specific target like to fit it on a CD or something. If you're using Constant Bitrate mode, that's probably the quality problem right there. I tended to use xvid Constant Quality mode with a 7 quality setting with 160 audio. Good mix of size and quality, imo. Can drop the audio to 128 without losing much. Definitely can get a little tinny to me sometimes, but most converted audio out there is at 128 and few people mind.

You can change the settings in the, um, hmm, what file is it again? It's the main GBPVR settings file in the GBPVR folder. (You can tell how often I've had to mess with GBPVR settings lately. )

Scroll down towards the bottom and you'll see all the command lines for the different encoding settings. I know there are more specific threads about this around here because I've written a decent bit about it.

Xvid is better than Divx, imo. I wouldn't bother using anything but xvid or h.264/x264 anymore unless it's for a specific device. Can't the PS3 play H.264 encodes? I don't have one but thought it can. If so, do that if you can stand the extra encoding time. Saves around 20% on filesize.