Cutting Commercial from DTivo extract succeeded!

[Wes]

OMG OMG OMG! I think I did it. It's in sync playing on PowerDVD. Burning onto DVD right now and see if I really did it. OMG! Can't believe it actually works.

No, it's not m2-edit. ;)

[Frogbutt]

very informative post :)

[saltydog4791]

I second that!! :)

[Wes]

OMG, it really works!!!

I'm too excited and too tired right now. It's 4am and gotta get some sleep. I'm going to just give you a little hint right now and I'll post a detail how-to into the sticky post "How to only" post later.

Steps:
1) Use DVDMaestro to create a "Playlist" to only play the content and leave all the commercial out. (Most people who use DVDMaestro already know how to do it.)
2) Compile the DVD
3) HERE IS THE TRICK I guess nobody has thought of even it's so simple -> Use SmartRipper to rip the Compiled Directory.
a) It will automatically select the entire DVD with the commercial and junks in "Program Chain 1". Select "Program Chain 2". You should see the time that show next to the "Angle 1" is smaller. For an one hour show, it should be about 45 minutes.
b) If you are going to burn a DVD again, make sure you extract ONE CHAPTER AT A TIME. If you just extract all chapters at once, you'll get a nice VOB file that has no commercial but can only play on your computer. DVDMaestro will complain about invalid data type due to the disconnected audio.
c) Once you have all of the chapters extracted out, you should know what to do next. ;)

I'll create a detail how to in the "how to" post later. Have fun. ;)

[scarabus]

Originally posted by Wes
OMG, it really works!!!


3) HERE IS THE TRICK I guess nobody has thought of even it's so simple -> Use SmartRipper to rip the Compiled Directory.

Yeah, I've tried that. It doesn't gain you much over the basic chapter skip method except that you can maybe fit an extra episode on the disc.

The problem though is that you can't do FRAME ACCURATE commercial editing. You can only put chapter points on GOP boundaries. As a result you end up with a few frames of crap which you can't edit out.

If you use stream processing you can rip the whole prog into individual m2v and m2a streams. But then you have to re-do the chapter points.

[Wes]

Not only that, I was testing on a few TV shows. After cutting out the commercials, the totally file size is less than 800MB. Easily put onto CDRs as SVCD/XSVCD. I can also cut out MTV into each song piece. It is like a dream come true. :)

[FredThompson]

Sure.

The average TV show has 12-15 minutes of ads. Take (what appears to be) the 1G/hour limit and 480x480 MPEG-2 and you get 800M of data which will fit on a mode 2 80m CDR. Granted, the 32 kHz audio sample rate isn't SVCD compliant but most standalones don't care.

I've been going nuts trying to find a free GOP-sensitive MPEG-2 stream editor for Windoze. I know I saw a page about one to be run on the TiVo but that's a little different.

GOP-aware cutting shouldn't be that difficult to code. There's no need to decode all the frames, just the I-frames. Given the video stream is really just a sequence of numbers, it should be possible to have an editor that non-destructively cuts out sections of the streams. That already exists for MP3s in a free format. Wish it did for video...

Hmmm...Maybe the spec requires a certain number of frames between I frames. (Dunno, the spec's online if you're really interested.) The DVD spec does. CCE will puke while making VBR VCD sometimes if adjacent frames are too different. Maybe every cut would need a pad of 8 empty frames or something like that. No big deal, that's a fraction of a second. Actually, that might be real helpful if the audio in those padding frames made a smooth transition between the adjacent I-frames. Would help to eliminate pops caused by a sudden difference.

[FredThompson]

Another idea (but similar)

The editor can handle all frame types.

You pick the first and last frames of the section you want to remove.

All of that is removed.

The space between the I-frames that surrounded your two chosen frames is set to a compliant number of frames and the audio is smoothly transitioned as explained above.

Video is a little different. Every frame AFTER the frame prior to your "start cutting here" frame is replaced with an appropriate "no change" frame. This is done up to the I-frame that follow the section you removed. (NTSC DVD requires a GOP distance of 18 frames, PAL is 15.)

You may loose a few frames of video before the second I-frame but you are ensured the start of the cut section is handled properly and there is no re-encoding.

This would handle the case of a fade between what you want and what you want removed when there is no I-frame exactly there (which is probably the case.)

The worst-case scenario is about a half-second of missing video but there's no re-compression (with quality loss) of the rest of the stream so it's a lot easier to encode.

[rpongett]

I have SpruceUp.

How do I get a copy of DVD Maestro? (isn't it no longer made?)

And, can I create chapters with Spruceup containing non-commerical parts, then just rip those chapter numbers with Smartripper?

[FredThompson]

You could also use TMPGEnc's cut and paste MPEG tools if you know the time codes. Still got the intra-GOP issues, though.

[Wes]

hehe, i guess you haven't try cutting the DTivo files. The a/v will get out of sync when cut by any existing mpeg cutting tools.

[FredThompson]

Oh, I just assumed you were talking about remuxed to CBR audio. Oops...

---

ok, did some searching and playitsam is the TiVo-based GOP-sensitive program I was looking for earlier. Source is available. Wish I knew how to program for Windoze...

[Taran]

I have 3 different version of DVDMaestro and none of them will play the video in them. It boots the program up saying no decoders were found. I would REALLY like to get this working. Can someone help me??

[qarlo]

Search for the Cinemaster2000 software decoder - that's what preview in Maestro requires.

Q

[Taran]

Thanks, that worked perfect for the video. no more error. One thing though. I still don't have any sound when playing the video I am making. Is there a trick to get the sound to play in preview also?

Just noticed in "Navigation Simulator" I can here sound. Is that the only way (better then nothing). =)

Thanks again.

[scarabus]

DVDs can have multiple audio tracks, so you have to specify the one that you want - click on the little box with a 1 in it on the left hand side.

[Taran]

Thanks everyone for the help with DVDMaestro.

[Wes]

Originally posted by rc3105
using tmpgenc 2.55.38.142 's -> mpeg tools -> merge and cut sync is maintained just fine for me


It only works for me if I need to cut something from the begining of the clip. When I drag the bar pass 30 mins, it freezes for like a minute and I then drag again. When I drag it pass an hour, the computer seems just freezed forever. How do you manage to handle that? It would be really helpful if I can simple just cut it. TIA. :)

[Wes]

I installed so many different DVD authoring programs, I really don't know which one my computer is using now. I do have PowerDVD installed too. Anyway to find out which one I am using and somehow "fix" it?

[FredThompson]

NT-base or 9x base?

NT is easy,

Control Panel | System | Device Manager | Sound, video and game controllers | Video Codecs

I don't use 9x now so can't give any guidance.

You could also probably find out what the default codecs are in the settings of a good media player. I can't see anything like that in PowerDVD but something like RadPlayer might show you.

[Wes]

It's NT based. I have:

Huffyuv lossless codec
msh261.drv
msh263.drv
msyuv.dll
Pinnacle MP2 Codec
VFAPI Reader Codec v1.01

and some DivX stuff.

I suppose my system is using the Pinnacle one. I could try to uninstall my Pinnacle Impression and install PowerDVD first and see if it help.

[horwitz]

Sorry for a pretty TiVo-tangential post, but I'm betting I'll get a good answer here, at least...

I'm running Win2K and am wondering what the default (bare-bones) setup is, video-codec-wise... (My video sometimes runs at double speed with audio at normal speed; I think it's DivX-related.)

FWIW, here's what I have (with my ATI RAGE MOBILITY-M1 AGP):
DivX 5.0 Codec
iccvid.dll
Indeo I.263 Video Driver
Indeo® video 5.10
ir32_32.dll
msh261.drv
msh263.drv
msrle32.dll
msvidc32.dll
msyuv.dll

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by Wes
It's NT based. I have:

Huffyuv lossless codec
msh261.drv
msh263.drv
msyuv.dll
Pinnacle MP2 Codec
VFAPI Reader Codec v1.01

and some DivX stuff.

I suppose my system is using the Pinnacle one. I could try to uninstall my Pinnacle Impression and install PowerDVD first and see if it help.

It sure DOES seem like a codec or format-association problem.

Did you enable the Media Player support for DVDs?

There is a known problem with M$ and YUV: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27932

Solution is here (7/31): http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/Old_news/july02.htm

If you're ready to pull the Pinnacle stuff, why don't you try installing the MaximusDVD codec first? Can't hurt to try it: http://www.maximusdvd.com

Another thought: Do you have QuickTime or RealOne players loaded? Maybe they're fighting your MPEG-2 assignments.

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by horwitz
Sorry for a pretty TiVo-tangential post, but I'm betting I'll get a good answer here, at least...

I'm running Win2K and am wondering what the default (bare-bones) setup is, video-codec-wise... (My video sometimes runs at double speed with audio at normal speed; I think it's DivX-related.)

FWIW, here's what I have (with my ATI RAGE MOBILITY-M1 AGP):
DivX 5.0 Codec
iccvid.dll
Indeo I.263 Video Driver
Indeo® video 5.10
ir32_32.dll
msh261.drv
msh263.drv
msrle32.dll
msvidc32.dll
msyuv.dll

Dunno. None of my machines are strict Win2K bare installs.

Try the forums at http://www.doom9.net

[Wes]

I doubt the doom9 people could understand the problem because I have NO problem cutting/merging with any standard mpeg2 or mpeg1 files. It only happen to the DTivo's files.

[FredThompson]

Transcoding is going to mean recompression which means loss of quality. You're right, also a time hit.

I've been looking at header utilities lately. There's one at http://www.geocities.com/eby_vdo/ that might help.

Having said that, some stuff is actually better if it's processed and re-encoded. Animation or live broadcasts can be like that. If you use AviSynth, take a look at the Dup and MSharpen AviSynth filters at http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/.

If you're going to transcode, think about fileserving with AviSynth to clean the image up. There's an MPEG-2 plug-in available. (No, I haven't tested it with an extracted stream yet, my unit is out for repairs.) The plug-in provides random access frame retrieval so multiple-pass encoding works.

--

I wonder what the problem really is with these streams. I've found remuxing with TMPGEnc can clear up a lot and that won't change the encoding.

[Wes]

Nope, not looking for transcoding. Totally defeated my intent to get the original quality and use minimal amoung of time. I simply want to do a quicky cut of the commerical.

I guess I'll simply go back to my DVDMeastro+SmartRipper method. Still working great for me. ;)

[FredThompson]

Look at the links page on my sig. AviSynth is at Sourceforge. There's a version that came out just the other day. (Oops, it's not on the posted version of the list. Try this: http://www.avisynth.org)

Attached is a zip of the MPEG-2 plug-in. The site's been dead for quite a while. Good thing for "Wayback", huh?

As you might recall from another thread I've been in lately, I'm very interested in intra-GOP editing. Been trying to figure out how to make that work with VirtualDub. Assuming we're only doing linear removal of frame sequences, almost all the pieces exist. I think that thread started with me asking about a push version of TyTool.

--

WRT "fixing" the streams:

How about trying VCDGear? I used it the other day on a stream which choked VCDEasy. It does a LOT of different conversions and includes an MPEG->MPEG capability with error correction. This isn't recompression, it's fixing non-compliance in the stream.

There's also source for MPEG-2 decoding at http://libmpeg2.sourceforge.net

That's MPEG reference code so it won't be the fastest but could still help. I found that while researching intra-GOP editing.

There's also a more complete set of MPEG-2 reference code at: ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg2/software/

[Taran]

How do you use DVDMeastro. I have found I have to leave the ty in a multiplexed mpg to keep the audio in sync. To use a mpg I have to use SpruceUp because DVDMeastro doesn't support MPG only seprate M2V and M2A. Am I missing something??

I have followed instructions from here and other forums and I agree using TMPGEnc to multiplex, then resize it to 720x480 using TMPGEnc, and then burn it using SpruceUp works great. Thanks for the information so far guys...

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by Taran
I have followed instructions from here and other forums and I agree using TMPGEnc to multiplex, then resize it to 720x480 using TMPGEnc, and then burn it using SpruceUp works great. Thanks for the information so far guys...

Have you tried this:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/97090.php

It looks like they're tacking a VCD header onto an SVCD file to make it more DVD compatible.

If this works, it will certainly save you time and the video should look better because converting from 480 to 720 pixels will degrade it.

If you try this, please let me know the results.

[rpongett]

I am having problems creating DVDs from files editing ushing Playlists/Smartripper. have no problems extracting, loading and editing m2v and m2a streams using DVD Maestro. I have created Playlists, which work.

However, after I extract the playlist ("Program 2" angle) using Smartripper, I am having problems making a workable DVD with the VOB files.

I get a separate VOB file for each chapter (I extract each chapter)and an IFO file. I then use IFOedit to fix the IFO file and create a VIDEO_TS.IFO file.

However, while the DVDs I burn with these files are recognized and begin to play, they do not switch from chapter to chapter correctly (tries to switch to much later chapter, then can't forward between chapters). However, if I play the VOB files separtely (from Windows explorer) using RealPlayer, they play fine.

What am I doing wrong? Should I be doing some editing (besdies IFOedit) to the VIDEO_TS.IFO or VTS_01_0.IFO files?

Any help is greatly appreciated.