TyTool Alpha #8r3, VSplit beta #3.41, DVD output...

[jdiner]

Originally posted by gobsmack
Josh, along those lines, there are some cool things you can do with the template files for DVD Author -- like setting up pauses between chapters/vobs, setting up the branching, etc.

I glanced at that stuff and said "cool" and wondered if TyTool is set up to let you create/tweak your own template file for DVDAuthor.

Yes and no.

I am not sure what I want to do yet. What I had planned was a set of pre-built options to choose from. But the last time I did that it was not well received. A simple "editor" is easy as it is a bunch of text, i.e. just use a textfield, but requires everyone to be come an expert.

Perhaps rather than pre-built options 2 simple ones.

1- let TyTool do it all.
2- have TyTool generate the file and populate the editbox. Thus you could tweak to your hearts content. So you would only need to be an expert in the DVDAuthors XML code if you wanted to be.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Originally posted by grape

Anyway I've been using 8r3 and having lots of success and fun with it, but I couldn't figure out this one. Read through your doc on audio transcoding as well. I am using a DTIVO so I usually don't transcode anything. There was an audio glitch on DTIVO playback, at the beginning I should point out. I tried using the patch audio holes option but still seem to have the following displayed when trying to generate a keyfile.

Detected Tivo Type: **Unknown**
Detected Audio Stream Type: MPEG Layer II
Final standardAudioSize = 0
Final standardFrameLength = 0
Final standardAudioDiff = 6480 or 00:00:00.072
First Video PTS: 00:02:25.063
...Error. We did not find an embedded audio header!

Ummm. The unkown is never ever supposed to be seen. That was a catch all that no one else has ever run into.

But some of the information was found. Audio only. But the title says it is AC-3 and TyTool found and locked onto LayerII mpeg audio.

Try jumping a ways into the file. My best guess. You have no video in the first several chunks of the file. The only time I ever saw that was in a TyStream extracted from a hacked HU card that was "going down". And got tons of audio but no video for about the first 5 minutes or so of the stream. I didn't have the rest of the stream and such a drop-out might have happened again later.

Again, I suggest you jump further into the file, past any LII lead-in audio and see what happens.

The only other time the "henry's" have showed up is when bytes are being lost by the XP networking bug.

--jdiner

[eastwind]

Originally posted by jdiner
For a long time thing were broken with reguards to this. I could find some that worked for the hardware players and didn't for the software ones.

But I don't believe I ever tried -fpc. Have you tried it in both PowerDVD (or other software player) and in hardware players? I will try it. If it works I will make the change within TyTool.

NOTE: I have just been editing it by hand as well. I use VMGM and it works as well.

--jdiner

I've tried it in PowerDVD and my Sony set top changer. Works in both of them.
Now I've just got to get the hex editor out and change it in TYTool so I don't forget to manually edit it. :)

ew

[jdiner]

Sorry boys and girls. I had hoped to have the frame accurate stuff out almost 2 weeks ago. I got busy at work first and then spent the last 7 days down for the count with the flu. I haven't touch anything in about that long.

I wanted people to be able to try and play with it over the long holiday weekend.

It is obvious that is not going to happen. I am finally on the mend a bit. But still not over this darn thing.

I figure that all I need is about 2 solid days to have it all done. The hard parts have been done for a long long time. But that kind of rules out this weekend.

If I have the energy to work on things I will post here. Check back if you are interested, if not have a great holiday weekend.

--jdiner

[bato]

jdiner: don't be sorry, I bet you want to get this out more than us (if that's possible). Take care, get better and have a great holiday weekend.

PS if you finish it please call me at 555-.... :D

[drnull]

Aww, man! You mean I'm actually going to have to spend time with family/friends over the holidays? *sigh*

j/k. Happy holidays to you too. Hope you are able to rest up & get better. And since it's thanksgiving... Thanks for tytool!!!

side note: I'm one of the people who has used the mpeg's created by tytool in another tool. Well, I've started using tytool for dvd creation now, and I just have to say, your templates ROCK! I find tytool to have more flexibility than the afore unmentioned tool. So, thanks again!

[ronnythunder]

get your rest, josh, and enjoy the holidays. it's crazy to let this thing run your life, let alone *ruin* your life.

it can't be said enough: you are a truly fantastic contributor to the tivo world, and i thank you for your long and hard work on tytool.

ronny

[grape]

Originally posted by jdiner
Ummm. The unkown is never ever supposed to be seen. That was a catch all that no one else has ever run into.

But some of the information was found. Audio only. But the title says it is AC-3 and TyTool found and locked onto LayerII mpeg audio.

Try jumping a ways into the file. My best guess. You have no video in the first several chunks of the file. The only time I ever saw that was in a TyStream extracted from a hacked HU card that was "going down". And got tons of audio but no video for about the first 5 minutes or so of the stream. I didn't have the rest of the stream and such a drop-out might have happened again later.

Again, I suggest you jump further into the file, past any LII lead-in audio and see what happens.

The only other time the "henry's" have showed up is when bytes are being lost by the XP networking bug.

--jdiner

Thanks - the jump worked.

I am not sure about why the ty stream presented your tool with unexpected challenges. What I can say though is that DTV must have been having some problems that night because, the i tried to record the same movie that same night (The Italian Job) and there was no audio while it was playing all the way to about 2/3'd into the film. At first I thought the hacks were affecting something ( like the noscramble ) - a little panic moment for me. But I tried recording the next showing (all day ticket - whew) and the audio was there save for a short ammount of no-audio at the very beginning, during the DTV intro's.

Anyway the jump as you suggested worked although I wasn't sure what value to use. I tried something in the 50's based on some advice I saw given elsewhere on AC-3 extraction. It worked fine, and it did recognize the DTiVo at this point. Very cool piece of software you've pulled together.

Any chance of a menuless - IFO create. Is it possible to use ifoedit with more than one pair of m2a, m2v files. It didn't seem obvious to me. I like to make menuless DVD's that just start playing for my 3.5 year old. Currently I use DVD shrink to strip the menu's with it's re-authoring tool.

You wouldn't have to change a thing and I'd still be happy and grateful for what you've done so far.

Grape:)

[jdiner]

Yeah. A menu-less auto-play auto-step DVD option is in the works. It was not that hard. I just split some stuff out to a new class to make it easier to do/edit/change. Unfornately the TyTool version it is in is producing the frame accurate cut files. Not that bad a thing but it is kind of making it hard to get a release together.

A new version with that feature will be out sometime soon.

But hey at least I have kind of gotten caught up on my reading. With just laying around I have read 5 or 6 books that had piled up this last week.

--jdiner

[VideoJedi]

jdiner.. did you program the GOP editor as well? I was wondering if it would be possible to add an option for it to skip to ## frame (like virtualdub does). This would be incredibly useful for remote editing through like PCAnywhere (yeah.. I have done remote edits.. it's like the guy that operated the camera on Earth for the last Apollo mission during the LEM takeoff from the moon - make a move and wait a few seconds to see the change). It would just be a useful option cause a remote editor could try random frames for where to cut out commercials and whatnot without having to scroll through the vid, each time waiting an annoying lag for the frame picture to advance line by line.

[FredThompson]

PCAnywhere is quite slow. Try RealVNC: www.realvnc.com

Hmmm...can you change the desktop size of your remote window? What if it interprets the controlled computer at 640x480, assuming that is done on the controlled computer before sending the screen images?

[bettervideo]

In an earlier post about frame accurate editing, it was
mentioned that there was a YUV -> RGB translation before
the editing, and a RGB -> YUV translation after the edit.

Since these transformations are "lossy" (and please correct me
if I'm wrong on that), will there be an option to do the old-style
editing (at key frames), so that people can avoid the loss
associated with frame accurate editing?

The reason I'm asking this is because I'm on satellite TV
(Dish Network), and the double encoding of TIVO's MPEG
compression on top of Dish'es MPEG compression leaves
things fairly noisy and lossy. I'd rather not have additional
noise and losses if I can help it.

Thanks!
Bill

[eastwind]

Originally posted by grape

Any chance of a menuless - IFO create. Is it possible to use ifoedit with more than one pair of m2a, m2v files. It didn't seem obvious to me. I like to make menuless DVD's that just start playing for my 3.5 year old. Currently I use DVD shrink to strip the menu's with it's re-authoring tool.

You wouldn't have to change a thing and I'd still be happy and grateful for what you've done so far.

Grape:)

Here's a way to do it that was reference it the old thread:

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=106100#post106100

ew

[johnwill]

Originally posted by FredThompson
PCAnywhere is quite slow. Try RealVNC: www.realvnc.com

Hmmm...can you change the desktop size of your remote window? What if it interprets the controlled computer at 640x480, assuming that is done on the controlled computer before sending the screen images?
Actually, www.ultravnc.com is much faster if you install the 2K/XP drivers, and it gives up nothing to VNC.

[VideoJedi]

Originally posted by johnwill
Actually, www.ultravnc.com is much faster if you install the 2K/XP drivers, and it gives up nothing to VNC.

Well it's more complicated that than in my situation. See.. On my network.. my main terminal machine is Win2K server using terminal services for remote access. Since I am unable to setup a remote encode on that machine because the audio is not accessible through my terminal window (I can encode, but the end result will be no audio in the video).. so the machine I use to encode most vids has regular plain-Jane 2K on it and PCAnywhere. I remotely access my terminal server using remote desktop and then open up PCAnywhere to connect to the encoding machine. Whatever port is used for ultravnc.. I am wondering if I can open it to the specific IP used for the encoding machine on the firewall and bypass using my terminal server entirely. There's alot more overhead with the way I am doing it now.

I'll see if I can do a more direct edit using ultravnc, but would appreciate a courtesy feature in the GOP editor to jump to a specific frame.. even if it isn't entirely frame accurate it would be nice to say go to the 1032nd frame see it contains a commercial, go to the 1048th and be 1 or 2 frames within the show resuming and just scan a few frames, finally marking the cut point.

It's nice to setup remote encodes from work on lunch break.. keeping my machine busy at home re-encoding, so when I get home the vid is usually done. I batch encode whenever I can, but occasionally I might have something record onthe TiVo while at work in the morning and want to get it started encoding to a smaller format during the afternoon. If my machines are idle, they're not working hard enough. :)

[ronnythunder]

man, videojedi, you have way more patience than me. i tried this once over pcanywhere, and the propagation delay was so bad, i gave up.

what i do is do all of the gopeditor stuff when i'm local, but save the vob generation until later. it's trivial to kick off the vob generation remotely, and your machine can crunch on it while you're gone.

ronny

[VideoJedi]

Originally posted by ronnythunder
man, videojedi, you have way more patience than me. i tried this once over pcanywhere, and the propagation delay was so bad, i gave up.

what i do is do all of the gopeditor stuff when i'm local, but save the vob generation until later. it's trivial to kick off the vob generation remotely, and your machine can crunch on it while you're gone.

ronny

Oh that's ordinarily what I do. I only do the remote editing procedure when something records in the morning on the TiVo while I am away and 'friends' want it as avi by the afternoon (like the early show friday morning featuring the latest survivor castoff). It's painful to edit remotely, but it is possible. I only do it with very short clips. It would be damn near impossible to remotely edit multiple sets of commercials within an hour show. You'd have to be crazy to attempt that. :)

[bato]

Originally posted by jdiner
Yeah. A menu-less auto-play auto-step DVD option is in the works. For making DVDs for small children and movie only DVDs fast it will be nice to have a VOB-mux Network Option (like the multiplex one) so you can take those VOBs and create a DVD without menu. It will be cool if the movies/show play one after the other without user intervention.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by bettervideo
In an earlier post about frame accurate editing, it was
mentioned that there was a YUV -> RGB translation before
the editing, and a RGB -> YUV translation after the edit.

This transform is done only for the display. Not for the edit. Come on read what was written.

It stays in YUV.

I am specifically not changing the main edit mode on purpose. So that the standard edit process will work as it always did. The frame accurate is an add-on. This make the flow a little less "fluid" than it might be, but the speed and ease of the previous versions are maintained.

Further the frame accurate stuff is a re-compression of only certain key elements. Not of the entire stream. Re-encoding the entire stream is slow, majorly lossy, and clearly visible in the end result.

--jdiner

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by VideoJedi
Since I am unable to setup a remote encode on that machine because the audio is not accessible through my terminal window (I can encode, but the end result will be no audio in the video)..Huh?!?!

That doesn't make any sense.

[hancocks]

A little help requested here...

I can't figure out how to attach a 2nd VOB (to the same menu item, effectively stringing the two together).

Lots of different tries...has anyone done this?

Thanks (and happy T-day),

- Stu

[Rowan]

Originally posted by hancocks
A little help requested here...

I can't figure out how to attach a 2nd VOB (to the same menu item, effectively stringing the two together).

Lots of different tries...has anyone done this?

Thanks (and happy T-day),

- Stu

Once you are in the gopeditor look at the menu options on top and you will find an option to add the second vob.

[gobsmack]

Originally posted by bato
For making DVDs for small children and movie only DVDs fast it will be nice to have a VOB-mux Network Option (like the multiplex one) so you can take those VOBs and create a DVD without menu. It will be cool if the movies/show play one after the other without user intervention.

OK, Josh I'll fess up here: when I prattled about the cool DVD Author menu nav stuff you could set up, this was pretty much why: to make DVDs for the kids.

Could you include (in that option you are building) the ability to make the DVD with a play all / random feature?

I think you can do that at the PGC level, provided there are no pre or post commands. I think it is just a modifier, but I'm not seeing it in the "documentation" of DVD Author..... hmmm.

Anyone know where the "forum" for DVDAuthor lives?

[jdiner]

Originally posted by hancocks
A little help requested here...

I can't figure out how to attach a 2nd VOB (to the same menu item, effectively stringing the two together).

Lots of different tries...has anyone done this?

Yes, I have done it a number of times.

1- Select the menu item. So that it "fills" the expansion area at the bottom of the GopEditor window.

2- From the menu pick "Attach VOB", not add 2 seperate processes.

3- Select the vob you want.

4- Hit "set item" at the bottom of the GUI to make the changes permanent.

That is it.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Originally posted by gobsmack
I think you can do that at the PGC level, provided there are no pre or post commands. I think it is just a modifier, but I'm not seeing it in the "documentation" of DVD Author..... hmmm.

Anyone know where the "forum" for DVDAuthor lives?
dvdauthor.sourceforge.net

But it is a mailling list not a forum. Harder to search etc...

As far as I know nothing has been added yet to support play-all or random features. But the best idea is to get on and ask Scott Smith the author of that fine tool.

--jdiner

[hancocks]

Josh et al,

Thanks for the prompt reply on merging VOBS -- never saw it before because I did not try to do it through the GOPEditor -- went straight to the IFOBuilder.

As a side note: why would one ever want to join more than two? Several reasons I can think of: 1) if one is trying to use your authoring tools to re-do an existing show or movie which is more than 2GB (i.e., three or more VOBs). That was my aim here.

Thanks,

- Stu

[dsboyce8624]

Okay, maybe I'm retarded, but . . .

I installed the mips version and it works fine. So I installed it on an identical unit, and it runs, but I cannot get the list.

I also installed the regular PPC version on an S1 and it wont give me the list either.

What did I forget between the first install and the other two?

Dennis

WebMaster
TivoStuff.com

[FredThompson]

It's almost impossible to answer that question because the primary question is where there actions you konw to do but didn't? There's no harm in repeating the file transfer and enabling via chmod again so why not go through the steps again?

[dsboyce8624]

No good.

I still get the same thing:

SERVER: We got a message! buf = 'SHOWING'
Waiting for an incomming connection!

D

[FredThompson]

No, this is significantly more information than your earlier post. Given this problem is with a S1 AND a S2, you've got client-side problems. The odds of something being wrong with both installations of different code is almost non-existant. Obviously, the command to request the list of stored programs is being sent and received but you're not properly connecting to receive the data from the servers.

[eastwind]

Any chance you transferred the NowShowing.tcl file as Auto or ASCII instead of Binary? That would make a difference, but I'm not sure if that's the error you would get.

ew

[bato]

Firewall maybe? do you have norton, zonealarm or anything like that? check if they are blocking the traffic.

[dsboyce8624]

I know it has to be something I've done/not done. I used the same files on a different unit and it works fine.

No firewalls or anything, that would mess them all up equally.

D

[dsboyce8624]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Given this problem is with a S1 AND a S2, you've got client-side problems. The odds of something being wrong with both installations of different code is almost non-existant.

I don't think it's client side, I think it installer stupidity. The same client connects over the same ethernet from the same PC to the unit that works.

D

[Pr.Sinister]

Originally posted by dsboyce8624
I know it has to be something I've done/not done. I used the same files on a different unit and it works fine.

No firewalls or anything, that would mess them all up equally.

D

Are you starting tserver manually or in your rc.sysinit?

If you rae starting it manually, make sure NowShowing.tcl is in the
same directory as tserver and if you start from rc.sysinit, make
sure you specify where to find the NowShowing.tcl file.

Also make sure you have msf_stream installed and properly
chmodded.

-Pr.

[dsboyce8624]

Trying both ways till I get it working. Have all three files in and chmoded. Still the same result.

D

[dsboyce8624]

Okay, I used different files on the S2 and got it working.

Still no joy on the S1.

Anybody feelling generous enough to zip and upload their files for me?

D

[Heinrich]

WOW What a rush! My first DVD process is working fine in PowerDVD I just need to burn it via Nero. Then carry it into the other room and see.

Lost my cut of the first minute, might redo it, but, obviously I'm headed in the right direction.

[Heinrich]

Well I've tried 3X now to cut out the beginning part that's just wasted space. When I read the directions I see "Then pick the next menu option "Edit KeyFile(s)" to load each one into GopEditor and make your cuts in the tool. The results will be a .cut file of the same base name as the .ty file. This .cut file will be used automatically by TyTool throughout the rest of the process."

Hmm. I make the cuts with the brackets. I hit save cut file save cut list and get a positive dialog about the cut list being saved. Then I close the editor. I assume I should close it because when I try to VOB-MUX files it'll crash if I still have the editor open on this file. I do notice that when I reload this file the cuts are there. I'm cutting from 00:00 to 01:26.459 if that makes a difference. The only cut.

[Heinrich]

Wow, what great help! I really appreciate whoever reached through my hardware and software firewalls to lend me assistance and fix my problem. Could you tell me who you are and what you did though? I will confirm that your fix did work, thank you! What great help!!

[dsboyce8624]

Come on, anybody? Quick zip and upload.

D

[mikey]

Here You go. TyTool 8r3 tserver directory for a s1 tivo.
Hope it helps, and thanks for your great site.
Mikey

[Pr.Sinister]

Originally posted by dsboyce8624
Come on, anybody? Quick zip and upload.

D

- Rename to TServer_Working.cpio.gz

- Send to root of S1 TiVo

- gzip -d TServer_Working.cpio.gz

- cpio -idmu < ./TServer_Working.cpio

Hope it works for ya...

[dsboyce8624]

Thanks a bunch. All fixed up.

D

EDIT - Sorry, I was using Mikeys. You must have been posting at the same time as I was posting this.

Thanks anyway.

D

[JoeRod]

Im using tserver_mfs_mips6 and TyTool6r2 on a winxp box with a s1 directivo. every time i press refress on tytool i get this error.

SERVER: We got a message! buf = 'SHOWING'
syntax error in expression "*60*60"
while executing
"expr $tz*60*60"
(procedure "get_tzoffset" line 31)
invoked from within
"get_tzoffset $setuptz $daylightsavings"
(procedure "init_db" line 54)
invoked from within
"init_db"
(file "./NowShowing.tcl" line 468)

anyone know how i can fix this problem?

[bjarne]

Originally posted by JoeRod
Im using tserver_mfs_mips6 and TyTool6r2 on a winxp box with a s1 directivo. every time i press refress on tytool i get this error.


I would start by getting the latest versions of TyTool and tserver, you are quite a few versions behind. See the first post in this thread.

Also, you say you have a s1 DirecTiVo, but you seem to be using the mips version of tserver, that is not good.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by JoeRod
Im using tserver_mfs_mips6 and TyTool6r2 on a winxp box with a s1 directivo. every time i press refress on tytool i get this error.
That error has been asked and answered at least a dozen times.

6r3 is freaking ancient. Get a the latest version.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Ok boys and girls. I am finally returning to the land of the living. I can't believe how bad the flu going around locally is.

I haven't touched things since I got really sick. So nothing new to report yet. But I have a few plans and once I get a handle on everyday things again I will be posting several details.

--jdiner

[johnwill]

I can't believe how bad the flu going around locally is.

I know the feeling! I've been afraid to come back to this thread, because I sure don't want it! :eek: :) Glad to hear that you're feeling better, being sick really sucks.

[JoeRod]

Thanx for the quick reply. I got the latest tserver and tytool now tytool wont crash but when i press refresh i get this error.

SERVER: We got a message! buf = 'SHOWING'
syntax error in expression "*60*60"
while executing
"expr $tz*60*60"
(procedure "get_tzoffset" line 31)
invoked from within
"get_tzoffset $setuptz $daylightsavings"
(procedure "init_db" line 54)
invoked from within
"init_db"
(file "./NowShowing.tcl" line 468)

i can ftp fine into the tivo, i cant http into it though, any suggestions on extraction?

[Fugg]

JoeRod,

Did you also get the latest NowShowing.tcl when you got the new files? It's barfing while trying to get the timezone offset.

I did a search here for:

"get_tzoffset $setuptz $daylightsavings"

and came up with a few threads from folks who had this problem, mostly in the uk, though. They discuss how to set your timezone in NowShowing.tcl manually, although some have "fixed" it with a reboot.(??)

Good Luck!

[williamnporter]

Is there a quick way to get just the audio from a ty/vob file? I want to take a concert and dump it to CD.

Thanks

[Fugg]

In Tytool, click on "Files", then click on "Split File(s)". Select the ty file and hit "process". It will output a *.m2v and a *.m2a file.
The m2a file is the audio in mpeg layer2 format!

Good Luck!

[Perogi]

Hey guys...I've been searching for a solution to my problem all morning and finally gave up looking and decided to post my problem.

I just recently rediscovered TyTool and all its awesome new functionalities. Making a DVD is so easy now. Anyway, using TyTool and my Phillips SA, I was able to extract a show and make a vob for my compilation without a flaw. However, with the second episode I wasn't so lucky. I extracted the TY stream and tested it in Windows Media Player. It played as expected. I then made the Key file and used the GOPeditor to make my cut points.

For my options I've selected Audio #7 - Dolby and Patch Audio Holes. I then ran the VOB-Mux on the file. The resulting VOB looks okay in PowerDVD, but the sounds skips in and out at a relatively quick pace (four or five times a second). The sound is like this throughout the entire VOB.

I've tried a different Audio setting, but got the same results. I need to transcode the audio so my dvd players will play it correctly. I've also tried changing the first cut by one position on each side of the cut. I still get the same results.

I've also noticed that the time it takes to run the VOB-Mux's that result in perfect VOB files is significantly shorter then it takes when I generate the above VOB with the messed up audio.

I'm running out of ideas on how to get this stubborn TY to work. Any ideas?

One additional question while I'm asking, when I try to play a dvd authored by TyTool in my old DVD player, the video is squished up to only the left half of the screen...what's that about?

[cojonesdetoro]

Originally posted by Perogi

One additional question while I'm asking, when I try to play a dvd authored by TyTool in my old DVD player, the video is squished up to only the left half of the screen...what's that about?

This is known to happen in older DVD players. That's because the Tivo doesn't record at DVD compiant resolutions. Most DVD players will automatically stretch the video to fit on the screen.

The ultimate solution is to change the Tivo recording resolutions so they're DVD compliant. This can be done by editing the resources using tivoweb. There's a thread somewhere here on how to do this. It results in your recordings taking more space but should solve this particular problem.

[koreth]

Originally posted by cojonesdetoro
The ultimate solution is to change the Tivo recording resolutions so they're DVD compliant.
Which, it should be noted, is only possible on standalone TiVos, not DirecTiVos.

[Pete Ruttman]

Originally posted by Perogi

For my options I've selected Audio #7 - Dolby and Patch Audio Holes.

You may have tried this but I would suggest using Audio #5 and turn off patching.

pete

[Perogi]

Pete, I tried your suggestion but still got the same results.


I've attached a zip of an mp3 file which is the audio I extracted from the VOB. This way y'all can hear exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks for all the help so far!

[jmhenry5150]

Hey guys!

Now that I can create cool menu's, I want to go back and redo some of my disc sets...

My problem is, that when i copy previously burned VOB's to to the PC and reprocess them in a new compilation, the chapters no longer get created...Isn't this something I should be able to do?

Am I doing something wrong?

-Mike

[Toddler]

Originally posted by koreth
Which, it should be noted, is only possible on standalone TiVos, not DirecTiVos. Which is also one more reason why the SA TiVo is such a wonderful machine...I'll take it over a DirecTiVo any day.

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by Toddler
Which is also one more reason why the SA TiVo is such a wonderful machine...I'll take it over a DirecTiVo any day. Uh...riiight. You don't really have much experience with video encoding, do you? Your SA TiVo has analog inputs and a very simplistic encoder. If you want a prayer of matching the quality of the visible portion of a DTiVo stream you're looking at 12-15x real time with a dedicated >2GHz machine to filter and recompress, if you're lucky and your source is pure. DTiVo-compliant DVD players are about $40 or so now. You're spending more for media due to excessive bandwidth than if you got a compatible player.

[anddmx]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Uh...riiight. You don't really have much experience with video encoding, do you? Your SA TiVo has analog inputs and a very simplistic encoder. If you want a prayer of matching the quality of the visible portion of a DTiVo stream you're looking at 12-15x real time with a dedicated >2GHz machine to filter and recompress, if you're lucky and your source is pure. DTiVo-compliant DVD players are about $40 or so now. You're spending more for media due to excessive bandwidth than if you got a compatible player.

I'd be willing to invest that time to have compliant video any day. I don't think I'm alone here either.

jdiner has provided an excellent tool for us so far, and can't give him enough thanks, but compliant video would be the missing peice to this whole puzzle.

My two cents.

[ronnythunder]

you may not be alone, but i'd bet you're way in the minority. there are so many dvd players that can play dtivo stuff, and so few that can't. in fact, i wonder how many players can't handle dtivo but can do other vid burned onto dvd-r or +r.

i can't speak for josh, but i'm betting that he's not going to implement re-encoding of the entire stream just to make it dvd compliant.

if this is what you want, there are tools out there to do it. knock yourself out! :)

ronny

[koreth]

I have a DTiVo and a standalone. I think I've used the standalone maybe once in the last six months. The DTiVo looks so much cleaner, no analog artifacts at all. My DVD player plays back DTiVo discs just fine, as do the players of all the friends I've loaned discs to. So if you want fewer episodes per disc (from the increased data rate due to the higher resolution) and/or a lengthy and lossy re-encoding process, well, more power to you, but I'll stick with my DTiVo.

[FredThompson]

I'm starting to understand why Josh gets so frustrated with people who refuse to read and comprehend.

It is impossible to create standard DVD video without re-encoding DirecTiVo source. When you do that, you take a huge hit in time and quality. This is not negotiable. It is not a question of opinion, two cents, or anyone's hopes, dreams, or wildass guesses. It is a technical impossibility.

Additionally, SA TiVos create comparatively lousy MPEG2 streams compared to "offline" compression. MPEG2 has time-based components which cannot easily be calculated on the fly, especially with cheap encoding chips like those in a SA TiVo. For all the quality issues with DirecTV I-frame blockiness and fuzz in the overscan areas, their encoders cost a buttload more than your $200 retail SA TiVo. Subtract the cost of the hard drive, power supply, and A/V out circuitry from an SA TiVo and what's left for the encoding circuitry? Almost nothing.

Having said that, if you still want 100% compliance with the DVD spec, drop me a note at doom9.org and I'll gladly tell you where to spend $2000 to get appropriate hardware and software to use with a dedicated 2+ GHz PC. You can expect a maximum of 2 hours of processed source per day. Use the AviSynth script I've posted there for use with AVI2SVCD.

It will also be your fun task to figure out how you are going to record the source material at a decent resolution. Composite out? Nope, that cuts the effective resolution to 1/2 that of the DTiVo in both directions and you get all that wonderful corruption from combined signals. S-Video? Better, but still lower resolution in both dimensions. Firewire out? To what? An HDTV recorder? May as well buy a Canopus capture card if you're going to do that. Throw another $1000 into the budget. You'll need hard drives also, big ones, and more than one, better make that another $2000. Can't afford the Canopus card? Guess you're recording to analog tape or a cheap camcorder which means analog (lack of) quality or you've just halved the color resolution.

DTiVo source will never be ocmpliant with the DVD spec no matter how much anyone hopes, wishes, dreams or deludes themselves. Accept it and recognize why it's still the best option for quality video in a convenient manner. It's not perfect. It's just the best option now for the price.

[bettervideo]

Originally posted by cojonesdetoro:
The ultimate solution is to change the Tivo recording
resolutions so they're DVD compliant.

Interesting... Could someone point me to information on how
to change the Tivo recording resolution?

Thanks,
Bill

[FredThompson]

DVD compliance isn't just resolution and that statement is not correct.

The ultimate solution for DVD compliance is DVD source.

Analog cannot and will not give you D1 resolution, nor is the vast majority of available programming available at that size anyhow.

You certainly can capture at full D1 but you'll be wasting a lot of space. IOW, a 720x480 version of a 352x480 (max) analog transmission is an incredible waste of space.

[andy_ho]

If you guys really want to have a compliant DVD, why not dish out a little more $$ and get one of those Tivo with a DVD recorder? or how about just get a DVD recorder? Then everything is compliant. Just my two cents.

Originally posted by bettervideo

Interesting... Could someone point me to information on how
to change the Tivo recording resolution?

Thanks,
Bill

ummm...perhaps you didn't notice the title of the thread... TyTool Alpha #8r3, VSplit beta #3.41, DVD output...it states nothing about Tivoweb

[Toddler]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Uh...riiight. You don't really have much experience with video encoding, do you? Your SA TiVo has analog inputs and a very simplistic encoder. If you want a prayer of matching the quality of the visible portion of a DTiVo stream you're looking at 12-15x real time with a dedicated >2GHz machine to filter and recompress, if you're lucky and your source is pure. DTiVo-compliant DVD players are about $40 or so now. You're spending more for media due to excessive bandwidth than if you got a compatible player. FredThompson,

Save the insults, please, and leave me out of the camp who doesn't understand encoding and compliance issues. Yes, there are some green peas here, but I am not one of them. I'm sure others here remember buying CD-Rs at $4/each back in the day (and making a bunch of coasters, too), so DVD media is pretty affordable as far as I'm concerned. And for the things I do with my TiVo, my primary objective is compatibility.

If you think the only issue is whether I can afford a $40 player, you have a narrow way of thinking. I'll try to explain and perhaps you will realize that your way isn't necessarily the best way for everyone.

For starters, the DVD player in my 2004 Nissan Quest doesn't play 480x480, and I'd bet most factory-installed DVD units don't play 480x480 either. The sole purpose in having the DVD player in the minivan is to play DVDs of my kids' favorite shows. I never debated quality, but on the 7-inch LCD hanging from the ceiling of my Quest, the video quality of the SA TiVo looks every bit as good as it would from your DirecTiVo. It also looks wonderful on grandma and grandpa's TV, and when the kids go to friends' houses, they look great there also. The discs I make for the kids play on just about any player in anyone's house.

Again, I never debated the quality of DirecTiVo vs. SA, but I do happen to be more than satisfied with the quality. On occasions when I archive other shows, they are typically documentaries such as Nova or American Experience, or occasionally sitcoms like The Larry Sanders Show. I can get two hours at best quality or three hours at high quality on one DVD-R/RW disc. Best quality with rare exception looks just as good as the source. High quality looks nearly as good except for during brief bursts of fast-motion images. I also have the advantage of being able to record from other sources such as archiving VHS material, which can't be done with a DirecTiVo. And this may be what opens me up to your next insulting attack, but I happen to subscribe to both cable and DirecTV, and honestly, DirecTV's quality doesn't always blow me away, either. On Sundays when I flip between NFL Sunday Ticket and my local broadcasts, I sometimes prefer the local broadcast. The Sunday Ticket signals typically look soft and washed out by comparison. So if I care about the quality and it's available on DVD, I wouldn't TiVo it anyway. I'd just order the DVD.

Again, the bottom line is simply that I prefer knowing that my discs will play on just about any DVD player, now and into the future. I don't have to explain to someone why the show I recorded for them works on my player and not on theirs.

Now save your insults and school someone else next time. I know what I'm doing and I know what works for me, and I didn't belittle or insult anyone else for doing things differently. Why do you always seem compelled to do so?

Toddler

[FredThompson]

That wasn't an insult. It was an observation. If I was insulting you, you would have known it. I challenge you to show me where I've posted unprovoked insults. With my relatively high post count, it's probably happened, but very, very rarely and was most likely followed by an apology when I realized how my typed comments would have been received. Perhaps you were confusing my comment to you and the one to anddmx.

Your particular situation with the embedded player is a qualifier which you conveniently left out of your post. Had you elaborated, this wouldn't have happened.

edit: ok, in retrospect, my tone was too much of an attack. For that I apologize for that aspect of the post.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by Toddler
Which is also one more reason why the SA TiVo is such a wonderful machine...I'll take it over a DirecTiVo any day.
Hehehe. To each their own. That is all I can say. I have both types. My SA has not been powered on in 8months or more. I would never give up the smaller size of the DTivo TyStreams. To me it is better to spend $45 on a Mintek 1600, which will play DTivo streams perfectly, and get tons more on a disk.

But again to each their own. Anyone wanna buy a nice, lightly used, SATivo? :)

--jdiner

[hancocks]

Toddler, Fred,

1. Thank you for passionately stating your views.
2. Fred, thank you for apologizing.
3. Toddler, thank you for defending your honor.
4. You both know more about this stuff than I will ever learn, and I enjoy the technical knowledge you share. Naturally, I don't enjoy the barbed wrappers which occasionally creep in.
5. Please continue to pound on the facts as you know and/or see them, and don't pound on the table.

I hope you both have turkey left over...now go and enjoy some.

Regards,

- Stu

[jdiner]

Hummm....

Interesting...

Was thinking about what Toddler had written about needing compatibility etc...

I am not going to transcode the entire thing. It is possible. Infact I know how to do it. But it would be a lot of work for something that personally I am not interested in. As mentioned in a recent post by me my own personal interests lie towards the highest quality visual picture.

But I was thinking about how to best make output that was "as compatible as possible". I have had a few new ideas about that. Things that I had thought were impossible, or at least impossibly difficult, before are much more reasonable now after how much more has been learned and implemented.

Hummm. Patching up the streams could be nice for some people. For those going right to VOBs it is unneeded. For those using other tools it could be a "miracle".

I dunno. I will have to think about how involved I want to get in that end of the project. As it opens me up to tons of "XXX still fails to work with this clip"... and then my trying through trial and error to figure out what went wrong.

--jdiner

[Hi8]

I can say hands down.. as I own 2 of each... DTiVo no contest is by FAR the better box.

not to start anything here, just to set the record straight, making a statement that an SA is superior is just NOT true.

It has it's place in my home ONLY to dupe VHS or personal vids via the analog inputs to be inserted to another TiVo.

If I were just trying to encode from TAPE I wouldn't even use the SA, royal pain doing manual recordings, and or faking out a scheduled one... via unused channel. I prefer my Adaptec VideOH! PIC card for that.

I must admit, I can easily see the difference between the two boxes, and I even use the DVD comp. settings on my SA for recording. (not that I use it much)

I would also like to know if anyone wants to buy an SA (or 2)!

[johnwill]

Originally posted by jdiner
Hummm....

...

I dunno. I will have to think about how involved I want to get in that end of the project. As it opens me up to tons of "XXX still fails to work with this clip"... and then my trying through trial and error to figure out what went wrong.

--jdiner
Personally, I think your original inclination was correct, make it work for what you want it to do, then worry about all of us freeloaders! :D I'm prefectly happy to use whatever you come up with, as long as there's a way to get shows from my TiVo and put them on CD & DVD. As has been mentioned, there are several applications that will allow you to convert the output to almost anything you like. The last think I want to see is you get pulled in ten different directions and just lose interest in the whole project.
:eek: :)

[jdiner]

Man alive. I should have stopped sooner.

One should never try to program when the brain is not at 100%. I have been looking over the code I was writing at the end there. Wow is really all I can say.

Rather than a structure with 2 flags and 2 data elements, it had 4 arrays where the "idx" was used to tie all 4 of them together. What on earth what I thinking? :)

So a little recoding first and then new code to try and finish the frame accurate cutting.

At least the earlier design for everything was sound. The new cut file format will work perfectly, is easy to parse, etc...

Ugh... Just found out that Series2 streams crash the frame accurate portion of the editor. Crap even more to fix.

--jdiner

[jmhenry5150]

Hey guys - sorry to double post, but no one answered my question on using existing VOB's and recreating a disc...shouldn't the chapters work when you reprocess the disc?

I wan to recreate discs with nice menu's...I will copy the VOB's from discs and reburn...shouldn't chapters be created - like every 5 minutes if that option is selected?

[jdiner]

You will be missing the .chp file amoung other things. You don't need to cut anything, you just need to re-process the files.

Specifically what you need to do is pick the "vob mux" option. But rather than selecting a TyStream as a source file pick the .vob file as the source. It will load and process and produce a new .vob file along with the corresponding .chp file that contains the information needed for the auto-chaptering to work.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Alright the series2 issue with the frame stuff has been solved. Does no good to figure out everythind and then just drop it. :)

How that bug ever got carried along that far...

--jdiner

[Kevin Clark]

I put the tserver_mfs7 file in my /var/hack directory. I want to put a command in my rc.sysinit.author so it will run on boot and not have to manually run it each time. Would I enter it into my *.author file as: ./var/hack/tserver_mfs7?

Or - no period: /var/hack/tserver_mfs7?

[DeathLemur]

Here's something that I've had a question about for a while. I'll extract a .ty file, make the .key file, create the .cut file, and then create the multiplexed .mpg file from that. The problem is that the final .mpg file still thinks that its the time length of the original .ty file.

So far, I've just been using the Merge & Cut tool in TMPGEnc to manually set the end point of the file and rebuilding it. Is there any better way of doing this?

[Toddler]

To recap:

Originally posted by Perogi
One additional question while I'm asking, when I try to play a dvd authored by TyTool in my old DVD player, the video is squished up to only the left half of the screen...what's that about?Originally posted by cojonesdetoro
The ultimate solution is to change the Tivo recording resolutions so they're DVD compliant.Originally posted by Koreth
Which, it should be noted, is only possible on standalone TiVos, not DirecTiVos.Originally posted by Toddler
Which is also one more reason why the SA TiVo is such a wonderful machine...I'll take it over a DirecTiVo any day.Originally posted by FredThompson
Uh...riiight. You don't really have much experience with video encoding, do you?Originally posted by Toddler
Save the insults, please, and leave me out of the camp who doesn't understand encoding and compliance issues. Yes, there are some green peas here, but I am not one of them.

(snip)

For starters, the DVD player in my 2004 Nissan Quest doesn't play 480x480, and I'd bet most factory-installed DVD units don't play 480x480 either. The sole purpose in having the DVD player in the minivan is to play DVDs of my kids' favorite shows. I never debated quality, but on the 7-inch LCD hanging from the ceiling of my Quest, the video quality of the SA TiVo looks every bit as good as it would from your DirecTiVo. It also looks wonderful on grandma and grandpa's TV, and when the kids go to friends' houses, they look great there also. The discs I make for the kids play on just about any player in anyone's house.

(snip)

Again, the bottom line is simply that I prefer knowing that my discs will play on just about any DVD player, now and into the future. I don't have to explain to someone why the show I recorded for them works on my player and not on theirs.

Now save your insults and school someone else next time. I know what I'm doing and I know what works for me, and I didn't belittle or insult anyone else for doing things differently. Why do you always seem compelled to do so?Originally posted by FredThompson
That wasn't an insult. It was an observation. If I was insulting you, you would have known it. I challenge you to show me where I've posted unprovoked insults.

(snip)

Your particular situation with the embedded player is a qualifier which you conveniently left out of your post. Had you elaborated, this wouldn't have happened.

[Toddler]

FredThompson,

That last post of yours is exactly the kind of garbage I am talking about. What do you mean "conveniently" left out of my post? My original statement was a half-sentence reply saying that DVD compatibility was the reason I prefer the SA to the DTiVo. Why can't I just make that statement and be done with it?

And how exactly is it "convenient" that I left that out of my original post? That implies that I owe it to you to somehow pre-cognitively deduce that you need all possible information or else you'll pick apart my simple half-sentence of praise for the SA TiVo.

And I love how you say it's my fault that this "happened," as you put it. My fault, because had I provided every nuance of detail in the first place, you wouldn't have come off your rocker and started shooting off your mouth before you had all the facts? Sorry, Fred, but when that happens it's your fault, not mine.

You didn't insult me? When you said, "Uh...riiight. You don't really have much experience with video encoding, do you?", you just made an observation? Come on.

Ok, take this for what it's worth. Broadcast journalism was one of my majors in college, and while it's faded into a part-time freelance thing for me over the last ten years, I am still pretty familiar with pro gear and the like. I happen to have a DV REX M1 system that's been in storage since I moved a year ago. It it top of the line? Not anymore, although it's not shabby at all. It's sitting next to a Sony U-Matic 3/4" deck (don't ask) that hasn't been plugged into power in years. The Compaq Proliant 3000 with eight 18.2 GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drives on a Smart 3200 array controller that was to be for video storage has now become an Exchange 2K3 server sitting in my garage. My Sony VX2000 I actually use all the time. The rest of that gear is the result of a business deal gone bad.

Does it take equipment like that to make a DVD that will keep my kids happy on road trips? Nope. That's why that stuff hasn't been hooked up since I moved. The SA TiVo does everything I need just fine.

I'll leave it at this. You did insult me, and yes I am not taking it well. You know your stuff, I'm not disputing that. But I've been here a while and I've never felt the need to say what I do or don't know until now. And the only reason I've done so here is because you arrogantly assume that no one here does know their stuff, at least not remotely close to you.

I did nothing to insult you, did nothing to bash DirecTiVo fans, didn't ask for Josh to transcode video, didn't say anything factually incorrect. The SA TiVo is a wonderful machine. So is the DirecTiVo. All I said was that compatibility is yet another reason I love my SA TiVo, which suits my needs better than a DirecTiVo any day. Why do you have to find fault with that?

No one here should have to provide a list of qualifications to make such a simple statement as I did. It stands on its own, and why you took such issue with it, I do not understand.

Unless it is because you're an elitist, arrogant, stuck-up who thinks he knows better than anyone else, and to whom the thought never occurred that perhaps someone has perfectly valid reasons for doing things differently.

Toddler

[jdiner]

Alright. Things are repaired and caught back up to where I thought I was at when I got so sick I couldn't continue.

Scarily enough it is like the plague swept through here. One of my co-workers also get strep from his neice or nephew. When he went to the insta-care emergency room to get checked out they also did a blood screen for Scarlet Fever. Apparently about 20% of the people going in for strep around here and up in Boise are also contracting Scarlet Fever. Wow. Just scary stuff...

So anyway, what comes next is the necessary editing changes to get things to work for the frame accurate part.

--jdiner

[FredThompson]

Q: Why "Convenient?"

A: Read your post which started this. It's pure troll spit.

You should be mature enough to see that, admit it, and take responsibility. Only later did you qualify your comment in your first explosive diatribe.

I've already acknowledged and apologized for the attacking aspect of my replies and stated that your scenario of a non-SVCD player certainly changes things and makes sense.

I do not, in any way, shape, or form take responsibility for your troll post, be it intentional or not or your part to post what you did as opposed to what you probably meant to post nor will I claim any responsibility for your continued tantrum.

I will also not respond to you on this matter again.

[Toddler]

"Troll post?" "Explosive diatribe?" I recapped the entire thread, and the complete text of my original post was "Which is also one more reason why the SA TiVo is such a wonderful machine...I'll take it over a DirecTiVo any day." How is that "trolling?" I shouldn't have had to qualify that comment to satisfy your arrogant elitism.

You truly insist on seeing things your way and your way only. If you honestly think that statement was "troll spit" then you're just plain crazy.

[jdiner]

Enough. Take it elsewhere. You both got a chance to explain or whatever. Any further posts on the subject in this thread will be summarily deleted.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

You know. I think I am going to change the editing process for the whole thing a bit.

Not the GopEditor but how edits are done.

I am thinking that if I do what I have in mind then I can remove the decoder problems at the end on a normal GOP cut as well. Seems like it should work pretty well. It will slow things down a touch as re-encoding will then be required even if frame-accurate is not being done.

Thoughts?

--jdiner

[bato]

jdiner, if you think it will be better, go for it. And before anyone ask, the re-encoding will be only in the edit points and not the whole file, that's why jdiner say "slow things down a touch".

I think that "remove ______ problems" is always a good thing.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by jdiner
re-encoding will then be required even if frame-accurate is not being done.

Thoughts?--jdiner I'll bet that change will make many users stick with the older versions, especially if they use TyTool with third party apps. I realize of'course, that compatability with other apps such as DVD Lab (which works great with your program 'now') is not a priority for you. I am probably missing something here as I have not a clear understanding of the whole re-encoding issue. Please understand I am not complaining. I love TyTool and I use it for everything.

[FredThompson]

When you cut on the GOP boundaries, you're just removing unwanted GOPs, correct? Frame-accurate cutting requires re-encoding the remaining portions of the affected GOPs, correct?

What are you thinking about re-encoding in addition to that?

[snoopy]

Originally posted by bato
I think that "remove ______ problems" is always a good thing. I hear that! Like I said, I don't think I have a clear enough understanding of the re-encoding issue.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by FredThompson
When you cut on the GOP boundaries, you're just removing unwanted GOPs, correct? Frame-accurate cutting requires re-encoding the remaining portions of the affected GOPs, correct?

What are you thinking about re-encoding in addition to that?
The MPEG2 streams from a tivo, DTivo or SATivo makes no difference are not closed. Simplest possible definition of this is that it means that the last 2 B-Frames of GOP #1 require the I-Frame of GOP #2 to decode properly.

Right now with the way cutting works if things are not black on both sides of a cut you get an improper decode, sometimes severely so, and it looks ugly.

That is all...

--jdiner

[Toddler]

Everything works great for me already as is, so everything from here on out is just more icing on the cake.

Do what makes sense, Josh..I trust you. You've brought us this far.

[FredThompson]

Ah, OK, probably better to re-encode those so it all works well.

[bato]

Originally posted by jdiner
Right now with the way cutting works if things are not black on both sides of a cut you get an improper decode, sometimes severely so, and it looks ugly. I have some shows without fade in/out to black, so I have to cut where a picture is showing, the end results are some big blocks from the other picture in the last 2 or so frames before the cut. I guess this is what you are saying, it looks ugly indeed.

Is great that now your tool is changing from working status to getting better files/more options status, that's what I call evolution. Maybe is time to call TyTool Beta and not Alpha? ;)

[knightesarmor]

First off, this has got to be the greatest tool for Tivo extraction to date! Hats off to Josh for putting together such a great project!

Now that the ass kissing is complete, let me ask a small favor for the next release of TyTool. I would like to see the ability to change the size of the each window.

I currently use this TyTool on my HTPC which runs at 856x480p and I can't see some of the options at the bottom of the pages (especially the main window).

I'm not sure how this could be accomplished, but a simple scrollbar would be fine by me (I'm used to it by now on this computer!).

Thanks again for such a great tool!

Knightesarmor

[TiVo_CRAZEE]

jdiner

I was wondering if your GOP editor could be used to output a native Ty file after editing. This would enable re-insertion onto the TiVo of commercial free video. If there is another way to do this I would be very interested.

[Toddler]

Originally posted by TiVo_CRAZEE
jdiner

I was wondering if your GOP editor could be used to output a native Ty file after editing. This would enable re-insertion onto the TiVo of commercial free video. If there is another way to do this I would be very interested. That's a cool idea. The cuts would have to be pretty raw though, I'd assume. Something like that isn't as useful to me as other suggestions such as a menuless DVD option which others have mentioned.

Along those lines, however, I just bought a PrismIQ (www.prismiq.com (http://www.prismiq.com) ) which allows you to stream MPEG2, DIVX, VOBs, MP3s, Internet radio, JPEGs, etc. from your PC to your A/V setup. It's not the Holy Grail, but it's got a lot of potential. You could play your edited MPEG2 files with this device and free up the space on your TiVo.

[johnwill]

Is it really practical to stuff the .TY files back onto the TiVo? What do you really accomplish by doing that over just cooking a DVD-RW and erasing them when you're done? Even with a 120gig drive, I still want to move stuff off the TiVo, not put it onto it. :)

[Toddler]

My daughter is 2 years old and knows how to play shows on the TiVo. The DVD player, however, is off limits. So I could envision putting a few shows back onto the TiVo for the kids. That's one scenario.

[amgqmp1]

Originally posted by Toddler
My daughter is 2 years old and knows how to play shows on the TiVo. The DVD player, however, is off limits. So I could envision putting a few shows back onto the TiVo for the kids. That's one scenario.

That's a scenario I've had run by me a few times from co-workers already. Not sure how often I'd use it, but, pushing content back into the TiVo would be cool...but not important (for me anyways). ;)

[johnwill]

Originally posted by Toddler
My daughter is 2 years old and knows how to play shows on the TiVo. The DVD player, however, is off limits. So I could envision putting a few shows back onto the TiVo for the kids. That's one scenario.
My daughters are 26 & 30, and they don't know how to run the TiVo, but they can handle DVD's just fine. :p

[eastwind]

Originally posted by johnwill
My daughters are 26 & 30, and they don't know how to run the TiVo, but they can handle DVD's just fine. :p

Sounds like they're leading a sheltered life.... ;)

[eastwind]

Originally posted by Toddler
My daughter is 2 years old and knows how to play shows on the TiVo. The DVD player, however, is off limits. So I could envision putting a few shows back onto the TiVo for the kids. That's one scenario.

Riley (rc3105) addressed this in another thread:

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30007

ew

[Just4Fun]

I've been reading these forums long enough to know that sometimes, particularly under Windows XP, TyTool can crash. I've never been able to find a rhyme or reason to it. Also, of late, I've not had any problems. However I've been collecting Stargate episodes on my local HD and deleting them from my TiVo (DirecTiVo Sony Sat T-60). My workstation is runing Windows XP with no service packs, although most of the patches have been applied.

I've created dozens of DVD's without error. In this case I took one particular episode (well, I do 8 at a time to make sure I can fill a DVD but I've isolated it to one file now) and made the key file. The first time I edited the file, then when it failed I deleted everything but the .ty file and started again and this time didn't edit the key file. In both cases when I go to VOB-Mux the file it immediately fails and the program crashes and posts an error. I'm attaching the error text, in case it's helpful.

I don't think there's any need to troubleshoot this but I'm curious to know what others have done to correct this. I tried to search the forums but the search function doesn't seem to be working at this moment. I'll probably try creating the key file and VOB-Muxing it on a Win98SE machine. I can't re-download the file from TiVo, which seems to be the usual fix, because the files have been deleted. I don't know what else to try. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

[jdiner]

Alright. I have decided for now to leave the normal editing mode alone. There will be no fixing of the "not on black" GOP cutting. Perhaps at some point in the future.

For right now the plan is that you will be able to pick via the GUI whether to use Frame accurate or not. If you pick yes and it is not there in the cut file, i.e. things made before, it will fall back to the old code.

1- If no FAE, you get exactly the same code that is in use now.

2- If you do want FAE then you will get the new code.

I am still working on getting things with the new editor to work better. It is a much more complex algorithm and I realized there were a few cases I did not consider in the quick pass I had made before to test things out.

--jdiner

[bato]

Originally posted by jdiner
Alright. I have decided for now to leave the normal editing mode alone. I think this is better for the time being, to many changes could drive to :confused:

I guess the new code (for FAE) will smooth the transition from one cut to the other (closing GOPs) so we will not have the problem mentioned with this code, only if we use the old code, right?

So in some way, we will have a "fix" for the problem but we have to select the new mode to use it, if I can read the problem/comments/changes correctly.

[FredThompson]

Sure seems that way. If this setting is sticky, 5 will get you 10 FAE will become the most common way to edit cuts.

Hmmm...In FAE mode, would cuts on a GOP boundary still be handled as FAE? If so, is there really a good reason for GOP-level editing?

Wouldn't two movement modes through the timeline (GOP and frame) be sufficient and everything is treated as FAE? Granted, you'd see some recompression of a few B frames where a GOP cut wouldn't normally affect them but the interface would be a lot simpler.

[jdiner]

Simpler how? What is it that you are thinking?

--jdiner

[jdiner]

I was thinking about the setting for FAE and realized that the answer is a bit simpler than what I was thinking. If no frames are specified then it is all GOP level cutting and would do that as appropriate. If even 1 frame is selected it means that FAE level editing must be used. Thus it could all be automatic.

EDIT: Crap. Up way to late I guess...

--jdiner

[FredThompson]

"Simpler" from a user and documentation aspect. Essentially, the user moves through the timeline and marks first and last frames to cut. I'm visualizing something similar to key frame/individual frame movement in VirtualDub since I haven't seen your working test interface, this is all I have to go on.

tytool processess all cuts as if they were FAE to remove the edge B-frame issues. (OK, that part gets cleaned up later if I properly understand your post from earlier tonight.) The user doesn't specify the "type" of cut, just where to do it.

The documentation would be easier than describing 2 different modes, I hope; "Move to the first frame to remove, mark it as the 'start', move to the last frame to remove, mark it as the 'end.' There are 2 kinds of moves, GOP and individual frames, GOP jumps a number of frames at a time."

You meant "FAE" in the 3rd line of the post immediately preceeding this one. Late night, huh?

[TiVo_CRAZEE]

Originally posted by Just4Fun
I don't think there's any need to troubleshoot this but I'm curious to know what others have done to correct this.

I have had the same problem and found that you can use "another tool" to create an edited MPG file that you can then VOB in Tytool to include in the DVD creator.

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by FredThompson
"Simpler" from a user and documentation aspect. Essentially, the user moves through the timeline and marks first and last frames to cut. I'm visualizing something similar to key frame/individual frame movement in VirtualDub since I haven't seen your working test interface, this is all I have to go on.

tytool processess all cuts as if they were FAE to remove the edge B-frame issues. (OK, that part gets cleaned up later if I properly understand your post from earlier tonight.) The user doesn't specify the "type" of cut, just where to do it.

The documentation would be easier than describing 2 different modes, I hope; "Move to the first frame to remove, mark it as the 'start', move to the last frame to remove, mark it as the 'end.' There are 2 kinds of moves, GOP and individual frames, GOP jumps a number of frames at a time."

You meant "FAE" in the 3rd line of the post immediately preceeding this one. Late night, huh?

How can that be? You can't mark where you want the transition now some without over/undershoot. That's why you have to go into FAE mode, to "dial-in" the exact point to have it cut. It's like sliding a caliper to the nearest 1/4", then using the vernier dial to get exact. At least that's how my feeble brain interprets it.

[Toddler]

I haven't edited in TyTool in months, so I hope this makes sense:

How about a GOP toggle button on the edit window that would switch your edit points and video preview between FAE and GOP editing mode? That way depending on which mode you are in, basically what you see is what you get.

Or you could have all edit window operations performed in FAE mode, but then if you hit the GOP toggle button it would align your edit on the nearest GOP (or toggle back to FAE if you didn't like what you saw).

Advantages are (1) simple for young and old alike, since what you see is what you get, and (2) it gives control to the user, so that you would only need to do certain edits in FAE mode if you weren't satisfied with what you would get cutting on the GOP.

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by BubbleLamp
How can that be? You can't mark where you want the transition now some without over/undershoot. That's why you have to go into FAE mode, to "dial-in" the exact point to have it cut. It's like sliding a caliper to the nearest 1/4", then using the vernier dial to get exact. At least that's how my feeble brain interprets it. IIRC, Josh based the interface of GopEditor on VirtualDub. OK, let's use that as a starting point. If you don't already have it, get VirtualDub-MPEG2 here: http://fcchandler.home.comcast.net

Load an MPEG2 file you've created with tytool into VirtualDub-MPEG2.

Shift-left and shift-right will move between key frames; the I-frame which starts each GOP. Left and right move by individual frames. The display at the bottom shows you some info including the frame type (I, P or B.)

Another analogy might be that of a dictionary with those scallops on the edge to quickly get to a starting letter. After that you flip by page (or groups of pages but that breaks the analogy...)

What I'm proposing is one display type with 2 different movement modes. My hunch is this will make the interface less complex and generate far fewer questions/complaints about how to use it.

Granted, I have no clear idea of Josh's current design wrt GOP vs. FSE editing modes nor do I know how this design idea might help/hurt his design.

Hmm...you know, a tystream read codec in combination with VirtualDub-MPEG2 might be a good solution to bypass the issues some people have with recompression. Suppose someone wants absolute DVD-compliant streams (720x480, GOP of 18, 48 kHz., etc.) They can do the retrieval with tytool and generate an MPEG then load it into VirtualDub-MPEG2 and remove whatever sections they want, resize if necessary, resample the audio, etc. then frameserve to an encoder. Hmmm...think I'll write a how-to on this for the tytool site...

[Toddler]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Hmm...you know, a tystream read codec in combination with VirtualDub-MPEG2 might be a good solution to bypass the issues some people have with recompression. Suppose someone wants absolute DVD-compliant streams (720x480, GOP of 18, 48 kHz., etc.) They can do the retrieval with tytool and generate an MPEG then load it into VirtualDub-MPEG2 and remove whatever sections they want, resize if necessary, resample the audio, etc. then frameserve to an encoder. Hmmm...think I'll write a how-to on this for the tytool site... That's nothing new, some of us have been doing this all along with MPEG2VCR.

[FredThompson]

I didn't say it's new, just not well documented. If you're going to recompress an entire stream anyhow, there's a lot which can be done to clean it up, especially composite source.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by BubbleLamp
How can that be? You can't mark where you want the transition now some without over/undershoot. That's why you have to go into FAE mode, to "dial-in" the exact point to have it cut. It's like sliding a caliper to the nearest 1/4", then using the vernier dial to get exact. At least that's how my feeble brain interprets it.
That is almost exactly how I have been thinking about it. Mental images and all. You do a quick rough alignment and then get more exact.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Originally posted by Toddler
That's nothing new, some of us have been doing this all along with MPEG2VCR.
Mpeg2vcr is a cutter. Not a generic re-encoder like FredThompson was talking about.

--jdiner

[Toddler]

MPEG2VCR reencodes as well if you tell it to.

[Toddler]

Originally posted by FredThompson
I didn't say it's new, just not well documented. If you're going to recompress an entire stream anyhow, there's a lot which can be done to clean it up, especially composite source. I've been pointing people to the thread I created on using TyTool and MPEG2VCR together for MPEG editing:

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=107940#post107940

Your post prompted me to update it with the latest information. Maybe that is not as complete as you were looking for, or maybe it is. I'm not trying to "troll spit" or whatever. Feel free to use it or ignore it completely.

I've only tried recompressing an entire stream once, when I wanted to take The Civil War series from 480x480 to 720x480 or 352x480. Tried both resolutions at supposedly high-quality settings within MPEG2VCR and TMPGEnc and was quite unhappy with the results. I still have the ty files on one of my servers, so if you have suggestions, I'd be curious to do more experiments. I'll look at Virtual Dub if it's a better tool.

Also please let us know if or when you put together a how-to document.

[jdiner]

Originally posted by Toddler
MPEG2VCR reencodes as well if you tell it to.
But doesn't do user pickable resizing, cropping, letterbox'ing, luma or chroma filtering, sharpness filtering, and so on.

I am not knocking it. They do what they do well. But I have seen very few packages that provide the feature set of VirtualDub and it's derivatives. And for the price? VDub can't be beat.

But the argument is academic. Everyone will use what they want to use. You don't use my stuff for much of anything and have obvious favorites in other tools, but don't seem to want to allow anyone else favorites.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Ok. Before I touch off another flame war of any sort let me try to clarify a few things from my perspective.

I have as strong an opinion as to what to use as anyone else here on the forum. But I try my best to respect the rights of others to do as they see fit and use whatever best suits them.

I obvious use the DVD creation features of TyTool, and the program it uses DVDAuthor from Scott Smith.

We also have equally rabid fans of mpeg2vcr, dvdlab, ULeads tools, and so on and so on.

I will restate what I have said here and what I have said before. You whatever best suits you and your purposes.

Having said that the tone of this thread has become quite confrontational lately. So I am asking everyone to back down a notch or two. Fight elsewhere if you want to fight.

To try and help with this I am going to ask that people stop with the "use XXX to use anything else makes you a moron" type of posts. Have your favorites. Use whatever you want. But as per the "charter" if you will for this thread leave all of the rest of it.

If things heat up again I will start removing the posts that seem over the top to me.

Keep in mind that in general the rest of the forum is fair game. Post whatever else doesn't fit here perfectly in another thread or a new one.

Thanks,
--jdiner

[BikerChic]

I am sure this has been asked 100 times but I can't seem to find an answer.

I have about 8, 30 minute movies that I want to combine into one file or somehow make it so it goes to the next vob automatically without having to select it.

I greatly appreciate your replies and thanks to Josh for a wonderful program.

[Toddler]

Originally posted by jdiner
You don't use my stuff for much of anything and have obvious favorites in other tools, but don't seem to want to allow anyone else favorites.Good lord, Josh, what are you talking about? I've never once knocked anyone else's way of doing things. Far from it. I actually feel like the one who gets knocked for not doing things the "right" way.

I told someone here that the SA TiVo is more useful to me than a DTiVo, and I was challenged to justify that simple statement, which I never even expected to be controversial. Then I was chastized for not providing more information to support that statement in the first place after my explanation actually made sense. Had I known it was going to make me an outcast, I'd have just taken the punches and let it go.

This time I was just trying to be helpful and let Fred know he might be reinventing the wheel, because whenever I see someone with a SA TiVo ask about needing DVD-legal content, I point them to the thread I wrote about that. It's not a contest to see which way is best, it's just an attempt to help.

As soon as Fred posted about Virtual Dub I downloaded it to take a look. If there's a better way to do things, I'm not stupid. I'll take the better way every time. And I'm getting really excited about your latest work. It sounds like I may be jumping on the "TyTool only" bandwagon if all goes as it seems.

I am truly confused as to how I managed to make any enemies here. Somewhere along the way I must have really pissed you off. I know the rules prohibit advertising for other products. I didn't know it prohibited mentioning them when it's a help to someone with a need. Do you get mad when I point people to the TyTool & MPEG2VCR thread I put together? If so, you've never said so. You don't seem to mind mentioning Virtual Dub, but if I mention MPEG2VCR you seem to go ballistic. Or maybe that's the Scarlet Fever talking. ;)

I'm sorry for whatever I did to provoke your criticism. Maybe you could back it down a notch yourself.

Chilling out now....

[BubbleLamp]

I say move them all to a Toddler/Thompson thread. :rolleyes:

And you all said here we go again to me?:confused:

:D :D :D

[FredThompson]

What I meant was I'll put together a how-to for using VirtulaDub-MPEG2 to modify and re-encode MPEG2 streams after they've been tytooled.

The intent is two-fold:

1) Show people how to create output other than tytool's product so they can have what they want/need. If someone wants 15 fps for their PalmOS device, fine, they'll have the basics of how to read into VirtualDub-MPEG2 and they can go elsewhere to learn how turn that into other formats.

2) Relieve Josh of what turns into ongoing annoyance at the constant requests from people for output tytool can't give them.

How-to instructions for GUI interfaces just don't work well in a text-only forum format.

--

Oh, yeah, almost forgot my reply to BubbleButt.

ppphphphbhbhbhbhfhfbfbfbfhfbfbfbftfftftffttttttt!!!!

[jdiner]

Originally posted by Toddler
Good lord, Josh, what are you talking about? I've never once knocked anyone else's way of doing things. Far from it. I actually feel like the one who gets knocked for not doing things the "right" way.


Ummm. Ok. I must have read way more into some of the comments from to me directly than was ever intended. Several times I have added features or fixes for things you sent me to be told you were going to use something else anyway. I always appriciate getting to solve more and more of the damaged stream issues. Helps out everyone including myself. Then you said that you primarily use TyStudio because it produces a more compatible MPEG PS file. In several posts you have brought up the compatibility issues as the main problem for you. After a flurry of requests for more compatible output I posted that I knew what to do to fix it and that at some point I would do so.

That is the history of the situation for me as far as I know it. All I meant by what I said was that. You have chosen another tool. And that is fine.

The rest of my post was general and for everyone. It was not intended directly for you any more than anyone else. I was just lazy I guess and put it all in 1 post.

I just want the conflicts in here to stop. If you or anyone else wants to use mpeg2vcr or dvdlab or tmpgenc or whatever the feel free but know that there are well known issues. The fighting recently seems to be about various alternative tools. Hence my request that it all be discussed somewhere else in whatever detail people want to discuss it in.

I have no problem with people using other tools. But I feel no impulse to support TyTool in such use or in general the use of these other tools. That is what I feel the mentioned mpeg2vcr thread is for, the DVDlab thread is for, etc... There is lots of good information there in various places for those that want to use whatever... with as many work arounds as people have found.


I am truly confused as to how I managed to make any enemies here. Somewhere along the way I must have really pissed you off. I know the rules prohibit advertising for other products. I didn't know it prohibited mentioning them when it's a help to someone with a need. Do you get mad when I point people to the TyTool & MPEG2VCR thread I put together? If so, you've never said so. You don't seem to mind mentioning Virtual Dub, but if I mention MPEG2VCR you seem to go ballistic.

Not trying to make or be enemies. I am not upset now nor was I earlier when I wrote what I did. I just want things to calm down a bit and that was what I was trying to do. Not take one last pot shot before declaring the subject off limits.

As for mpeg2vcr I guess I have kind of been beaten down by the users of it demanding various things from me in regards to it. I know about all of the compatibility issues with it. They are not trivial to fix or I would have done so long ago. They have one of the "dumbest" mux'ers I have seen yet, as it ignores almost everything in the mux past the first GOP's worth of data. Everything from that point appears to be assumed. The way TyTool does it's cutting screws with that tool completely.

As for VirtualDub I used it for a very long time. Right up until I had the DVD stuff working infact. I have never used the new MPEG2 version. I used DVD2AVI, the fixed version, to frame serve into VDub and then cropped, color converted, sharpened etc... and then finaly recompressed into DIVX video with MP3 audio. Had the process perfected with no A/V drift at all. But it would only play on a computer. Like so many I wanted more generic playback, so I added DVD support and went that route ever since.

--jdiner

[Toddler]

Originally posted by jdiner
Several times I have added features or fixes for things you sent me to be told you were going to use something else anyway. I always appriciate getting to solve more and more of the damaged stream issues. Helps out everyone including myself. Then you said that you primarily use TyStudio because it produces a more compatible MPEG PS file. In several posts you have brought up the compatibility issues as the main problem for you. After a flurry of requests for more compatible output I posted that I knew what to do to fix it and that at some point I would do so.God, I must be PMSing, but this is so frustrating. I think maybe I see where things got off track.

Yes, I had worked with you through PMs at one point to send you damaged stream elements, which I thought was great, but it certainly wasn't something I demanded. As you said, it does help everyone out, which I was excited to do. That damaged stream issue is the only "feature" I've ever asked you for that you've added, if you want to call it that. When else have have I sent you anything, or when else have you added any features I suggested? Never.

However, at that time, many (perhaps most) of us were doing menus in other applications, and I asked if you were aware that TyStudio's output didn't have the audio sync issues that I was getting from your output. I also praised MPEG2VCRs editing interface, you asked what I liked about it and so I told you. At that time I did say I would probably keep using MPEG2VCR anyway for a couple of reasons. I felt it was appropriate to mention that so that you didn't have the impression I was suggesting you change something solely for my benefit. It certainly wasn't meant to be offensive. It was just to say that, although I wouldn't benefit from any MPEG2VCR-inspired changes you might make to the editor, others might. I thought that was fairly obvious, and that was the end of that.

Flash forward to when you recently asked how many people wanted you to pursue more accurate editing options in TyTool (before you realized FAE was possible). I replied that I was more interested in your other goals, since the process I follow leaves TyTool by then anyway. I didn't mean it as a slam or insult, but you seemed to take it that way. I honestly only meant that as representative of whatever number of us here don't use TyTool as an editor and thought I was giving the kind of feedback you had solicited.

Someone else brought up making TyTool's MPEG output more compatible as being the number one thing they would like to see. I believe I told the guy that you had already addressed that as being on the back burner list of things to do, and that the tone of his request was rather rude besides. I pointed him to my MPEG2VCR thread since he seemed to be doing things similarly to me and then asked him to chill out. You gave him a bit of a thrashing, which he fully deserved. Maybe in your recollection of things you attributed the comments he made to me? Is that possible?

Also at that time, someone else here mentioned that they had read the thread I put together and that it had helped them, but that they were using TyTool's output with MPEG2VCR with no problems. Through that dialogue, we discovered that the patch audio holes setting was the only difference between our processes, and after testing things, I'm doing it that way also with no issues.

I've updated my thread with that information and now tell people to use TyTool rather than TyStudio.

And as I've stated here multiple times recently, I am completely satisfied with TyTool as it stands today, and I'm not asking for or expecting anything more. Everything from this point on is icing on the cake, I believe is exactly what I've said.

Whenever I've offered a comment here, I've really tried to do it as a suggestion, not a demand. I've criticized others for being too demanding before. I feel like I had been a decent contributor, fairly helpful and positive. But I guess not.

I'll stop defending myself anymore. I love this forum, but somehow my reputation here got way off track and suddenly I'm the bad guy. First Fred jumps me over a statement so absolutely trivial it feels foolish to even have to defend it. Now I've inadvertently stoked Josh's ire, too. Maybe I just need to stay away for a while and let things simmer down.

I'll just say I'm truly sorry for everything and leave things at that.

Long live TyTool.

[gobsmack]

Originally posted by BikerChic
I am sure this has been asked 100 times but I can't seem to find an answer.

I have about 8, 30 minute movies that I want to combine into one file or somehow make it so it goes to the next vob automatically without having to select it.

I greatly appreciate your replies and thanks to Josh for a wonderful program. ]

Your question got lost in a sea of "i'm not flaming" flames...

I believe Josh is working on this feature -- it is possible to do using DVDAuthor, which is a utility that TyTool uses to generate the DVD VOBs. However, Josh has mentioned that DVDAuthor is releasing different versions every other day, so he may not have yet finalized (nor released) a version to do what you ask.

If I'm mistaken, someone here will correct me politely, but your question deserved an answer.

[gobsmack]

I normally like tuning in to this thread to see what Josh is up to.

I would like to mention to others that there is an "ignore user" feature on this board which will allow you to tune someone out for a few days or forever.

To use it, click on "User CP" at the top of the page, then on the tab labeled "Ignore List". You'll see a couple of fields there for usernames. If you want to ignore more than the two fields shown, just enter the first two then go back to the list -- it will keep adding 2 blank lines on every visit.

Maintaining swiss neutrality, albeit with ears closed,

gobs

[PetePeters]

I know we're nto supposed to notice but it does seem like people are piling on Toddler. Now telling people to ignore hiim compltely seems pretty harsh, gobsmack. plus that comes after he said he's taking break from the board. Mayeb I like drama way to much but Ive actually been following it all and except for being defnsive I'm not sure what he did wrong either.

I've got great info from lots of people here, even Toddler. His thread was a big help when i knew nothing. I havent tried the patch audio holes yet, hopefully, that fixes things for me too.

-Pete-

[gobsmack]

Originally posted by PetePeters
I know we're nto supposed to notice but it does seem like people are piling on Toddler. Now telling people to ignore hiim compltely seems pretty harsh, gobsmack. plus that comes after he said he's taking break from the board. Mayeb I like drama way to much but Ive actually been following it all and except for being defnsive I'm not sure what he did wrong either.

I've got great info from lots of people here, even Toddler. His thread was a big help when i knew nothing. I havent tried the patch audio holes yet, hopefully, that fixes things for me too.

-Pete-

Pete, you'll notice I didn't mention anyone by name. I've found Toddler's material to be great, and I've enjoyed threads from Fred and Bubble, too.

People come to this thread for different reasons, and for some, the ignore feature may help them to achieve a better signal-to-noise ratio.

[bato]

You can also search for all jdiner's posts (not threads) if you are in a hurry to only read updates from him.

I don't know if the next link will work, but is a search for jdiner's posts in the last week. link (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=460924&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending)

[eastwind]

Originally posted by BikerChic
I am sure this has been asked 100 times but I can't seem to find an answer.

I have about 8, 30 minute movies that I want to combine into one file or somehow make it so it goes to the next vob automatically without having to select it.

I greatly appreciate your replies and thanks to Josh for a wonderful program.

Here's a link to a post by jdiner that will show how to do it at least one way (I couldn't get the second option to work):

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=106100#post106100

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by PetePeters
I know we're nto supposed to notice but it does seem like people are piling on Toddler. Now telling people to ignore hiim compltely seems pretty harsh, gobsmack. plus that comes after he said he's taking break from the board. Mayeb I like drama way to much but Ive actually been following it all and except for being defnsive I'm not sure what he did wrong either.

I've got great info from lots of people here, even Toddler. His thread was a big help when i knew nothing. I havent tried the patch audio holes yet, hopefully, that fixes things for me too.

-Pete-
Funny, I read the post about "ignore user" and thought it was meant for me.

Defending yourself is fine. I freely admitted, after I'd cooled down, that some aspect of what I typed was inappropriate attacking.

However, his posts went far beyond the topic into repetitive character attack and refusal to recognize any view other than his own whilst accusing me of doing so. I'd apologized and, I thought, clearly stated his particular need certainly validated his initial statement.

All he had to do was look at his initial post objectively and recognize how it could be received then state that and allow me the grace of forgiveness, especially after I'd apologized and tried to explain how I saw his post. Unfortunately, that's not the path he chose.

I don't hold a grudge against him. I wish it hadn't happened and I take responsibility for what I did. I'm waiting for him to realize the aspects of what he did which are inappropriate, knowingly apologize, then we all move on and those types of outbursts can be reserved for a certain other discussion area of the boards ;)

[PetePeters]

Fred why are you the policeman and the judge of right and wrong? I think your looking at it one way only. Its easy to say sorry afterwards but that means he shouldnt get upset when you attack him first?

His initial post was so simple, someone said they get squished video on dvd and Toddlers words were just friendly saying you can make SA Tivo dvd legal and thats why his SA Tivo works better than DTivo for him, why woudl you attack that? Some way you twist his simple comment into something you alone took as inappropriate.

That shouldnt have been controversial yet you make him defend himself in detail ("I challenge you" was how you put it) and then keep piling on yet again even still. This is so ridiculous, you can't just let things go but you have to have the last word it seems always. Now your demanding an apology? Im sure poeple are sick of it and Im amazed that you keep it going even when hes done with it. Maybe you can move on without demanding an apology, I dont think he ever demanded one from you yet he kind of deserves one.

As just someone reading it all I still dont see what he did to start things. Also I don't much blame Toddler for responding as he did when you tell him "you obviously know nothing about video" and "I challenge you to defend your position". That was how you responded to his one sentence saying I love my SA Tivo! There not enough info in one sentence to decide that someone knows nothing or that their position is stupid. Yet you did though and what do you think someone does when you challenge them? You asked for exacly what he gave you, I think and maybe deserved it also?

When you go around saying "I challenge you" to people, then don't cry when they put you in your place, I think.

How strange this all gets.

-Pete-

[Hi8]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Funny, I read the post about "ignore user" and thought it was meant for me.


However, his posts went far beyond the topic into repetitive character attack and refusal to recognize any view other than his own whilst accusing me of doing so. I'd apologized and, I thought, clearly stated his particular need certainly validated his initial statement.


I have to agree with "petepeters" .. what's the big ta-do?

the guy had an opinion! duhhh! don't we all get off his back. I also have a sense of his contributions to this forum. It is All +++ Positive - FEEDBACK take it as that, not as a personal attack, I have my own feelings about things, perhaps my zipper is a bit rusty - and that's why a don't chime in as often.

I like MPEG2VCR as well, (Please no flames) I don't like the CVS generic tytool DVD menus, and LOVE DVDlab's menu authoring,(boy am I sticking my neck out)

I have to admit neither would be possible without jdiner's TYTool! so.. not to get corny but "can't we all just get along?" considering the number of hacked extracting TiVos out there, we are a endangered species! I hate to think we were all doomed to our own demise. I prefer a meteor or VERY LARGE comet!

edit: Oh yeah just bought one of these.. link (http://www.prismiq.com/)

[tictoc2]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Toddler
[B]God, I must be PMSing, but this is so frustrating. I think maybe I see where things got off track.

Ok...

I know this has nothing to do with this thread topic but, who says Toddler is a male???? From his/her own post, there is a mention of....PMSing.......That sounds like a FEMALE thing to me....unless he/she meant to say that on purpose...

The point of all this is....it realy doesn't matter...It is NOT what this original thread is all about. I think it would be beneficial if we all step back and take a deep breath (ahhhhhhhhhhh) and let Josh do what he does best.....creative problem solving WITHOUT all of the 'knit picking". It's ok to post ideas and wish lists, but lets keep it civil folks....OK?

Anyway,

Thanks Josh for ALL your hard work and dedication to Tytool. I realize that it is ALL voluntary for the TIVO community and you are doing this from your own free will, without any obligations. I appreciate all you have done for the Tivo community and I hope that you continue to advance your utilities to the best of your abilities. I hope you don't get distracted by these these "things".


Just my 2 cents....Thanks..

tictoc2

[jdiner]

Alright I cleaned out a few things that were obviously trying to be removed by the message authors.

I thought about removing a few others. But I don't like to arbitrarily remove things. That isn't the point of this forum. So I will leave as is and ask that nothing more on the recent fights be posted here.

As for a few other comments. I have no hatred or loathing for either mpeg2vcr or dvdlab. I am sick of getting beat up about them, but those are 2 very different things.

As for the flexbility of DVDLab over TyTool. DVDLab wins hands down. TyTool is very fixed. And to be honest very much my way or the hi-way. But, and this is given that I built it, it does what I want and what I am looking for very well. :) So I will continue to use it. The WYSIWYG editor I built for the creation of Menus really narrows that GAP but it has never been released. So you will just have to take my word for it.

--jdiner

[TiVo_CRAZEE]

Is there a way to run tserver_mfs7 in the background? I am not the most literate lynux guy . . . I've tried the "&" and a couple of other tricks I've seen using other apps but nothing seems to work accept invoking it in a running telnet window somewhere on the network.

[gobsmack]

Originally posted by TiVo_CRAZEE
Is there a way to run tserver_mfs7 in the background? I am not the most literate lynux guy . . . I've tried the "&" and a couple of other tricks I've seen using other apps but nothing seems to work accept invoking it in a running telnet window somewhere on the network.

OMG, I am LOL at your sig -- that is hilarious.

[Toddler]

Originally posted by TiVo_CRAZEE
Is there a way to run tserver_mfs7 in the background? I am not the most literate lynux guy . . . I've tried the "&" and a couple of other tricks I've seen using other apps but nothing seems to work accept invoking it in a running telnet window somewhere on the network. Add this to the end of your rc.sysinit:

/var/hack/tserver_mfs -s /var/hack/NowShowing.tcl

Don't forget to mar