OSX10.4.9, verver, tivotool, big probs

[triley60]

A friend hacked my Series 2 Dtivo and hooked up a wireless router so I can see it through my Airport. Access the vserver listings fine through my browser...

Tivotool helps get .ty files to my hard drive, but only in .ty format, and allows decoding only in very short clips, 20-30 secs... once you get up to 30mins of playing time, it just freezes. Toast 8 for Mac does not support S2 Directivo. ffmegx doesn't work either. Neither does tivodecoder, VCL, or tivo2dvd.

Am I the only Macster who's having this problem? Is .ty a format that simply cannot be hacked in Mac? I've tried several different versions of Tivotool, but of course it's been unsupported since 2005 it seems... Is anybody out there maintaining hacks or scripts for this utility on large files? An hour program sits on my hard drive in .ty format weighing in at >900 mg. I just want to do a simple DVD burn to store some of these programs and watch while traveling...

OSX 10.4.9 TiG4 PB
S2 Directv on vserver

THANKS IN ADVANCE... just link me to the correct article if I'm missing something....

[dburckh]

If you extract them as MPG with TySuiteJ, you should be able to play them on anything. Burning to DVD is a little more complex (although not much).

[GriffinW]

If you extract them as MPG with TySuiteJ, you should be able to play them on anything. Burning to DVD is a little more complex (although not much).

I have posted this question elsewhere on this site, but I thought I'd ask again here, as this thread was started with a question about burning TiVo shows to a DVD using a Mac.

I can get the files from my TiVo using TySuiteJ as MPGs fine, but just what is the 'little more complex' procedure to burn these files to DVD? I have tried everything, and the best I've been able to accomplish is *occasionally* it will work (about 1 in 5 or so). The rest of the time I get garbage, or errors. (Mostly when I am trying to convert to VOB using ffmpegX.)

On my Mac I have: TySuiteJ, TivoTool 0.5.7 & 0.6.1, MPEGStreamclip, ffmpegX 0.0.9, Toast 7.0,7.0.2,7.1.2, 8.0, 8.0.1. And of course the usual iLife apps: iDVD, etc. Seems that there should be some way to CONSISTENTLY get my TiVo shows to a DVD using my Mac.

ANYBODY been able to do this? ANY help would be very appreciated!

Griffin

[dburckh]

I'm not a Mac user, but here are my thoughts:

1. Extract to .mpg with TySuiteJ.
2. Edit out the commercials with MPEGStreamClip
3. Convert to 100% DVD compliance with ffmpegX. (640x480 2 channel AC3 / 720x480 5.1 AC3)
4. Create Menus/burn with Toast.

Alternatively, you could build ffmpeg for OS X and cut step 3 out of the process, but that's looks difficult.

[GriffinW]

I'm not a Mac user, but here are my thoughts:
....
Alternatively, you could build ffmpeg for OS X and cut step 3 out of the process, but that's looks difficult.

Well, Step 3 is the biggest problem, so cutting it out would be helpful! I thought that ffmpegX was just a GUI for ffmpeg, so I thought that ffmpeg was already built for OS X, and included as part of ffmpegX, but maybe that's not the case. I'm not sure how having ffmpeg would eliminate Step 3, could i go from editing in MPEGStreamclip to burning with Toast?

I have tried the steps you suggest, with a lot of variations, but, at best, what happens is that the re-encoding process takes a LONG time (3-6 hours for a one hour show), and the size of the file will double or triple in size. Then Toast will SOMETIMES re-encode again, taking another 3-6 hours, and the quality of the video is reduced substantially through the process, and sometimes the audio will be out of sync. Also, the file size doubles or triples during each encoding, so sometimes, it will no longer fit on a DVD, so that causes a failure. Unfortunately, of course, I don't know all of this until I have spent sometimes a dozen hours to get to the point where I can play the DVD, and I find it is worthless.

The quickest process I have found is use ffmpegX to de-mux and re-mux to DVD, which takes about 5-6 minutes for each (for a one hour show), and when that works, it is the best solution, with no noticeable loss of quality. If it is a single show, and I don't care about menus, I can burn the Video_TS folder from that, and I'm done.

But, for some reason ffmpegX does not work on many (maybe most) shows, and I don't know why it is inconsistent. The de-muxing always works, but when I try to re-mux the files I just de-muxed, it will fail with an error message. It doesn't matter if I re-download the show, it just seems that some shows will re-mux, and some won't. Weird.

What is frustrating is SOMETIMES it will work flawlessly, I can take an MPG file right from TySuiteJ, and burn it with Toast, and Toast will NOT re-encode it, and the whole process is very clean, and I think I've got it, but the next show I try to do that with does not work, either Toast re-encodes, the audio is out of sync, or I get an error of some kind. I write down every step as I go, to make sure I am repeating the same steps with the next file, but it just doesn't work most of the time. I bought Toast 8 just a few days ago, thinking that the problem might be with Toast 7, but I am getting the same results with toast 8.

I do like TySuiteJ a lot, and I seem to have the same issues whether I download with that or TivoTool, so I don't think the issue is with the download. The download always plays fine with VLC or MPEGStreamClip or QuickTime (I bought the MPEG2 decoder from Apple), it is the muxing/demuxing/encoding process that screws things up. Is it possible that TiVo records some shows differently? Not enough to make it not playable on my Mac, but enough to mess up the encoding process? Or force Toast to re-encode the file, even though I have re-encode set to 'never'?

As much as I don't like using TyTools on my Windows PC, as long as I remember to follow all the steps correctly and in the right order, and can deal with its clunky, error-prone interface, it almost always works. (I can trace almost all problems to leaving out step, or having some option set wrong.) But then I have the ugly menus. Oh, well.

Thanks for the help - if anybody else has any suggestions, especially if anybody has done this on a Mac, I would sure appreciate hearing about it!

Griffin

[dburckh]

I'm not sure how having ffmpeg would eliminate Step 3, could i go from editing in MPEGStreamclip to burning with Toast?


Technically, it would not eliminate it, it would just be part of the extraction process. TySuiteJ via ffmpeg has the ability to go from .ty to .mpg to DVD compliant .mpg all in one step. This is faster than doing all the steps in pieces.

If you have ffmpeg on your box, try it out. You'll have to make the following changes:

Uncomment this line:
Transcoder.engine.ffmpeg=bash,-c,./ffmpeg/ffmpeg {Options} 2> encoder_out.txt

Either copy ffmpeg into the ./ffmpeg folder, or correct the path. Then, Choose Save As... DVD Video from the UI

This assumes OS X and that OS X behaves the same as Linux.

[GriffinW]

I found ffmpeg on my system (in the TivoTool app support folder) and copied it to the ffmpeg folder in the TySuiteJ folder. I put the following line in the application.properties file (it was not already there, so I copied it from your post, and put it just after the Transcoder.engines=ffmpeg line):

Transcoder.engine.ffmpeg=bash,-c,./ffmpeg/ffmpeg {Options} 2> encoder_out.txt
I restarted TySuiteJ, selected a show, clicked on Save As... but did not get a DVD Video option. I then changed the line to:

Transcoder.engine.ffmpeg=bash,-c,/Applications/TySuiteJ_25rc4/ffmpeg/ffmpeg {Options} 2> encoder_out.txt
which contains the absolute path to the ffmpeg binary. I also commented out the other Transcoder.engine lines that were pointing the C:\\ drive and a /cygdrive. Restarted TySuiteJ, but still no DVD Video option in the Save As dialog.

From a shell, I can navigate to the ffmpeg directory and execute
./ffmpeg -version and I get the version info, so I know the binary executes, and the permissions are set correctly.

I notice there are a number of Transcoder.profile lines, that seem to correlate to the Save As selections. Do I need to change one of those as well?

Thanks,

Griffin

[ForrestB]

I have no problems creating a DVD disc image with TivoTool 0.5.7 on my G4 running OSX 10.4.10. Thru TivoTool I select the show I want to burn, click the 'Burn DVD' button and about 20 minutes later (1 hour show), it asks if I want to preview the Movie and asks if I want to Burn a DVD now. Clicking No will make a DVD Disk Image and Disk Utility can burn this image to DVD.

[GriffinW]

I have no problems creating a DVD disc image with TivoTool 0.5.7 on my G4 running OSX 10.4.10.

Hmmm... I'm away from my Mac right now, but I seem to remember that there were problems with doing that with TivoTool, although I can't remember right now what they were. I thought there were audio sync problems, or something else, but I don't remember exactly. Maybe it is something that only happens on some Macs. I am sure that I tried that, though, and now I can't remember why I gave up on that.

But, I will try that process again when I get a chance, and see if that works on my Mac. I have the same basic setup as you, G4 Mac, 10.4.10, TT 057, so I will try that.

Thanks for the response!

Griffin

[GriffinW]

I spent a few hours with this tonight, and now I remember why I eliminated using TivoTool to burn DVDs. While the procedure ForrestB describes works very well, it works well only if what you want to do is to burn a single show, with no editing, and no menus of any kind. You can select multiple shows in the TivoTool window, and all will burn fine (assuming they will fit on a single DVD), but they will be burned as one show. For example, if you have four episodes of Seinfeld you want to save, you can select those four shows, and burn them to a DVD, but they will autoplay as one two hour long show, with no breaks, and no menus. Also, no way to put on the DVD what the show names are, date recorded, etc. The only item you can enter is the 31 character (all uppercase, no spaces) disk name, which mostly only shows up on computers, although some DVD players will show it also.

So, to be clear, TivoTool is a great, easy to use tool to archive shows you want to keep, as long as you don't mind putting only one show on a disk, with limited info (31 character disk name), and don't want to do any editing. In fact, as part of my testing tonight, I saved three old shows (two hours each) I've been wanting to archive off my TiVo, and it was easy and relatively quick.

But mostly, I want to create DVDs from multiple shows (usually episodes of one show), after editing out commercials, and at least a simple menu capability, so I can select which show to watch from a menu that at least has the episode name and date. Doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request, and I can do this using Windows and TyTool, although what I get is ugly, and the process is cumbersome, and editing is only rough. And, of course, requires you have a Windows PC handy.

I think we were all hoping that TivoTool would grow to have these capabilities, but development seems to have stopped, I don't know why. I certainly hope its developer is doing well, and perhaps just has not had the time to pursue further development, which is understandable. It would be nice if someone with the time and talent could pick up the source code and continue.

TivoTool is a very nice, elegant solution to this, but it is version 0.5.7 after all, and has about, oh, 57% of the capabilities it could have. It would be nice to see it grow into a 100% solution. (Or maybe TySuiteJ development will take up the slack, but it doesn't seem to be there yet, although it shows a lot of promise, and its developer seems willing to continue working on it.)

Well, just my two cents worth...

Griffin

[tivodoc]

I have a similar setup; G4, 10.4.10, TT 0.5.7 that all worked well for years. I originally used this system with a series 1 Dtivo. Now I have series 2 Dtivo boxes with the appropriate vserver installed. TT can see vserver and get a list of shows but any attempt to download anything freezes TT. Any ideas?

Jeff

[vlj9r]

I extract as a mpeg file then use visualhub to create a dvd image to burn to a dvd.

[randomtool]

Extract with TySuiteJ.

Edit with MPEG Streamclip and convert to headed MPEG.

Use FFMPEGX and the svcd to dvd feature.

Burn DVD using Toast.

This does not re-encode, and you can end up with a dvd with chapters.

[GriffinW]

Use FFMPEGX and the svcd to dvd feature.

I have tried this, but I just get about a dozen errors, and then the conversion fails. I get the same thing when I use ffmpegX Demux/mux to DVD. About one in 5 or 6 works fine, so I think I've got all the pieces there, but the rest fail, and even when it appears to work fine, the DVD created often has the audio out of sync. So, all in all, it is too unreliable and time consuming to use. I will sometimes spend a whole day just trying every possible combination of tools and settings, just to end up with a bunch of drink coasters, and I end up going back to TyTools on Windows, with its clunky, error-prone process and ugly DVD menus, but at least in the end, assuming I get through the whole process without leaving a step out, I end up with a DVD that plays.

I downloaded VisualHub a little while ago, and when I get some time, I will try that out.

Thanks for the help, though!

Griffin

[GriffinW]

I extract as a mpeg file then use visualhub to create a dvd image to burn to a dvd.
When you use VisualHub, does it re-encode the file?

I tried VisualHub, which works fine, except that it DOES re-encode. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only purpose of VisualHub IS to re-encode. But, the files it creates tend to be a little smaller (about 1.8 times the size of the original) than what Toast creates when it re-encodes (about 2.5 - 3x). There seems to be a small loss of quality, but it is not as bad as Toast, and I haven't gotten audio sync issues with the three test conversions I have tried with VH.

(I didn't use the DVD Author feature in VH, as my whole purpose is to be able to create menus and put multiple episodes on a disk. The DVD feature in VH combines all videos into one, and does not have menus, although it does create chapters for each video file. Might be fine for some, but not what I'm looking for. So all I used was the conversion to VOB feature.)

Visualhub is also a little faster. My test files (1 hour, 26 minute recording in two mpeg files) took 2 hours, 23 minutes to re-encode, and then I burned the resulting VOBs to Toast, which took another 15 minutes for Toast to MUX and burn the files. Compared with doing the whole thing in Toast, which took four hours for the conversion and burn. So, a little faster with VH, a little better quality, but a two step process. But VH allows me to drop a whole bunch of files on it to do a batch conversion, so I could set that up before going to bed, and then burn the VOB files the next day.

Still, I am looking for a way to keep the original file size and avoid the re-encoding (again, like TyTools does on Windows) to avoid the file size increase, quality loss, and to complete the whole process faster. So, I will struggle on, although I am getting a little weary of the process, frankly...

Griffin