MUX'ing, VSplit, and MPG2 files.

[scarabus]

Well my project is to make the perfect Max Headroom DVD collection.

Currently I'm burning two shows on to 1 DVD-R with a menu that has the episode names.

I'm using Maestro for authoring; patching the header using DVDPatcher and creating chapter points to automatically skip the commercial breaks. It's not an optimal solution since you can only do chapter breaks at the start of a GOP, but it has the benefit that the MPEG is never transcoded.

Transcoding takes a significant amount of time and you're always going to lose some quality, increase the file size, or both.

The perfect solution for me would be to be able to do frame-accurate editing to remove the commercial breaks. Obviously the GOPs where the cuts appear will need to be re-encoded but the rest of the streams should be untouched. I'd then patch the header and import to Maestro as before.

I've tried doing this by using TMPGenc to mux the existing streams and editing with m2Edit or Womble.

For one thing I always get an error when muxing the streams using TMPGenc; this is probably because the length of the video and audio streams never match up accurately. And then the other issue is that sync gets lost during the editing; sometimes the edits go completely awry.

[Kythorn]

Edit: Axed the entirety of the original post. Rambled way too much, and never got the point across.

Here's the short version instead:

I will personally be content when tytool produces synced mpeg2 files. I can slap these on a dvd and play them back on my hardware no problem.

Letting me select three episodes to turn into a ready to burn DVD-SVCD image would be even better yet.

Allowing frame accurate editing of commercials would force me to name all of my children jdiner.

Identifying and suggesting likely commercial break points would force me to renounce all my worldly goods (aside from my dtivo and a pc to run tytool on) and become the high priest of the newly founded church of our lord jdiner.


PS - Any suggestions on the best way to store my tystreams until at least synced mpegs are possible? I have approximately 40 episodes of summer shows sitting on my tivo that I haven't transcoded - and the fall season's already started. I have a 240 gig tivo, and a gigantic amount of accessible network storage. I'm not afraid of running out of space, but I am very afraid of my files becoming corrupt while I try to wait for a better solution. Running RAID on the NAS is not an option at this time.

My current thought is to extract a copy of everything I haven't encoded yet and store md5sums to make sure bitrot doesn't set in. Should I wait to do this? I became confused on whether or not TyTool is currently discarding a header that may be valuable later on.

[scarabus]

Originally posted by koreth
I want menu screens on the DVDs I make for my TV shows. Nothing fancy, just the names of the episodes so I can quickly choose the one I want. As far as I know, VCDs don't have any notion of menus; the best you could do would be chapter stops, which I'd instead want to use (on some shows) for scene access within a show.

You can have menus on VCDs. I've done that using Nero. What you don't have is the complex authoring that DVD allows.

[stealthdave]

It may not be as good as DVD, but VCD and SVCD authoring can do some pretty complicated things if you take the time to do them. You can make motion menus, multiple layers of menus, transitions between menus, chapters, branching programs, etc., all on standard VCD/SVCD. You can even store computer files on a VCD/SVCD that are accessible via CD-ROM.

What you can't do is have interactive menus (menu selection is pressing numbers 0-9, FF, RW, or ENTER/PLAY; no up/down highlighted menus here), multiple audio tracks (you *may* actually be able to do this, I'm not sure), and many other whiz-bang features that I'm probably forgetting.

The biggest drawbacks are video quality and space. DVD has much higher quality and capacity than either SVCD or VCD standards. However, we're talking about non-standard VCDs/SVCDs burned onto a DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW, so capacity and quality aren't the issue. Compatibility is. That's where your biggest drawback is going to be.

Two places to learn about making VCDs and SVCDs (standard or otherwise) are the aforementioned http://www.vcdhelp.com and http://www.vcdimager.org. These are also good places to look for information on DVD authoring. The latter is the home page for a free (GPL'd) VCD/SVCD creation software that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. You'll need additional software to do the actual burning.

Of course, if you're going to all the trouble of making such a complicated VCD to burn onto a DVD-R, you might as well make a DVD that will work on most commercial players. Even if you just want the programs archived for yourself, compatibility helps when your player that plays every non-standard variation of VCD barfs and goes to that big electronic junkyard in the sky.

And that's my long-winded take on VCDs on DVD. Apparently, brevity is not in my nature.

- Stealth Dave

[Attack]

Originally posted by Kythorn
PS - Any suggestions on the best way to store my tystreams until at least synced mpegs are possible?

My current thought is to extract a copy of everything I haven't encoded yet and store md5sums to make sure bitrot doesn't set in. Should I wait to do this? I became confused on whether or not TyTool is currently discarding a header that may be valuable later on.

If you want to make sure the files are perfect you need to extract them with mfs_export read this thread to understand why.
then I would use a WinRar 3.0 to make smaller set of files split at about 100 megs each. This will allow you to use FSRaid to make parity files of the rar. Now you get to decide how much data could be corrupt before losing all your data.


The other way you could do this is take out your current HD's and buy 2 of the exactly same drives. Then use the old dd backup option on each drive, and put one set of the drives away for later extraction.

[Fugg]

All of this final disk-proper-files generation is fine, but...

I have always thought that mux'ing and proper MPEG-2 Program Stream output was the holy grail of all of this.

I'm not looking for vob's, vcd's, dvd's.... at least not yet.

I want to walk before I run.

Can I vote for just a good muxed, playable, synced mpegs?

...to be able to get a good synced mpeg out of a multiple fsid high rate capture?
...something that does not loose 1/4 to 1/2 second of audio at every fsid transistion?

[Wooly]

I think I'd have to send Jdiner a couple hundred dollars as a thank-you if he could get it to this final point (although I'd be completely happy to just have it muxing and editing in a way that I can create SVCD-DVD discs).

As for storing .TY files, I'm in your boat also - I currently have roughly 700 gigs of raw .TY files I've stored on a 1.4 TB server (taking advantage of good prices on Maxtor 160 gig drives). I simply store them on the RAID, and I randomly test them every now and then - no problems with any of them.

In case you're wondering, I have EVERY episode of Babylon 5, MacGyver, and Farscape all grabbed from my DTV, waiting...patiently...for the holy grail from Jdiner!

Originally posted by Kythorn

Identifying and suggesting likely commercial break points would force me to renounce all my worldly goods (aside from my dtivo and a pc to run tytool on) and become the high priest of the newly founded church of our lord jdiner.


PS - Any suggestions on the best way to store my tystreams until at least synced mpegs are possible? I have approximately 40 episodes of summer shows sitting on my tivo that I haven't transcoded - and the fall season's already started. I have a 240 gig tivo, and a gigantic amount of accessible network storage. I'm not afraid of running out of space, but I am very afraid of my files becoming corrupt while I try to wait for a better solution. Running RAID on the NAS is not an option at this time.

My current thought is to extract a copy of everything I haven't encoded yet and store md5sums to make sure bitrot doesn't set in. Should I wait to do this? I became confused on whether or not TyTool is currently discarding a header that may be valuable later on.

[Kythorn]

A couple of things:

1) I'd be very very happy with a simple sync'd, muxed mpeg2 file. I'll probably start converting my collection ASAP when we hit this stage. I have a small footprint ultra quiet high quality AV output PC in my stereo cabinet that I traditionally have used for DivX/XviD playback.

I plan to simply convert to mpegs, burn 2-3 to a DVD and pop them in and play as the whim strikes me. I can handle fast forwarding through the commercials with a remote the same way I do on the tivo now. I no longer possess the amount of time required to strip out all the commercials and transcode to XviD.

I will be very content when we hit this stage. Really, for me, anything past this point is just pure bonus, as I compulsively buy all the DVDs of the shows I watch when they come out anyway. (Including importing two seasons of dark angel from japan.... ouch, my poor wallet!)

2) This question is specifically for jdiner:

I've scoured the vcdhelp.com site, and I can't figure out what exactly you mean by VCD-DVD. Tystreams are the proper res for an SVCD, but not a VCD.

I found this article http://www.vcdhelp.com/svcddvdr.htm , but it actually appears to do actually be what others in the forum are already doing, changing the initial header to fool SpruceUP or Maestro, and then burning the non compliant 480x480 DVD disc.

Are you referring to something else completely? I'm honestly not aware of any other method besides this for using vsplit output on a DVD short of transcoding.

[scarabus]

Originally posted by Kythorn
I can handle fast forwarding through the commercials with a remote the same way I do on the tivo now. I no longer possess the amount of time required to strip out all the commercials and transcode to XviD.

I've scoured the vcdhelp.com site, and I can't figure out what exactly you mean by VCD-DVD. Tystreams are the proper res for an SVCD, but not a VCD.

The technique of creating chapter points before and after commercials then authoring the DVD so that those chapters are ommitted from playback is fairly trivial and does not add much to the overall time.

From what JDiner said in his other post my take is that instead of using a DVD authoring program to create VOBs he intended to create a homebrew app that formats the MPEG as a SVCD .dat file.

This should work fine in a PC. However I doubt that would play in any set-top players (well Okay, maybe in an APEX) for exactly the same reason that they can't play DVD formats on CD media.

Since I think that the holy grail for many of us is something that plays in a set-top player - be it VCD/SVCD/DVD or whatever - that doesn't interest me.

[wh1212]

Since vsplit is a Dvd-rip tool, and part of tytool, would'nt it be best
to rip tystream to a .vob. ?

[Kythorn]

Originally posted by scarabus

The technique of creating chapter points before and after commercials then authoring the DVD so that those chapters are ommitted from playback is fairly trivial and does not add much to the overall time.

I've done this. I probably would have done it a lot more if it wasn't for the $#@$# GOP temporal errors.

As I said, I'm flexible. I have the hardware to author/play just about any format I need. I'll take all the other neat stuff under discussion if I can get it, but I'll be satisfied as soon as we hit the point of synced mpeg2 program streams as a direct output of tytool/vsplit.

[Fugg]

Originally posted by wh1212
Since vsplit is a Dvd-rip tool, and part of tytool, would'nt it be best
to rip tystream to a .vob. ?

THUNK!!!

the sound of Fugg falling out of his chair and hitting the floor

[jdiner]

Originally posted by Wooly
In case you're wondering, I have EVERY episode of Babylon 5, MacGyver, and Farscape all grabbed from my DTV, waiting...patiently...for the holy grail from Jdiner!

Forget the money. I will just send you disks or money for disks and you can make me a full set of MacGyver episodes. One of my favorite shows as a kid.

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Originally posted by rc3105

so fas as I know I'm the only person with a dvd drive in my tivo, and vsplit on the pc's got nothing to do with that....

Ummm. Just out of curiosity... Why? Why a DVD drive in a tivo? What do you use it for?

--jdiner

[KRavEN]

He probably has a way to mount and play the raw tystreams directly from a DVD-R, at least that would be my guess.

Be really usefull if there were a way to mount a network drive and play the raw tystreams from there. Probably is.....