SageTV V6 AVI Convert Quality Any Good?

[joe123]

Howdy folks.

I recently upgraded to SageTV V6 and tried out the new Convert feature which takes MPEG2 recordings and converts them to AVI (MPEG4).

I have seen many people here saying that the quailty of the converted recordings looks terrible while just as many say the quality is the same.

So I am taking a simple Poll here to see if you have used the Convert feature in V6 and if the converted files are of the same Quality or not. I am also assuming that you are taking a good quality recording around 2.0/GB hour MPEG2 and converting it to AVI High Quality.

[blade]

I've converted hundreds of shows with Sage's built in transcoding. Some look very close to the originals (to me) and others look like complete garbage. It's not just about the "quality" of the original recording, but the type of content it was. For example many of my CSI - Miami episodes playback as video (60 fps with Nvidia decoder) and look ok transcoded. The Closer is treated as film (24 fps with Nvidia decoder) and look horrible after being transcoding.

Originally Posted by joe123

I am also assuming that you are taking a good quality recording around 2.0/GB hour MPEG2 and converting it to AVI High Quality.

IMO 2.0GB/hour MPEG2 looks bad to begin with. On larger screens you need at least 3GB/hour.

[AngelofDeth]

None of the AVIs I have tried to do look as good as the ones I download... The ones I download are often OTA HD -> SD conversions, but still. I have even tried converting DVDs and they don't look that good. Probably just something with me.

I can't really notice any difference between 2.0GB/hr and higher on my 31", but it is directv... 31" isn't all that big either.

[joe123]

Yeah, this caught me by surprise as well.

I first read posts here saying how good the conversions were, so I converted some recordings to AVI High Quality and the playback was just horrible - I mean, Really bad!

I will try recording at 3GB Hour, but I have a regular 32 inch TV with a MediaMVP and so far, the recordings look excellent in MPEG2 format and horrible in AVI High Quality format

Is this the result of SageTV V6 transcoder or of all transcoders in nature?

If there are better and free transcoders available, please let us know.

[blade]

Originally Posted by joe123

I will try recording at 3GB Hour, but I have a regular 32 inch TV with a MediaMVP and so far, the recordings look excellent in MPEG2 format and horrible in AVI High Quality format

If you're playing back the AVI files on the MVP you have to remember you're transcoding them to avi then transcoding them again to playback on the MVP so I wouldn't expect the quality to be anywhere close in that situation.

I should have mentioned before that I'm using custom profiles, but I don't know if they improve the quality or not. I mainly use them to crop, sometimes resize, and compress the audio and video more than the default profiles do.

Is this the result of SageTV V6 transcoder or of all transcoders in nature?

If there are better and free transcoders available, please let us know.

There are better options available. I just use the built in support because mine are for temporary storage and it's easy to use.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by blade

If you're playing back the AVI files on the MVP you have to remember you're transcoding them to avi then transcoding them again to playback on the MVP so I wouldn't expect the quality to be anywhere close in that situation.
.

Yes, I knew that the PC has to transcode the AVI back to MPEG2 for the MediaMVP. My PC is pretty fast and only takes about 30% of the CPU while playing back the AVI files on my hard wired MVP.

I looked at the AVI converted recordings on my PC monitor and they were just as awful as on my MVP.

[blade]

Originally Posted by joe123

Yes, I knew that the PC has to transcode the AVI back to MPEG2 for the MediaMVP. My PC is pretty fast and only takes about 30% of the CPU while playing back the AVI files on my hard wired MVP.

Doesn't matter how fast your PC is you're still adding extra transcoding, which is going to reduce the PQ.

[fyodor]

I've been pretty disappointed with the quality compared to other transcoders.Even if I play around with custom settings, I need significantly higher bitrates to get the same quality.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by blade

Doesn't matter how fast your PC is you're still adding extra transcoding, which is going to reduce the PQ.

Viewing the recording on my PC shows the AVI conversion to be extremly bad PQ (Picture Quality).

So it's the first MPEG2-->AVI conversion inside of SageTV V6 which is making the PQ bad.

Yes, AVI-->MPEG2 back again can make it worse, but my point is that the first conversion makes the PQ so bad, that doing it back again does not make of a difference.

[farfromuman]

I quit using the default compression because anytime an HD MPG converted to lower bit rate MPG or AVI the playback looks like it is in slow motion (it seems compression broke at some point between 6.17 and 6.19 for me). The AVI quality is also terrible. I am using evilpenguin's compression and getting much better results.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by farfromuman

I am using evilpenguin's compression and getting much better results.

Can you let us know how to get, install and use the Evil compression?

EDIT: Interesting Poll so far. All 5 posts as of now say Worse PQ. It's as bad as I though!

[farfromuman]

[QUOTE=joe123]Can you let us know how to get, install and use the Evil compression?

Here is a link to the SageMC version but there is a regular import also. You can swap the Mencoder version for one that is built to take advantage of a specific processor.

[Armondole]

Originally Posted by blade

If you're playing back the AVI files on the MVP you have to remember you're transcoding them to avi then transcoding them again to playback on the MVP so I wouldn't expect the quality to be anywhere close in that situation.

I should have mentioned before that I'm using custom profiles, but I don't know if they improve the quality or not. I mainly use them to crop, sometimes resize, and compress the audio and video more than the default profiles do.



There are better options available. I just use the built in support because mine are for temporary storage and it's easy to use.

Is there a thread that deals with creating custom profiles for transcoding? I've searched through some lengthy discussions but haven't been able to find what i'm looking for...

Thanks

[blade]

Originally Posted by Armondole

Is there a thread that deals with creating custom profiles for transcoding? I've searched through some lengthy discussions but haven't been able to find what i'm looking for...

Thanks

I haven't seen one. I just looked at the existing profiles and read what I could find on the forum to create mine.

[joe123]

Ok, I will bite.

Since 100% of everyone who has voted so far claims to have "Worse Picture Quality" after converting MPEG2 to AVI(MPEG4) format with SageTV V6 conversion "feature", why aren't more people asking or talking about having better transcoding software installed and how to do that?

I have to say that the current transcoder built in to SageTV V6 is worthless. The picture quality is so bad that is not even funny.

Are there not a lot better free transcoders out there? Anyon care to point them out and how to enabled them in SageTV?

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by joe123

Are there not a lot better free transcoders out there? Anyon care to point them out and how to enabled them in SageTV?

Did you try the suggested compression utility from EP ?


Dirk

[joe123]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Did you try the suggested compression utility from EP ?
Dirk

Not yet. I wanted to see if what others had to say before trying it out.

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by blade

I've converted hundreds of shows with Sage's built in transcoding.

Why?

What am I missing? What's the benefit of doing this?

[ybrew]

Ok, i'm trying this with one HD recording now. Will this hopefully allow me to watch some HD recording converted to high quality AVIs on my MVPs?

(i'll have an answer myself later today)

[joe123]

Originally Posted by ybrew

Why?

What am I missing? What's the benefit of doing this?

The benifit is that AVI(MPEG4) format takes up a lot less disk space - about 1/2. So if you have a 2GB movie, it will reduce it to about 1GB (your milage will vary).

The draw back is that if you are using an MVP, the MVP does not undertand MPEG4, only MPEG2. So, your PC has to convert your MPEG4 --> MPEG2 to then display it on your MVP. The PC has to have enough CPU power to do this.

For certain movies that are "long term" storage, some of us like to reduce the disk space comsuption of course which is why one would want to "convert" an MPEG2 movie to an MPEG4.

If you really want to dig in more and pull your hairs out, you will then want to automatically CUT out the commercials in the movies prior to converting them to MPEG4.