SageTV V6 AVI Convert Quality Any Good?

[blade]

Originally Posted by ybrew

Why?

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

Smaller files take up less space. If I have something I know I'm not going to watch for several months I'll transcode it. I currently have +75 episodes of CSI - Miami and +25 episodes of CSI - NY. Those were all 3.2GB and I've converted them to Xvid and they're now around 930MB. That alone frees up roughly 230 gigs of drive space. I have a few other series and mini series transcoded as well.

I didn't bother to remove the commercials and I know there are better compression utilities and if I was looking for long-term storage I'd look into them. I'll watch each episode once and then delete it so I don't care to spend a lot of time fooling with other apps. I watch all series in the order they originally aired so I need to build up quite a few episodes or else I end up waiting weeks or months for the next one in the series to re-air. So simply deleting them and recording again later isn't a good option for me.

I also like being able to select the shows with my remote and I'm done. I may be taking a new job that involves extensive travel. Being able to select shows and setup transcoding from a remote location (I'm assuming placeshifter can do this) is another reason I'd choose the built in transcoding over other apps.

One last reason is that one of my clients has a fairly powerful cpu, but weak graphics card. I can transcode HD shows and play them back on that client if I choose. For me the transcoded HD shows look much better than simply recording a SD version.

As I said before some shows look very close to the originals for me and others look like garbage. It depends a lot on the type of content you're dealing with.

Edit: I wouldn't recommend using the built in transcoding for long term storage because it doesn't do IVTC, which is needed on most of the shows.

[davephan]

Many people do not seem to like the SageTV's built-in video transcoding process. There is an alternative video transcoding process thanks to Roxy99 and the people who created the utilities used in his transcoding process.

I tried using the SageTV's built-in transcoding, but I think that Roxy99's "Comskip XVid Batch HQ 1200 Bitrate" process is much better. The two pass HQ process produces good quality standard definition picture quality. The AVI files that are created are about 20% of the orginal Mpeg2 file size, recorded with the mpeg2 format with the standard DVD quality level. I use VideoReDo to cut the commericals instead of using Comskip for improved commerical cutting accuracy.

The main downside to using the two pass HQ process is the extremely high CPU load that is consumed to transcode the video files. I am using three dedicated computers to transcode the video files 24 x 7. The computers range from an Athlon XP+1800, Pentium 3, 900 MHz, and Pentium 3, 300 MHz. I also use my Athlon XP+2800 SageTV computer part time to transcode the video files as a fourth video transcoding computer. After about three weeks, I have transcoded about 1 TB of mpeg2 video files to AVI files. Perhaps one or two dedicated higher-end video transcoding computers could keep up with the video transcoding workload (rather than using old 'retired' computers). The slowest computer can take a day to transcode a long movie, and the fastest can transcode many movies per day.

The toughest part of transcoding hundreds of AVI video files is finding time to watch a few of them!

Dave

[roxy99]

I use VideoReDo to cut the commericals instead of using Comskip for improved commerical cutting accuracy.

In that case you must pass your mpeg2 thru Videoredo and rem out the comskip section of my batch file.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by roxy99

I use VideoReDo to cut the commericals instead of using Comskip for improved commerical cutting accuracy.

In that case you must pass your mpeg2 thru Videoredo and rem out the comskip section of my batch file.

I remarked out the Comskip lines after trying the process with Comskip. VideoReDo is much more accurate than Comskip. Also, VideoReDo doesn't take long to edit out the commericals if the edit jobs are saved, then processed using the batch option to run many editing jobs unattended.

My main point was if anyone is really unhappy with the built-in SageTV transcoding process, they should try the Roxy99 process. The Roxy99 transcoding process does a great job, but it is very hungry to gobble up CPU cycles!

Dave

[joe123]

For Roxy99, do you need SageMC?

I think a great mistake was made when SageMC was created in merging to things into one when they should have left them seperate.

I like all the features of SageMV, execpt the screen layout. The tools are great, the screen layout not.

Neilms menu are great imho.

[roxy99]

the batch file I made is a standalone app- Sage not required. What Davephan meant is that comskip is an optional parameter in the batch file which, if you prefer, you can rem out the feature. Perhaps videoredo is more precis than comskip. If I purchase videoredo, I'll be sure to modify the batch to pre-process the mpg thru videoredo and then create the xvid.

[mike1961]

I first use VideoRedo to remove the commercials. Then I use StaxRip to convert mpg files and I use Nero Recode to convert DVD's. StaxRip can give VERY good quality with any mpg video in 4-5 mb/minute (many times even as little as 3mb minute will look very good especially if it is widescreen video - widescreen compresses better). To me either I can't tell the difference at all or it looks almost identical to the original. I can easily create a short sample if one is interested. The downside is simply that it takes anywhere from 2-3 times as long to encode as the original video but it is two pass encoding and it's mpeg 4 avc and once the encoding is done I have great quality in as little space as possible.

Mike

[xj-boonie]

Originally Posted by davephan

I remarked out the Comskip lines after trying the process with Comskip. VideoReDo is much more accurate than Comskip. Also, VideoReDo doesn't take long to edit out the commericals if the edit jobs are saved, then processed using the batch option to run many editing jobs unattended.

My main point was if anyone is really unhappy with the built-in SageTV transcoding process, they should try the Roxy99 process. The Roxy99 transcoding process does a great job, but it is very hungry to gobble up CPU cycles!

Dave

I've got VideoReDo, and am very interested in trying out Roxy99's transcoding process, but want to do it to both SD and HD tv. From Roxy99's thread, it seems different batch files would be needed. Also, davephan, how do you get the commercials cut out of the videos with VideoRedo? manually? I'm not sure if I understand how Roxy99's process works - do you have to do something when recording the files with comskip for it to work, or does it do the detection after the fact?

Thanks,
Mike

[roxy99]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

I've got VideoReDo, and am very interested in trying out Roxy99's transcoding process, but want to do it to both SD and HD tv. From Roxy99's thread, it seems different batch files would be needed. Also, davephan, how do you get the commercials cut out of the videos with VideoRedo? manually? I'm not sure if I understand how Roxy99's process works - do you have to do something when recording the files with comskip for it to work, or does it do the detection after the fact?

Thanks,
Mike

The HD avi conversion is my ultimate goal and an easy modification to the batch file can be made to autodetect the source resolution and branch to a different conversion script. That project is on hold for now until someone can give me a HD clip to test on. The HD file if .TS format would first be converted to mpg format and then the rest of my batch file stays the same.

To install, follow the instructions on the first post in that thread. Comskip is executed from within the batch file itself. There is a core project.zip file that has a bunch of utilities. For the batch file to work you extract the project.zip to c:\ . This creates a folder called c:\project wherein all the files will be placed.


If you prefer Videoredo, then you'll delete the command in the batch file that runs comskip. You then hav a 2 step process. First produce the mpg minus commercials with Videoredo as you normally do. Then you feed the btach file your commercial edited mpg.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

I've got VideoReDo, and am very interested in trying out Roxy99's transcoding process, but want to do it to both SD and HD tv. From Roxy99's thread, it seems different batch files would be needed. Also, davephan, how do you get the commercials cut out of the videos with VideoRedo? manually? I'm not sure if I understand how Roxy99's process works - do you have to do something when recording the files with comskip for it to work, or does it do the detection after the fact?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike,

I first run the quick fix batch process to fix any video files that may have corruption. Sometimes this fixes problems. I then manually edit out the commercials with VideoReDo. I edit about 20 - 30 video files, one at a time, saving each to a project name. I then run the VideoReDo batch process to process each video editing project and walk away from the computer for an hour or two while the batch processes all the video editing projects.

I then move half of the edited mpeg2 files to one dedicated video transcoding computer, and the other half to my second video transcoding computer. I then start the Roxy99 batch file on each video transcoding computer. When completed, I move the AVI files back to my SageTV computer.

I think the transcoding process could be automated with Dirmon or Dirmon2, but I haven't tried automating that process yet.

I do have a problem with playback of the transcoded video files. Once and in awhile, not often, the video stutters because the CPU is maxed out at 100 percent too long. During playback, the transcoding process is either 100 percent or in the upper 90's continueously. I think I can fix the AVI to Mpeg MVP video playback problem by replacing my system board, CPU, and memory with faster units.

Dave