HD-PVR and MVP Playback Solutions

[vividweb]

I have just recently purchased a couple HD-PVR's and am trying to establish the best way to make my system work with HD-PVR's and my mediaMVP's. I have been talking with a few other people (thanks paulbeers and CollinR) and am currently considering two options for making content available to the MVP.

Option 1 - Double Record
I still have my PVR-500 setup in the recording box. Shows could be selected on an as need basis to be available to the MVP and be recorded with PVR-500 so they will playback smoothly, if the show is deemed worthwhile to watch in HD, a second favorite could be added with only HD channels and the show would be recorded twice.

Option 2 - Record and Convert
A second option would be to convert any .TS files to a format playable in the MVP, there are quite a few tools available to help determine which files to convert and which ones to not, DTB or SJQ. There is also a benefit that the generated smaller file could be comskipped to provide the EDL for both files (maybe?). It would be nice if when the file was converted that the MVP new that it should play the smaller file. I'm not sure how easy it is to convert the HD-PVR recordings into another format, it would be done overnight when the server is mostly idle. I'm also not sure when converting the original and keeping both files what Sage will display (both files in the recorded directory or one in the videos directory).

I'm curious if anyone else has a better solution or any reason why either option would cause more headache than its worth.

[CollinR]

Oh I don't normally keep the originals, I just suggested that for testing.

I'm also unsure of commercial detection but both main sources have made statements about h.264 and thr hd pvr.

I'm thinking you may be better off just offloading the MVP to someone else and getting another hd extender.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by CollinR

.

I'm thinking you may be better off just offloading the MVP to someone else and getting another hd extender.

When they are in stock.

[wayner]

You don't mention the CPU in your Sage server but my experience is that transcoding of H.264 files for the one or two times that I have done it is seriously slow, even with an E8400 which is a pretty fast CPU. If you are transcoding 30 minute shows then you should be fine overnight but if you are transcoding movies it could take 12 hours or more depending on your CPU.

I'd go with the double record option.

[vividweb]

I don't know what the CPU is off hand, it is just a dual core. I know it comes very close to transcoding the HD-PVR streams on the fly, they show up in the MVP, audio is close, but video is too choppy too watch.

Most of it will be 1/2 hour to 1 hour shows. I'll do a test and see what happens, not sure what to even try and convert to.

[opusinteractive]

Another possibility is to use Badaboom to transcode the h.264 files. Badaboom was released last week and it uses the GPU to transcode instead of the CPU. It is blazing fast. Currently, it only support Nvidia GPU's. Not sure how one would go about automating the transcoding but there must be several approaches that would take care of this.

Just a thought.

[wayner]

Transcoding is a good idea - if the Convert function in Sage worked for H.264 files then you could run the AutoCompress addin to convert to another format, such as divx to have a streamable format available for the MVP. Hopefully they will get this working in a future version.

[stuckless]

I recently had to come up with a solution for this as well. Currently i'm transcoding my .ts (720p) files into Mpeg2 (720p) files. The MVP and my Xbox Media Center (XMBC) can both play the HD mpeg2 files without an issue.

Currently, I'm manually converting them using Sage's built-in Convert function. I copied their DVD Entry and changed the size from 720x480 to 1280x720 and called the new Transcode format MPEG2HD.

My goal is to write a script using the Sage Remote API that will find all new recording and add them as a transcode job during the night, so they'll be ready by the next day. I only watch recorded TV, so this option is acceptable to me.

BTW, the transcoded (MPEG2HD) files look almost as good as the original .ts files when played back on HD extender as well. Also, the file sizes are only marginally larger than the originals. The subtle loss of quality and marginal size increase is worth it for me... to be able to use my MVP and XMBC investment.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by stuckless

My goal is to write a script using the Sage Remote API that will find all new recording and add them as a transcode job during the night, so they'll be ready by the next day. I only watch recorded TV, so this option is acceptable to me.

Might look at the Sage Job Queue plugin, thats what I use now and I really like it. Very smart and powerful logic skills, plus it makes multiple comskip ini files easy enough to implement if you find certain sources do better then others.

[stuckless]

SJQ looks like it would do the trick... but my goal is to run a little as I can in the Sage JVM... I'd still like to take a look at it, but the online documentation site that they reference is no longer available (i get a 404 error)

[CollinR]

Yeah I dealt with that too so once I finally did find them (yes they exist just pporly linked) I backed it up.

SJQ Docs

basic config screenshots from web admin
(linked so Andy doesn't have to )

Comskip SD TV

It's channel specific as I have both a DVD changer and CCTV, already commercial free. Also I don't keep stuff from these so I don't care if it gets transcoded or not.

Compress SD TV

It's time of day sensitive (when transode starts, no clue on when it will complete!) Also sensitive to the current transcode queue size, unlike the Autocompress favorites option which only does favorites and will bog a machine down if you had many recordings to do.

Also you can freely remove items from the transcode queue manually if they are still there the following evening they may get transcoded then.

[wayner]

There's also an STV import called AutoCompress that runs Sage's convert function automatically as a show ends. It is here http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=23103

[BBCritical]

Originally Posted by wayner

There's also an STV import called AutoCompress that runs Sage's convert function automatically as a show ends. It is here http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=23103

Does this work with H.264 files?

[CollinR]

Both SJQ and Autocompress favorites use Sage's internal compression, so you can test for this by manually converting a recording.