recompressing with nero digital

[GbrNole]

i've played long and hard with divx and xvid and have found that while xvid provides fabulous quality the time it takes to encode is painfully long.

well i happened to buy a new dvd burner last week and it included the full nero 6 suite so i figured that since nero recode was part of the package i'd try it out and see if it can keep up with divx and xvid.

i can now assure you that divx and xvid are history from my system. the quality of nero is more than acceptable (no visible macro blocking whatsoever when you use a compression ratio equal to or greater than 20% of original file size) the colors look great and the sound stays in synch but the real attraction comes in the fact that a 2 pass encode took less than 2 hours to complete at quarter pixel resolution!!!!

nero digital is now slowly but surely recodeing all of my dvd's for great quality storage at generally less than 1 gig per movie.

the only real problem that i have run into thus far is that the output file is an mp4 and sage doesn't seem to recognize it. i can play it back just fine through nero media player, WMP and zoom player though.

any ideas how to get sage to recognize and mp4 or will jeff have to write that in possibly at a later date? (assuming licensing isn't a problem)

[stanger89]

Add ,.mp4 to the import line of the sage.properties file (remember to exit/close sage first)

seeker/library_import_filename_extensions=

AFAIK, Sage just uses directshow/directx to create the graphs for non-native (video) filetypes so if you have the codec installed (duh!) it should work.

[GbrNole]

added the ,.mp4 to the properties file and sage now recognizes the file but will not play it back.

did i do something wrong or will this have to be a feature request?

[stanger89]

Can you play the files in Windows Media Player?

[GbrNole]

haven't tried WMP. plays with zoom player though.

sent you a PM by the way, stranger.

[korben_dallas]

Did anyone make any headway on this? Nero Digital absolutely rocks! I was blown away with the quality of the 2 pass method. I cut a movie size in half, and it looks and sounds better than mpeg2 max quality tv capture.

I've tried everything to get the .mp4 files to show up, but they won't. I can rename them to .mpg, and they show up ok but won't play.

[korben_dallas]

1. Shut down the Sage service and UI.
2. Installed the free MPEG-4 video/audio/muxer encoder/decoder from http://www.3ivx.com/
3. Made sure MS DirectShow was recognizing the codec by playing the file in WMP10. (Then, I reassociated .mp4 files with Nero Showtime since it has the best play quality.)
4. Added the .mp4 to the end of this line seeker/video_library_import_filename_extensions=.mpg,.mpeg,.mp2,.mpeg2,.mpe,.avi,.divx,.mpg1,.ts,.mp4 in both sage.properties and sageclient.properties (unsure if it needs to go in both, but I use the service + UI so..)
5. Start up the Sage service and UI.
6. Setup > Detailed Setup > General > Library Import Directories > Added the directory where the video was located
7. and made sure that directory is NOT listed in General > Video Directories (won't recognize the file for some reason if the directory is listed as a video directory)
8. Media Library & DVD > Imported Video Files > play movie

It has like a 10 second pause before playing, but after that the playback is perfect and the Sage remote control functions work great.

[greggerm]

Korben...

Thanks for your work on this. I followed the steps above and I was able to successfully play a (Standard, not AVC) Nero encoded .mp4 file within Sage.

But I do have a question relating to timeshifting / fastforward / rewind.

When looking at the .mp4 file in the media library, it shows up as 0 minutes long, although it is a 20 minute TV episode. When playing, I cannot skip ahead or skip backwards within the video. It jumps straight to the end of the file and closes it. Are there any additional steps or encoding settings I need to use in order to allow Sage to timeshift or skip an .mp4 video file? (or should it just work!)

-Greg

[dvd_maniac]

Mine rw/ff fine. however, I also notice that the duration and timeplacement are usually off and sometimes I have a problem with the video starting in the middle of the show instead of the beginning. It usually works fine, just sometimes has these problems.

When I have a problem with a certain file, I move it to another folder, refresh the imort library, move it back to original folder and refresh again. Then it works fine.

[ukmgranger]

will the mpag4 files play on the MVP?

[korben_dallas]

Gregger,

I haven't converted any shows.. just DVD's. But no problem with ffwd/rwd on these files.

Maybe over the holdiay break I'll convert a Futurama episode that Sage recorded and see what happens.

[greggerm]

Korben and DVD_Maniac,
Thanks for the input - I don't know why, but that first encode I did had problems with the FF/RW. My second encode, and all subsequent ones, have been just fine. I'm still a little uncomfortable, so I am testing each TV episode I reencode before deleting the original.

I do have another Q though - when it comes to reencoding DVD's - will the chapter points follow in the MPEG4 container, or will they get blown out? My guess is they get removed, but you never know with this newfangled technology.

I trust we've essentially given up on Sage playing Nero's H.264/AVC encodes right now? It's too bad, but at least it can play back the smaller than MPEG "standard" Nero Recode2 products.

Thanks,
-Greg

[korben_dallas]

Gregger,

Yes, actually the chapters do stay intact. But, so far Nero Showtime seems to be the only media player that recognizes those chapters. Seems like I got WMP to see the chapters one time, but it took some doing and wasn't straightforward.

Actually, I've had one bad rip myself. No good explanation, but I redid it and all the others have been fine.

Not sure about the AVC. I didn't spend alot of time trying different codecs. Maybe when 3ivx updates their codec, they'll provide AVC playback also. I'm about to reformat my PC, so I may do some experimentation over the holidays.

[dvd_maniac]

Has anybody else come accross the problem of the mp4 file starting somewhere in the middle of the file? When this happens, it ALWAYS starts at the same point. Not like Sage recordings where say I watch 20min of 1 hour video and stop it, come back and play it, it starts at 20min again. With this problem the file starts at Example: 45:21 everytime I start it. These are from encoded dvd's...

Also,
has anybody confirmed if MP4 files will play on client?

[greggerm]

Although I haven't played around with it much, I have not seen the starting in the middle bug that you are. All 17 of my to-date encodes have been 21 minute TV programs, and none of them have started in the middle. SHould that behavior start up, I'll be sure to report on it here. I'll be attempting my first DVD encode this week sometime.

MP4's to the client - I have yet to get it working. Installing the 3ivx components identically as I did on the server, and checking the client properties file for mp4 inclusion. When I try to play an MP4, it appears to lock the client up tighter than the Bellagio vault (which movie did *I* recently see again). The only way to fix the client is to then blow it up.

[dvd_maniac]

MP4's to the client - I have yet to get it working

The problem might not be the codec or DirectShow. It might be that Sage and/or the Client can not stream mp4 videos.

I am very dissappointed to find out it can not stream these. Can you import video files locally on the client? IF so maybe we could try mapping a network drive and import them that way...Just a thought...
I will have to wait til this weekend to try. Let me know if you give it a shot.

[Alyus]

I'm very new to the recoding aspect of all this and have a question for those of you that have successfully used nero to recode your recorded tv.

Everytime I recode anything, DVD, or tv show I get bars all around the video. not just the sides or the bottom but both. I played around with the resize and crop settings including unchecking the letterbox option. Nothing helps. The only thing I have been able to do is recode and then view in Nero Showtime and use the pan & scan.

I have googled for a couple days now and everyone seems to be talking about bars on the side or below but not all around, or about dvds specifically. Can anybody help with this?

Other than this problem I have been very satisfied with the PQ using showtime, and found this guide to be very helpful for basic setup:
http://turkish.doom9.org/index.html?/nerodigital.htm

Thanks in advance.
Alyus

[Jason]

Originally Posted by ukmgranger

will the mpag4 files play on the MVP?

I don't believe that the file will play on the MVP... at least with Matt's client. The original Hauppauge softwae may work as it transcodes the files on the server PC and then lets the MVP play it in it's (The MVP...) native mpg format. Matt has not ruled out the transcoding of files, but he has yet to find an easy (and cheap...) option to do so.

If someone could find such a beast (on the fly transoder...) that is free and easy for Matt to use, then I'm sure he would have no problem incorporating it. I'm not speaking for him, but as I remember, that is what he said in another post. (Matt- Correct me if I'm wrong... )

-Jason

[dvd_maniac]

@ Alyus

I would very much recommend that you use Cayar's STV version17 and enable ShowTime as an external video player. I have it setup this way because ND files have better PQ in ShowTime than in any other player. Also, you might one day find yourself encoding some movies in AVC in which case Sage will not play, so you'd be ready for the future...

[Alyus]

Dvd_maniac--

Thank you for the suggestion. I will definately consider that option. As this is my first time recoding in general I am curious, I guess, as to why this happened. I emailed Nero Support and they suggested I change the aspect ratio setting, which I have been unable to find. So I am awaiting another response to this. I am also wondering if maybe some codec or other setting is off on my machine as I havent seen anyone else mentioning this happening to them and I have had problems with nero vision express as well. (Svcd's not coming out workable and dvd's with stuttering problems on some chapters).

That Stv definately looks interesting. Looking over that thread however I am a little overwhelmed. I'm also having some standby issues right now (gpu crashes on opening sage after standby). So I'm a little hesitant to start messing with something else I've been using SageMC for a while now and have been happy.

Thank you for your response I'll definately keep that in mind.

Alyus