Low Cost (Read:Free) Options for DVR-MS/WTV Files

[dj4monie]

I really understand why the Movie Maker fanbase is upset at MS making Movie Maker easier to use have taken away quite a few options.

In a desire to save HD space (I have over Terabyte total) with my archived shows I want to compress them down into "something". I can edit these files just fine in Movie Maker, but you can't re-save the files as DVR-MS, you can only save them to WMV. But without some more options like bit-rate control, my videos end up being too compressed for my 1920x1200 as they look "soft" on my 1366x768 display (laptop). With more bit rate I get actually better color than the original DVR-MS file (interesting).

So I need 720x480 SD (16:9 Direct TV SD, where it was capped) but 2.99 Mbps compresses too far down, and going to the "720p" (1280x720 settings changes the resolution, but allows more bit information (6.03 Mbps).

Vista Movie Maker at least allowed for conversion to MPEG-2

VideoRedo is $75 and I'm presently unemployed (but happy).

Any ideas fellas?

[Baldrick]

Can't you make a custom export profile for windows movie maker? Or maybe it only worked for older versions. See http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-SavingMovies-CustomProfiles.html

[usually_quiet]

I just started at this, and am still figuring out a process, but this is what I do so far: I convert from WTV to DVR-MS with Media Center (I have Windows 7), then use DVRMSToolbox to convert to mpg. MPEG2-VCR will do frame-accurate edits and costs $19 but has a free trial. Mpg2Cut2 will do GOP level cuts and is free. For some reason MPEG2-VCR-edited files are smaller, although it doesn't re-encode.

I have family members with age-related hearing loss and I'm still working out how to handle closed captions. CCExtractor GUI can extract them, but that is as far as I have gone.

[dj4monie]

Can't you make a custom export profile for windows movie maker? Or maybe it only worked for older versions. See http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-SavingMovies-CustomProfiles.html

I'm not sure the "Live" version of MM will allow for custom profiles. I was checking the Movie Maker forums and didn't seem to find anything concrete.

From Movie Maker Forums

I have a few custom profile from Movie Maker 2.6 which I have put into "C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\Video Profiles" and also in "C:\Program Files\Movie Maker 2.6\Shared\Profiles". The problem I am having is that not all of the profiles show up. Out of the 5 I use in MM2.6 on 2 show up in WLMM. I have even tried to edit the 'installed' WLMM profiles with Notepad and Windows Media Profile Editor without any luck.

I know that Windows will not let you save straight to the Profiles folder so I have been saving on my thumb drive and coping them to the WLMM profiles folder.

Thanks,
Rob

@Usually_Quiet

I don't think files without meta information work with closed caption. VideoRedo will allow you to keep all your meta information and still delete unwanted things like adverts. I've never have gotten DVRMSToolBox to run right on any OS I've had (XP, Vista, W7). I once had it working (sort of) with XP Media Center 2005, it was bit too aggressive. I rather delete the adverts myself and I tested it on a race and it cut some of the race itself.

Plus I could never get it to batch convert and I had set it to convert the Recorded TV folder.

[usually_quiet]

@Usually_Quiet

I don't think files without meta information work with closed caption. VideoRedo will allow you to keep all your meta information and still delete unwanted things like adverts. I've never have gotten DVRMSToolBox to run right on any OS I've had (XP, Vista, W7). I once had it working (sort of) with XP Media Center 2005, it was bit too aggressive. I rather delete the adverts myself and I tested it on a race and it cut some of the race itself.

Plus I could never get it to batch convert and I had set it to convert the Recorded TV folder.

I didn't configure DVRMSToolbox to remove commercial breaks or batch convert, just to convert an individual file to .mpg. I edit the .mpg myself to remove the unwanted parts. I got DVRMSToolbox to work under Windows 7 by using Windows XP SP2 compatibility, plus run as administrator. It seems to get stuck in an infinite loop after completing the conversion to .mpg and I have to close it, but the .mpg file it produces seems OK.

In the past I have been able to extract closed captions from recordings made by my DVD recorder using CCExtractor GUI as .SRT subtitles, which work quite well for DVD after a bit of clean up and conversion to .SUP. ...but either I have forgotten something or something is different. The subtitle file produced by CCExtractor GUI from the DVR-MS file looks OK, but the process I think used before to change them from .SRT format to .SUP format isn't working. I just need to spend more time with it to figure out what is happening.