How do I use Project X?

[elsmandino]

Hi,

I am trying to get to grips with Project X as it seems to be the only program that will do what I want.

However, there is a massive lack of documentation and the program itself is not particularly self-explanatory.

I tried joining the Project X forum but it just keeps telling me that the security question is wrong each time - very irritating.

Does anyone know how to use Project X or perhaps point me in the direction of a full guide?

Thanks very much.

[sanlyn]

You can try this one: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/DigiTV/projectx.htm

[jman98]

Replace "Project X" with "multiAVCHD" in your post and in my opinion with the exception of the forum statement you've pretty much summed it up too. But if you want to tell us what your goal is we might know if there's something other than Project X that you can use. There are certainly plenty of good editors available if that's what you want, but we would need to know if you're open to buying something or if whatever you use must be free.

[elsmandino]

Hello,

Thank you for your replies.

I certainly am up to buying any program that can do what I am trying to achieve:

Ultimately, I want to take all my .ts files (recorded in Mediaportal) and do the following:

1. Correct any errors in the stream
2. Edit out the adverts
3. Convert the cleaned up .ts file to an MKV
4. The MKV must preserve the original audio track(s) and subtitles - i.e. only the video is re-encoded to h.264.

I think my problem is that I have overwhelmed myself with all the various programs out there - there are masses and they all claim to do similar things.

Thanks very much.

[jman98]

VideoReDo can do everything you want with the possible exception of the subtitles. I have no way to test that. You can download an evaluation copy and try it out if you want. It's not difficult to use. My recommendation though is that you use it like this - make entry points at the beginning and end of what you want to keep and put it in the clipboard and then save the clipboard clips as one. You can just remove video you don't want but I was trained to use editors "back in the day" to just keep what we want rather than to remove what we don't want and my way doesn't lead to synchronization issues. In the past sometimes just removing what you didn't want to keep led to synch issues.

[elsmandino]

I am coming round to the idea that VRD is the best way forward. Just one thing that I cannot seem to find an answer to - if VRD can both edit and then encode into mp4 or mkv in one program, why does virtually everyone I read about use Handbrake instead for the decoding? (having already bought VRD).

I would follow suit if I thought Handbrake gave better results but I cannot find anything to confirm that this is indeed the case.

[poisondeathray]

Because handbrake uses x264 , a better AVC encoder than the one Videoredo uses

[jman98]

I am coming round to the idea that VRD is the best way forward. Just one thing that I cannot seem to find an answer to - if VRD can both edit and then encode into mp4 or mkv in one program, why does virtually everyone I read about use Handbrake instead for the decoding? (having already bought VRD).

I would follow suit if I thought Handbrake gave better results but I cannot find anything to confirm that this is indeed the case.

Your understanding is incorrect. MP4 and MKV are not "encoded into". They are simply containers. Think of them like a box. A box can hold books or clothes or papers or any number of things. MP4 and MKV more or less work like that. The only "conversion" from a TS file is to simply put the contents into an MP4 or MKV container and nothing else. Now MP4 does have more restrictions on what it can hold than MKV so in theory an re-encode might be necessary for some video or audio sources when using MP4 containers but MKV can basically hold anything.

[jman98]

P.S. VideoReDo can indeed re-encode but most of the time that isn't necessary. You can force it to do so if you really want to but by default it doesn't.

[netmask56]

Take a look at my simplified guide to ProjectX here http://www.openwiz.org/wiki/ProjectX You would only have to change the page number under subtitles to suit UK conditions and remember ProjectX is only for MPEG files including MPEG_TS and won't handle H264 etc.

The images are from an older version but the operational side of it remains the same. One of these days I'll update to a more recent version. In the Demux mode it cleans up a lot of transmission errors if that's important for your situation.