Absolutely superior conversion method - avi to mpeg2 in real

[alexcomp]

The equipment:
Sony TRV 730 digital 8 camera
1400 mhz Athlon/ECS sis mainboard with 512 mb ram
three 80 gb WDC hdd's
Sony 2000 Tivo unit hacked to twin 40 gb ibm drives
ATI Allinoneder Radeon video card
Adaptec DVPICS Firewire controller

The process:

Capture DV avi file to hard drive, Adobe Premiere or Movie Studio or whatever software. Will result in a 20+ gb file for around 1hr30minute tape.

Do whatever non-linear editing desired... I did not as I was determining feasibility of this process so I went straight to conversion of the raw file.

Play the file using the ATI file player... Send output to the Tivo unit using the svideo and composite audio output from the ATI allinwonder.

Set the Tivo to record at its highest quality mode. With my twin 40gb drives this allows for about thirty hours of recording.

Summary:

As I pursued my interest in computerized video conversion I was totally amazed at how easily my 1400 mhz Athlon with 768 meg ram could be brought to its knees. Simultaneously, I was implementing a Tivo system, (essentially a computerized vcr that allows for mpeg2 conversion on the fly). When I saw these outrageous conversion figures, (4 times real time on my high end system!) it occurred to me that it might be possible to use the TIVO for the conversion. Because the tivo is constantly compressing tv signals to mpeg format it has been optimized at the chip level for this process.

THIS WORKED PERFECTLY

Once it is on the tivo it can be output to tape and, with a network card addition, moved back to the computer in compressed format.

Having seen all the posts in this forum that make the conversion process look "beyond rocket science", this is a wonderful discovery for me.

As far as addtional cost, an inexpensive tivo is under $200 and the ATI Radeon allinwonder about the same. I think the allinwonder may be overkill as a $75 video out card would probably do as well.

[JHebert]

Two questions:
How do you add the network card to the TiVo? I've heard about this idea before but never found an actual step-by-step conversion guide that includes the hardware and software details.
How does the capture quality of the TiVo compare to PC hardware based realtime MPEG cards like WinTV PVR or Dazzle DVC-II?

[JJamez]

If you're not concerned about the resulting file sizes, or aren't trying to squeeze 45 minutes of video onto a CD-R, this method is fine. Obviously, the speed of conversion is at the expense of MUCH larger file sizes than you would end up with with TMPGE or CCE conversion on your PC.

I do a similar thing, using ReplayTV instead of Tivo (although I own a Tivo as well). Replay is considerably easier to pull the MPG files from - just pull the drive, put it in the PC and you're ready to go. I would also imagine it's much faster as well.

I definitely think it's a great alternative to capturing video on a PC - always goes without a hitch - I've had some bad experiences capturing video on my PC :0

Capturing on Replay at the highest setting and then reencoding in TMPGE is what I've been doing for SVCD, and while a bit time consuming, gives nice results.

One question - why are you going to PC first - doesn't your DV Camcorder have analog outputs? Pardon my ignorance on that one - I don't own a DV Cam, but I'm assuming it would have analog out along with the Firewire out. I have an older ATI AIW, and while its a good card, the scan conversion and output to TV definitely degrades the picture significantly.

JJ



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JJamez on 2001-11-20 11:36:54 ]</font>

[gNOMEintheRedHat]

for more Tivo Hack info than any Earthling can ingest.....
Try the Tivo Underground Forum

[alexcomp]

jjamez

You are correct that I could go direct to tivo with my analog outputs.

I am testing this two step process as I intend to do some non-linear editing of the avi files prior to compression.

[JJamez]

Okay, I see what you mean.

With the Replay, I do the compression first and then edit on PC with Womble, which doesn't recompress the files after editing. If you could set up the Tivo network and do it that way, I'm certain you would preserve a LOT more quality. Although, last I read, the Tivo network was about $100 to set up and seemed very complicated to anyone not proficient in Linux. May be more trouble than its worth...