HDTV files from PC to TV ? Is it possible ?

[ian curtis]

Hi

i apologize as im unsure which sub forum to post this in

i have this file extension ,its over 12 gigs in size ,from where i got it i`m assured
its an HDTV file and with a dvi2hdmi , from my pc to my 60 inch sony wega TV
it will play , but i only get audio for a few seconds then it crashes .i`ve tried a few players
like VLC media as well,which has always played anything i threw at it ,till now .

xxxx.xxxx.1440x1080i.h.264.AC3.2.0.19.5Mbs.BBCHD.l ogo

This flick wouldnt play when i first got it , and i was told it was because i was using an
S-video cable , and i needed dvi2hdmi ,so i bought that ,and still no luck

i`ve missed something here , is there some special file or program i need to play such
a flick ?

Many other ppl have told me it works for them ,and told me to get this cable and all will
work for me as well .

Please advise

Thanks

[FulciLives]

Try using ProjectX to demux to a MPEG file.

Another option is HDTVtoMPEG which can also demux a TS file to a standard MPEG file.

Last but not least you may (or may not) need HDTV Pump for proper playback.

Last but not least you may want to grab MPEG2Repair as well.

So again you should get (in no particular order):

1.) ProjectX
2.) HDTVtoMPEG
3.) HDTV Pump
4.) MPEG2Repair

Good Luck !!!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I just started playing around with HDTV captures and I find they play fine for me in PowerDVD

[ian curtis]

fanx m8

i will look into those programs you suggest

After installing HDTV Pump the files play back did slightly improve
in mplayer ,zoom player plays perfect audio , but no video

MPlayer will now play it ,with lotsa stutter , and i can drag the progress bar
and see more video , but still not watchable due to audio/video stutter

i also installed the latest FFDshow ,with H.264 support

Please help me understand demux and converting the HDTV to another format as you
suggest .

Does not such defy the original purpose of having a HD movie from the start ?

What i mean is , does not such degrade the quality to such ,that i may as well get
the original dvd to begin with ?

What i hope to play is the movie in HD quality ,and not degrade it

It seems this H.264 may be too much for my AMD athlon 2600 and about 1-1.5 gig DDR memory ?


Cheers for all

[FulciLives]

ProjectX and HDTVtoMPEG will simply convert the TS file to a standard MPEG file. It's still the same thing ... no re-encoding is taking place ... it's just a MPEG file afterwards instead of a TS file.

Think of it as the same thing as converting a VOB file to a MPEG file. It's still the same thing. No re-encoding is taking place.

Anyways once it is in MPEG format try and play it with a "proper" DVD player ala PowerDVD or WinDVD.

My HDTV MPEG files play perfectly for me in PowerDVD and I only have Version 5 (whereas I think they are up to Version 7 now).

Of course I have a 3.2Ghz 540 P4 CPU which I imagine is faster than your AMD athlon 2600 CPU.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Remember that HDTV is still MPEG-2 format ... just with a higher bitrate and resolution than the standard MPEG-2 DVD spec format.

[ian curtis]

Fanx a fast reply

OK i`ll try to convert

So the files keep all the same quality/resolution ,my poor
brain hurts....LOL...........

Do you know of this H.264 codec ? Can it be included in this mix
of demux etc...?????

Man its a resource hog..........

[FulciLives]

I should point out that I am under the assumption this is a TS file which is MPEG-2 format. However I noticed just now that you mentioned H.264 twice now so ... I dunno for sure what you file is LOL

What is the EXT of the file?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ian curtis]

PS

Any tips on settings to use in either prog to maintain quality etc?

Fanx

[ian curtis]

Damm

HDTVtoMPEG cant find a channel error
when i load the file ,and projectxX says
"error while decoding frame ,not enough data in buffer
as soon as i load it

the extension of the file is .TS , and full name of file is
Dxxx.Bxxxx.1440x1080i.h.264.AC3.2.0.19.5Mbs.BBCHD. logo

i put in x`s for obvious reasons .

Sorry im so tired i missed your line where you asked for the
EXT

Also in HDTVtoMPEG some settings im not sure of which to
choose Ie: ,Output file name-type ,are transport stream etc....
im not sure what that is ,and allthe other settings

Cheers

[FulciLives]

As experienced as I am ... I am new to playing around with HDTV files.

I am afraid that I can offer no more assistance but not to worry ... I am sure someone else will come along with some advice.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Baldrick]

I assume it's a ts with h264. Have you tried demux/split audio and video with Yamb 1.6 or ProjectX or TSConverter and then play the separate streams with mplayer or vlc? Or make a new .mkv from them and play it.

I use haali media splitter and coreavc for video with h264....but haven't test ts with h264 yet.

And read http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=114361 and http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=117919&page=2

[Baldrick]

Does http://www.giusberto.ch/hdtv/BBC_H264_test6.ts work?

I can it play it using MPC together with CoreAVC and Haali Media Splitter.

Your ts source can also be damaged so you might need to demux it with ProjectX to "fix it".

[ian curtis]

fanx FulciLives for trying that far

And Baldrick ,that was alot of info ,fanx to you .

Its 5 am and i have to retire this for some zzzzzzzz

i know i`ll be asking u about demux etc and playing seperate
streams..YipeZ

Did you see above errors i got with HDTVtoMPEG and
projectX ?

i also get a bad install error for java when installing ProjectX

" Bad installation .Error involvinh java VM (SysExec)bin/java.exe"

Man no luck

Thanks again

[ian curtis]

Nope , i tried BBC_H264_test6 in Mplayer as i did the other

file,with the same results , stuttering video/audio

But what i saw looks great ,id love to see that show

Finally im off to sleep

Cheers

[ian curtis]

Hi

Well some good news

i installed Cyberlink Powerdvd V7.0.1813 Deluxe

The movie plays now , but still with some slight jerkiness/delay in video
stream ,i really think my PC isnt powerful enough to handle h.264

Cyber link must be some sweet program

i have to shut down any un necessary pc processes for it to run as smooth as possible

im a noob to this sort of thing ,HD etc.....so a few things id love to understand

Does HD , HDTV exist without h.264 ? If so what does h.264 offer that may make it
superior to a HD-HDTV file ? It seems to offer alot of trouble ,maybe for a weak PC

i find many HD-HDTV files available from Ie: usenet sources , and they vary
extremely in size , from 12+ Gigs , and some smaller than a DVD ,Ie: 2.8 gigs

im not sure how such small files can be HD-HDTV(actually a full movie) .

How nan i be sure , or what do i look for to assure i`m actually getting a real HD
file , and not waste my time ,and just get the regular DVD instead ?

Thanks m8`s

[edDV]

The movie plays now , but still with some slight jerkiness/delay in video
stream ,i really think my PC isnt powerful enough to handle h.264

Cyber link must be some sweet program

i have to shut down any un necessary pc processes for it to run as smooth as possible

im a noob to this sort of thing ,HD etc.....so a few things id love to understand

Does HD , HDTV exist without h.264 ? If so what does h.264 offer that may make it
superior to a HD-HDTV file ? It seems to offer alot of trouble ,maybe for a weak PC

Yes unfortunately an AMD 2600 + ATI 9800 is considered weak for HD h.264. Actually nowhere close.

Current x1900 AVIVO cards are just getting drivers that keep HD h.264 loads under 40% CPU. Latest rule of thumb for any shot at playback (beta level drivers)

x13xx 480p
x16xx 720p
x19xx 1080p

Players like VLC and Cyberhome can adaptively cheat to drop framerate or resolution until it comes close to playing but you aren't seeing the true intended HD.

Normal USA ATSC broadcast uses MPeg2_TS at less compression. These can play with MPeg2 hardware acceleration or by cheats like dropping every other field. H.264 and VC-1 offer similar quality but at the cost of 2-3x more compression. Playback requires hardware assist at HD resolutions.

Many realize they don't yet have the hardware to directly play these files, so they invest hours of processing to downconvert them to something playable on their current hardware.

[ian curtis]

fanx edDV

Thats a hell of an nformed reply....

i have some more inquiries as well if thats ok .

How much quality loss (esp: video) is involved in this
downconverting you spoke of ? It seems the affordable route

To convert to an mpeg 2
from this quality format ,is there considerable or
any quality loss ? Esp: in the video . If so is it
still superior to the DVD9 format ,or even DVD5 ?

If you take a quality loss that equals it to a dvd , wouldnt it be wiser to save time and resources and just obtain the DVD ?

i still dont understand where h.264 has the edge ,is it lossless
conversion/compression ,as to compare to Flac in the audio world or something else ?

And last ,but not least , my AMD will play h.264 at almost
bearable rates , so where should i consider an upgrade in my
system ?

My dinero is limited , so would a real sweet video card possibly
take the load off the CPU and give me a lovable h.264
playback experience ?

i cant afford a new mainboard ,CPU and video card ,and now
all new good boards only have one IDE slot ,and the rest SATA

leaving me with many , almost ,unusable IDE drives(unless i spend more $ on USB cases for each drive ) , and expensive SATA drives to buy .

Please donot feel rushed in your reply ,i know i loaded this message with one hell of alot of questions ,and im trying to soak in alot of new knowledge .

Thank you

[edDV]

How much quality loss (esp: video) is involved in this
downconverting you spoke of ? It seems the affordable route

To convert to an mpeg 2
from this quality format ,is there considerable or
any quality loss ? Esp: in the video . If so is it
still superior to the DVD9 format ,or even DVD5 ?

If you take a quality loss that equals it to a dvd , wouldnt it be wiser to save time and resources and just obtain the DVD ?

Converting a small h.264 file to a 2-4x larger MPeg2 file can maintain high resolution but takes extensive transcode processing. Downconverting to a DVD spec 720x480 MPeg2 takes even longer. After all that the quality may not be as good as just buying the DVD or recording the show at SD resolutions.

i still dont understand where h.264 has the edge ,is it lossless
conversion/compression ,as to compare to Flac in the audio world or something else ?

And last ,but not least , my AMD will play h.264 at almost
bearable rates , so where should i consider an upgrade in my
system ?

My dinero is limited , so would a real sweet video card possibly
take the load off the CPU and give me a lovable h.264
playback experience ?

i cant afford a new mainboard ,CPU and video card ,and now
all new good boards only have one IDE slot ,and the rest SATA

leaving me with many , almost ,unusable IDE drives(unless i spend more $ on USB cases for each drive ) , and expensive SATA drives to buy .

Please donot feel rushed in your reply ,i know i loaded this message with one hell of alot of questions ,and im trying to soak in alot of new knowledge .

Thank you

h.264 and VC-1 are the "advanced" high compression standards for the new HD/BD high definition DVD players and will probably spread to ATSC broadcasting (secondary channels) and multiple consumer devices.

Advantage is tighter compression at similar quality. This means more minutes of HD on a DVD layer, or more subchannels over the same bandwidth for TV broadcast, cable or dbs. Current MPeg2 broadcast maximizes at one HD + one SD over a single 6MHz TV channel. H.264 or VC-1 might get 3 HD channels in the same space.

Hardware is needed for the decode so new DVD players, TV tuners and cable/dbs boxes will be required. H.264/VC-1 are also important for HD over IPTV. The technology is scalable so hardware decoders can scale from HD down to cell phone displays.

ATI and NVidia are struggling to get smooth playback with current generation high end cards. There are many complications getting HD/BD DVD playback from computers due to various DRM issues.

I'm waiting for a full solution. The solution I have in mind is full hardware encoding and decoding with no CPU load for PVR type HD recording in the backgound on a PC. HD/BD DVD playback is an option. This should become possible over the next two years.

I recently upgraded to a Core2Duo processor on a "transition" motherboard that allowed me to keep using my old AGP ATI-9xxx cards, PATA/SATA drives and PCI bus hardware. The result is my MPeg2 based PVR functions and MPeg2 encoding are much more efficient (SD and HD). MPeg4 encoding is practical at SD resolutions only with current slow software encoders*.


* my bias, I'm less patient than many.