VideoReDo -- New MPEG2 Video Editor for ReplayTV?

[bshor]

Hello,

I just found this: Inquirer review (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20305)

A nice review of software that is supposed to allow very easy editing of MPEG2 files, including ones produced by ReplayTV (there's actually an option asking you if you have a Replay). Apparently only $50.

The software is available for a free trial (http://www.drdsystems.com/VideoReDo/download.htm). I'm going to give it a shot, but I'm an MPEG editing newbie! No experience with Womble, ReVue, or anything else.

Has anyone else given this a shot?

[mhargr03]

Nope...but please tell us how it works out!

[bshor]

I just tried editing an MPEG2 file I downloaded with DVArchive. As easy as pie to cut out commercials, and it didn't re-encode the file. It took less than a minute to re-write the new, cut file (a 1/2 hr Medium-encoded show) onto disk.

Problem is, I don't have experience with the other editing solutions available. So I don't know how relatively easy it is. I've been kind of scared by the long threads on the RTV Tools and Womble!

Actually, I have had experience with Vidomi, a program that lets you edit MPEG2 files in preparation for writing DivX files. This was as easy as that. Vidomi still works, but no update has been released for quite a while for it.

[tluxon]

You can try Womble's Mpeg Video Wizard for free. I can't recommend it highly enough for ease-of-use and making DVD ready content.

All the best,

Tim

[chain777]

I just tried out this software, and so far I'm impressed! I've yet to find a solution that is easy enough for me, but this seems to be the ticket. I successfully edited a 30 minute Simpsons clip and a one hour History Channel special with no issues. Fast, simple and intuitive. The resulting file doesn't appear to have any sync issues.

Burning to DVD via Nero was perfect. I really like the fact that it's customized to adjust for specific devices (Replay, Tivo, satellite, etc.). It seems to have taken into account the issues that arise from the different recording devices and methods, and adjusts for them. I haven't seen this level of customization in any other software, and the author seems open to adding any other modifications for problems that may arise from other devices...nice.

It looks like this and Nero are all I'm going to need to burn to disk. You get a free 21 day trial without any limitations on the software once you obtain a key (free), so you can't go wrong.

I encourage anyone else out there like myself who's looking for a "video editing for dummies" solution to try this out. I've tried womble, but even that was too complicated for me, and not cheap. This seems to have what I'm looking for at the right price.

[SkiTyke]

I'll need to set aside some time to try this. The Inquirer review wasn't really clear that this is a frame-accurate editor; in one paragraph they compare it to other frame-accurate editors, but in another they compare it to a Linux program that is only GOP-accurate. I had to go to the publisher's web site for more definitive info.

I've been using the command-line RTVtools, a time-intensive ordeal as well as being only GOP-accurate, and this looks like it should be a more attractive alternative.

[famewolf]

Is there a linux solution to remove commercials? I know rtvtools runs under linux but I used to use evtedit as a front end and it's windows only.

[l8er]

Originally posted by SkiTyke
The Inquirer review wasn't really clear that this is a frame-accurate editor There is a setting in Options called: "Enable Frame Accurate Editing".

[rickster]

Darn it.

No sooner did I break down and buy Womble (after resisting for a long time) than something better and cheaper comes out...

[bpratt]

I just tried it and it seems like a very nice tool. I still used evtdump to get a list of the times where the commercials start and end.

I normally use evtdump to create a txt file with a list of the commercial start and end points. I edit that file with notepad and then use a free program called VirtualDub to find the real A & D points in the file. I modify the txt file with those values and then run rtvedit -t1 to remove the commercials from the mpg. I then run that output through rtvconvert to ensure the video and sound are in sync.

VirtualDub is more accurate in selecting exactly which frames you want to skip to eliminate the commercial. The amount of time it took to create the edited mpg file using VideoReDo was almost identical to VirtualDub. If I don't need to run rtvconvert after VideoReDo, it could save a couple of minutes though.

Since I have a free solution that works well for ReplayTV mpg files, I doubt I will use VideoReDo unless the price is very reasonable.

[oldyellow]

You can try Womble's Mpeg Video Wizard for free. I can't recommend it highly enough for ease-of-use and making DVD ready content.

I second that opinion. Mpeg Video Wizard is VERY easy to use. Just drag the mpg file onto the time line, scrub to the commercials and cut them out, and save. Drag the saved file into you favorite authoring program (for me it's DVD-Lab) and burn.

I've tried womble, but even that was too complicated for me

Did you try Womble mpegvcr (the original product) or Video Wizard. I switched to Video Wizard from mpegvcr. Video Wizard is MUCH simpler to use than mpegvcr. It only takes me a couple of minutes to cut out all of the commercials from a 60 minute program and save the result.

[chain777]

Originally posted by oldyellow




Did you try Womble mpegvcr (the original product) or Video Wizard. I switched to Video Wizard from mpegvcr. Video Wizard is MUCH simpler to use than mpegvcr. It only takes me a couple of minutes to cut out all of the commercials from a 60 minute program and save the result.

I'm not even sure which one it was, but it was confusing to me. I'm sure if I gave it a little more effort I could figure it out, but frankly I don't want to. I just need something that can simply and effectively remove unwanted content, create a new file without any sync issues, and then use the new file to burn to DVD. I don't care about titles, transitions or other authoring tools, just a simple program that can create consistent output. So far, this is the best I've seen. It's also the first editing program I could figure out within minutes of installing. And it's less than half the price of womble. I don't have anything against womble, but it's more of an investment in time and money than I'm willing to part with.

[diverjones]

I can not imagine anything being easier than Womble's mpeg wizard OR how a product would simply the editing process. Womble's product is tops in my book albeit expensive. Perhaps if videoredo works as well as womble, the price is a better fit for the cost conscience.

[oldyellow]

Originally posted by chain777
I'm not even sure which one it was, but it was confusing to me. I'm sure if I gave it a little more effort I could figure it out, but frankly I don't want to

I'm going to venture a guess and say that you were using mpegvcr rather than Video Wizard.

Originally posted by diverjones
I can not imagine anything being easier than Womble's mpeg wizard OR how a product would simply the editing process.

Agreed. I think I'll give this new product a try. It it truly has more features for a cheaper price than Video Wizard, I'll use it (I guess one feature it has that VW doesn't is frame accurate editing). But I will be surprised if it is actually easier to use.

[Bargonaut]

Well, I just tried ReDo and Womble MVW. Seems like MVW is way overkill for clipping commercials, but would make a nice MPEG editor if I needed to add titles and audio to existing MPEG files.

At $50, Video ReDo seems like a good tool for RTV users. It handles the files well, has an intuitive interface, lots of shortcut keys, and really works. More importantly, it cleanly handled glitches in the source MPEG that the rtvtools choked on. I often get unsupported stream errors with rtvedit, which causes the tool to skip a huge chunk of the video or stop completely. ReDo picked right up at the next frame and seamlessly skipped the glitch.

-BS

[Daren Dahl]

Forgive my newbie question me but I have little experience editing ReplayTV files. I rarely have the need to burn a show to a DVD.

I am not sure why but I expected this program to have already flagged the commercial breaks when I loaded up a ReplayTV file. It didn't do that.

I suppose it would only take a few minutes to scan through the file and manually mark the start and end of each commercial break but that is kind of annoying.

Am I doing something wrong? With this program or any program I have to manually find, mark, and cut commercials if I don't want them on the DVD, right?

[parfour7th]

I was so thrilled to try VideoReDo after reading about its ease of use in this post this morning that I finally broke down and bought/installed a DVD burner tonight. It came with Nero OEM Suite software. After using ReDo on a file that I imported using DVA (VideoReDo is great BTW), I was all set to burn with Nero as the original poster did but suddenly I got an error message. It said that I didn't have the "DVD-Video Plug-In" to support MPEG-2 video. A link in the message directed me to the Nero website where they gave me the option to buy the plug-in for a mere $24.99. CRAP! (Well, that's not exactly what I said! :eek: )

Anyway, are there any other more economical options here (read free) or must I shell out the 25 bucks?:( At the very least, buyers beware that Nero OEM Suite will NOT convert RTV MPEG-2 files right out of the box!

Thanks in advance for your comments/feedback,

Chris

[parfour7th]

Originally posted by Daren Dahl
Am I doing something wrong? With this program or any program I have to manually find, mark, and cut commercials if I don't want them on the DVD, right?


You're doing it right. Editing commercials is manual process but doesn't take too long after you get accustomed to it. I edited my first shows (30 min) tonight via VideoReDo. My efficiency improved 1000% from the first to the second show after getting past part of the newbie learning curve.

[Wrecks]

This may be a place where Womble has an advantage. I understand it is able to read a ReplayTV .EVT or .NDX file (I'm not sure which) and use it as a basis for editing out commercials.

[rochurch]

I had almost the opposite experience with the Womble products. I downloaded demos of both. I never figured out the wizzard version before it expired, but I was able to get the older 2VCR product to work and edit one video. I'll give this new product a try and see if it is any easier.

I also fall into the group that does not do enough of this to justify a 70 to 100 dollar expense. ReVue with replaytvtools does fine most of the time. However, I am open to a better solution at a resonable expense.

[Ed Rempalski]

I'm a womble user, but this prog is very tight, very nice work.

[bpratt]

Am I doing something wrong? With this program or any program I have to manually find, mark, and cut commercials if I don't want them on the DVD, right?
You can get a list of the start and end points for the commercials by running one of the RTVtools. The tools name is evtdump. The following is an example of producing a file for a West Wing show:
evtdump "The west wing - impact winter.evt" >west.txt
This will create a text file named "west.txt" that you can list with notepad or word. I bring up a copy that I can see next to the VideoReDo screen and use the times in the file to determine the start and end points of the commercials.

[Waylock]

A throwaway comment in one of these editing threads led me to try the "Find fade to black" and "Filter" features of Womble Wizard. I have only done about three files so far, but the only error was missing a couple seconds of an intro title on one of the TV shows.

The first feature finds and marks with cuts the transitions between commercials and show. The second deletes the check mark for the cuts it identifies as commercials. A single drag moves the program segments to the timeline for output. I am working with showstopper files so the rtv tools are useless to me. So far I have been very impressed and it is a real worksaver. Not so much a time saver since the find fade to black function is kind of slow, but it still beats manually looking for the exact point where the commercials fade out.

[spydermonkey311]

For those who use Nero to burn the mpeg2 files to DVD, what app do you use in Nero? NeroVision Express 2? It has a feature called DVD-VR, which allows you to create a menu and add video, then edit and add more video later to fill up the dvd, while leaving the dvd playable until you fill it up. Any downsides to this? I added a 1.2gb mpeg2 file to a Nero project, and Nero reports it at over 2GB. ???

Also, does VideoRedo reencode the file if its recorderd on standard or high quality? Ive read that Medium quality is standard DVD compliant, how does it handle the different qualitys, and what is the best to use?

Next, sometimes I get a message that VideoRedo removed some audio sync frames (3 on one video). Sometimes I dont get this message. What does this mean?

Last, switiching over to Womble, some people have stated that it supports the other files RTV makes, but I cant find a way to import or view them.

[BaysideBas]

I've done both std and medium Q from Replay in VRD, no issues. HQ is overkill and may choke some players due to bit rate being higher than DVD standards at some points in the recordings. I don't know if VRD re-encodes such video portions since I haven't done any edits in HQ. Normally, the only portion that gets re-encoded is the GOP at the edit point, which is usually no more than a few frames. If you're careful to cut at GOP boundaries, then you avoid even that (nice to have the option, no?) And if re-encoding is necessary, you can save a lot of time by queing the jobs for batch processing. You just edit and queue up, edit and queue up, then, when you're done editing, just start the batch processor and walk away.

[bpratt]

Also, does VideoRedo reencode the file if its recorderd on standard or high quality? Ive read that Medium quality is standard DVD compliant, how does it handle the different qualitys, and what is the best to use?
I record everything in high quality. The picture quality of high quality recordings is better than the others when viewed on a 55" of larger TV. Since VideoReDo first became available, I have created about 10 DVDs. I have not yet seen VRD reencode the files.
HQ is overkill and may choke some players due to bit rate being higher than DVD standards at some points in the recordings.
Don't agree. Never had a problem on any DVD player.

[bshor]

Glad to see others have tried and liked this program.

Silly question: will DVD MovieFactory 3 be enough to burn edited MPEG's onto disc? Or do you also need Nero?

[Scallica]

Originally posted by bshor
Silly question: will DVD MovieFactory 3 be enough to burn edited MPEG's onto disc? Or do you also need Nero?

DVD MovieFactory will burn the mpegs to a DVD. It will also allow you to create menus, add sound, etc. Be sure to download all the updates and patches from Ulead's website.

-Scallica-

[Daren Dahl]

I noticed that VideoReDo will read BeyondTV's commerical skip file and automatically insert cuts in the appropriate places. Wonder if it is possible to convert ReplayTV's file into BeyondTV's format so that VideoReDo can automatically cut the commercials?

[chain777]

Originally posted by Daren Dahl
I noticed that VideoReDo will read BeyondTV's commerical skip file and automatically insert cuts in the appropriate places. Wonder if it is possible to convert ReplayTV's file into BeyondTV's format so that VideoReDo can automatically cut the commercials?

I think a better solution would be to try to get the author of VideoReDo to add the Replay commercial advance marker support. I just joined the forum there and posed this question. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Here's a link to the forum. VideoReDo forum. (http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/index.php)

[mhargr03]

I second your request Andy (both here and there!) :)

[Bargonaut]

Originally posted by Daren Dahl
I noticed that VideoReDo will read BeyondTV's commerical skip file and automatically insert cuts in the appropriate places.

Actually, it doesn't read a skip file. The Sage Community folks adapted a freeware comskip utility to output the breaks in the VideoReDo project file format. So, the VideoReDo developers support their own project file format.
EDIT: And, according to the release notes do read a Beyond file format, too.

However, nothing is stopping anyone here from modifying evtdump to write its output in the ReDo project file format. Now, if I can just find out what it looks like...

Oh, here's one, it's a text format:

<Version>2
<Filename>D:\Video\XXXXXXX
<MPEG Stream Type>2
<Cut 0>2990474888:4905900888:77673596:132517332 00:04:59;01, 00:08:10;17, 00:04:59;01
<Cut 1>14772424333:16686336444:366715952:415122476 00:24:37;07, 00:27:48;19, 00:21:25;21


It looks like the cuts are marked with frame numbers, and then it repeats the frame times, but I'm not sure what the third value is that goes with each start/end cut pair.

-BS

EDIT: added the sample file format

[nded]

......but I'm not sure what the third value is that goes with each start/end cut pair.

-BS



That third number looks like the new elapsed time value for the clipped video. If you subtract the total commercial times from the total video clip time, you get the new 21:25:21 number.

Ed

[chain777]

Originally posted by Bargonaut


However, nothing is stopping anyone here from modifying evtdump to write its output in the ReDo project file format.

I wish I had the skill to do something like that. If one of the guru's here could put something together to present to the VideoReDo author, I think our chances of seeing this implemented would be very good.;)

[Bargonaut]

Originally posted by nded
That third number looks like the new elapsed time value for the clipped video. If you subtract the total commercial times from the total video clip time, you get the new 21:25:21 number.

OK. Yes, it appears to be the new start time at the cut.

Looking closer I see there are four values before the frame times.
I'll look at some more project file samples to see how those work.

-BS

[bshor]

VideoReDo looks even simpler to use than Vidomi, which I'd been using before to edit out commercials from Replay MPEGs and archive to DivX.

It would be great to cut commercials even faster!

[Clay Schneider]

A little OT maybe, but does anyone know how good a job 'comskip' does on just finding commercials on its own without the benefit of the replay 'sidefile' information? If it does a good enough job, then 'sageredo' turns it's output into a file ready to run with videoredo. After all, we have all seen some off results with raw evtdump cut info on some programs anyway.

[Bargonaut]

You should know that comskip takes a while to process an mpg file for transitions. However, it has a lot of parameters to help tune the detection algorithm. It even includes a network logo detector to differentiate between the shows and the commercials. I think there are newer versions of comskip (v0.62) that will output in ReDo format directly.

-BS

[Bargonaut]

Hey, I just got an e-mail from DRD support (VideoReDo) with a sample of the Beyond skip file format. It's a simple XML cutlist with region blocks containing start and end tags. If anyone else wants to see it, let me know.

-BS

[mhargr03]

Someone replied to the thread Andy started here: http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewforum.php?f=2

Seems like they are open to looking into supporting rtv files if someone would send them some...

[Bargonaut]

Yeah, I got an e-mail from Dan today saying he would look at the request after he returns from CES.

-BS

[spydermonkey311]

This program is nice. :)

[bshor]

I'm having a bit of difficulty with VideoReDo on ReplayTV medium-encoded files. When I bring up file information from the "Tools" menu, I get a bitrate of 7.413 Mbps. I know this can't be right. I can't be 100% sure, but I remember medium-encoded files are supposed to be around 4 Mbps.

The cut 22 minute file (used to be 30 minutes before I got rid of the commercials) is around 620 megabytes.

Hmmm....

I've posted this question also on the VideoReDo support forum (http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewtopic.php?t=551).

[Scallica]

I am very impressed with this program. I have used Womble in trial mode and although it is a great program, $120 is harsh.

VideoRedo is very easy to use. I was able to download a show from my RTV, edit the commercials out in VideoRedo, and burn the DVD using Ulead's MF2.

-Scallica-

[hdshark]

Yes, this is a great editor with good basic functionality and none of the fancy stuff that nobody uses. And it is fast.

I wish it would show a timeline with commercials marked (like evtEdit does). This cannot be too hard. As soon as they add the feature to read ReplayTV index files to mark commercial breaks, they will have my $50.

[Snarler]

Used VideoReDo the other night and really like it. In a related question, I then used Sonic MyDVD to make the DVD and it took FOREVER to "transcode" the 22 minute medium quality video (hour and a half to two hours). My question to you guys is, is this normal for an Athlon 1200 running Windows 2000 with 256 meg of RAM (although in all fairness I didn't hear any disk thrashing telling me I needed more memory.)

--
Daniel

[bshor]

My Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus took less than 1/2 hour to burn a 44 minute DVD (2 22-minute cut episodes). I have an Athlon XP 1600+, Win XP, 512M Ram.

Sounds like something might be wrong with your setup. I can barely get by with 512M, how do you deal with 256?? Ouch...

[BaysideBas]

Snarler, I found that whenever you just open a file for "editing" in MyDVD, even if you don't make any edits, it will re-encode the whole file. I suspect that that's what's happening. I can burn six 1/2 hour episodes (SQ) on an 866MHZ PIII with 512MB RAM in less time than you report.

[chain777]

Originally posted by hdshark
Yes, this is a great editor with good basic functionality and none of the fancy stuff that nobody uses. And it is fast.

I wish it would show a timeline with commercials marked (like evtEdit does). This cannot be too hard. As soon as they add the feature to read ReplayTV index files to mark commercial breaks, they will have my $50.

See this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=492914) thread.

_____________________________________________________________
About DVD authoring and burning. I've been trying different combinations of software to see if I could find one that doesn't transcode, or at least limits the amount of transcoding.

With Nero, which is what I usually use, NVE3 version 3.0.1.14 does a lot of transcoding. Probably about 2:1 (30 minutes transcoded in 1 hour) with a P-4 1.7 w/512MB. With the update that was released yesterday (3.0.1.18), it's cut down substantially. More like 1:2 (30 minutes transcoded in 15 minutes). The problem is, it has a major bug; at least for me. It will get as far as transcoding the clip, then when it's supposed to go to the next step, it just quits. No warning, no crash...it just disappears as if it was never running.

I'm trying Ulead's DVD MF3 now, and except for one glaring problem it seems to work very well. Very minimal transcoding. It completed the authoring and burning process (at 4x) for two 1 hour clips in about 30 minutes. Much faster than any other solution I've tried so far. The bad news is the resulting DVD has NO audio. I'm still looking into this problem, and it may have something to do with my trial copy of MF3, it states it doesn't support AC3. I'm not using AC3, I'm converting the Replay's MPEG audio to LPCM, but I'm thinking it still may be an issue.

What have others found to work the best, focusing on minimizing the transcoding? If I can figure out this audio problem with MF3, it would be an excellent method. I especially like the way MF3 spells out each step (multiplexing the audio, etc.) as its doing its thing.

I'll have to check out Pinnacle.

BTW, this is all with VideoReDo edited clips.

[bshor]

The Pinnacle Studio discs have worked perfectly. It looks likey they do not re-encode if the selected bit-rate is equal or above that of the source. For Medium-format Replay MPEG's, I've used 4 Mbps successfully, and it goes pretty quickly, as mentioned above.

By the way, the source discs do in fact show an average bit rate of 4 Mbps; looks like the VideoReDo information is definitely wrong.

Chain, did you select "MovieFactory" mode in VideoReDo's preferences? The help file seems to suggest you need to do this if you want output to go to MF. Problem is, that I think this means that this output will no longer be compatible with other burning solutions. So I'm hesistant to give MF3 a try, because I don't want to re-cut all the MPEG's I've been working on.

[jliem]

I'm trying Ulead's DVD MF3 now, and except for one glaring problem it seems to work very well. Very minimal transcoding. It completed the authoring and burning process (at 4x) for two 1 hour clips in about 30 minutes. Much faster than any other solution I've tried so far. The bad news is the resulting DVD has NO audio. I'm still looking into this problem, and it may have something to do with my trial copy of MF3, it states it doesn't support AC3. I'm not using AC3, I'm converting the Replay's MPEG audio to LPCM, but I'm thinking it still may be an issue.

What have others found to work the best, focusing on minimizing the transcoding? If I can figure out this audio problem with MF3, it would be an excellent method. I especially like the way MF3 spells out each step (multiplexing the audio, etc.) as its doing its thing.


I have the full (non-trial) MF3 and this happens for me as well. Good to know someone else is experiencing it, cause I thought it was just something specific to my hardware or software.

I tried searching the VideoReDo forums for "audio" and "sound", but didn't see anything relevant. I was going to experiment some more before posting a message about in their support forum.

Oh, and I do have the "MovieFactory" option selected in the preferences.

[chain777]

Originally posted by jliem
I have the full (non-trial) MF3 and this happens for me as well. Good to know someone else is experiencing it, cause I thought it was just something specific to my hardware or software.

I tried searching the VideoReDo forums for "audio" and "sound", but didn't see anything relevant. I was going to experiment some more before posting a message about in their support forum.

Oh, and I do have the "MovieFactory" option selected in the preferences.

Good to know. It looks like it's time to post this over there. The VideoReDo forum is starting to get a lot of Replay related traffic, that can only be good for us.

[bshor]

Here is the program's author on the MovieFactory option:

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewtopic.php?t=530

[Roymus]

I also have the no audio problem, and am using Ulead DMF 3 trial version. My issue is a little different: I get the audio fine if I play the DVD in my PC, but there is no audio if I play it on my Toshiba 6200 DVD player in my home entertainment center. Video looks fine, just no audio. I have to use DVD -R discs in my Toshiba for compatibility. Again, the DVD plays fine in my PC. I've posted this problem on the Video ReDo forum and put in a support request. Otherwise, the product looks great and I can recommend it for inexperienced users. Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

Roy

[Snarler]

Originally posted by Roymus
I also have the no audio problem, and am using Ulead DMF 3 trial version. My issue is a little different: I get the audio fine if I play the DVD in my PC, but there is no audio if I play it on my Toshiba 6200 DVD player in my home entertainment center. Video looks fine, just no audio. I have to use DVD -R discs in my Toshiba for compatibility. Again, the DVD plays fine in my PC. I've posted this problem on the Video ReDo forum and put in a support request. Otherwise, the product looks great and I can recommend it for inexperienced users. Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

Roy

This may be similar to a problem I had playing home-made DVD's in a Toshiba player. You have to set the audio mode to something other than what you use for most other things (yes, that's vague...I'm not at home right now) I want to say something like PCM is involved. In my case, unless I flipped that option, I wouldn't hear sound, but then the sound for other DVD's was wrong somehow (can't remember if it was gone or just the wrong mode like stereo instead of 5.1 or whatever.)

I had read on the web that Toshiba players generally have this issue.

[Roymus]

I'm being told on another forum that MPEG audio will not work on a Toshiba player if it's connected via optical or digital coax (i.e., digital instead of analog). Is this true? If so, will acquiring a new DVD player (say a Sony) solve the problem, or will I still have to connect via analog or re-encode the sound somehow? Bear in mind that I'm pretty new at this...thanks!

Roy

[jliem]

Originally posted by Roymus
I'm being told on another forum that MPEG audio will not work on a Toshiba player if it's connected via optical or digital coax (i.e., digital instead of analog). Is this true? If so, will acquiring a new DVD player (say a Sony) solve the problem, or will I still have to connect via analog or re-encode the sound somehow? Bear in mind that I'm pretty new at this...thanks!

Roy


I do indeed have a Toshiba player connected via coax digital to my receiver. I'll try switching to analog and see if that works around the issue.

[jliem]

Switching to analog does indeed work for me. I now hear the audio properly.

[Roymus]

I was able to get the audio working on my Toshiba player by hooking up the analog stereo cables and switching my receiver's audio output to analog. So this seems to confirm that the Toshiba player has a specific problem playing mpeg audio through the digital outs. The sound was fine and totally in sync going through the analog hookups, so it's not a big deal. Thanks to all for the help!

[STL]

Originally posted by Wrecks
This may be a place where Womble has an advantage. I understand it is able to read a ReplayTV .EVT or .NDX file (I'm not sure which) and use it as a basis for editing out commercials. Not the version of Womble's MVW that I just downloaded. It won't take the .EVT or .NDX file -- only the MPEG and it does not mark any of the commercials. On the other hand, when I pull the same show into evtEdit it shows me all the marked commercials. If I am missing something please help me out because Womble is not very straight forward.

[STL]

Originally posted by Snarler
Used VideoReDo the other night and really like it. In a related question, I then used Sonic MyDVD to make the DVD and it took FOREVER to "transcode" the 22 minute medium quality video (hour and a half to two hours). My question to you guys is, is this normal for an Athlon 1200 running Windows 2000 with 256 meg of RAM (although in all fairness I didn't hear any disk thrashing telling me I needed more memory.)My new computer came with a "basic" copy of Sonic's MyDVD. I must say that program TOTALLY sucks. It couldn't handle a 45 minute (trimmed) RTV program. It would always blow-up during the transcode. I then got Roxio's VideoWave 7 (because it was FREE after rebate) and it is better, but still feel it is too slow -- and I have a 3.4Ghz machine with 1G of RAM.

[STL]

Originally posted by bshor
My Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus took less than 1/2 hour to burn a 44 minute DVD (2 22-minute cut episodes). I have an Athlon XP 1600+, Win XP, 512M Ram. I have been looking for someone with Studio 9. It seems to be the only video editting software that can do image stabilization, and I'm wondering how well that feature really works. I have some old video (that was taken before cameras had image stabilization
built-in) that I'd like to fix. Have you tried it? How well did it work? How much did it degrade the video?

[bshor]

Nope, sorry, I've never tried it. The only video camera I have is the Canon S1 IS digital camera -- that has the built in optical image stabilization for its videos (which go as high as 640x480x30fps).

[wg21]

Originally posted by STL
a 45 minute (trimmed) RTV program. It would always blow-up during the transcode. I
:confused:
Transcoding, you guys are doing something very wrong! It should not be doing much if any transcoding.
When I used to make dvd's from rtv files (that is so... out dated)
I used to use revue with rtvtools to create a dvd complient file. than I used videoredo to edit the file and save it to mpeg.
Then burned it to dvd using ulead dvd workshop. MF3 works ok too, but I perfer dvd workshop, alot more options and handles ac3 audio.
(I somtimes convert the audio to ac3)

Using the above process never took more than 15 - 20 minutes to create the video-ts directory.
Burning to dvd depends on the speed of your dvd burner.

Now let me tell you how I use my replaytv now.
I have a server (well technically I have 3 servers), but the main one is a 1.2 g , p4 xp machine that I keep on 24 / 7. Their are 2 250 gb external filewire drives.

With the rtv files I use revue/videoredo to create a mpeg file.on one of the two firewire drives.
The best two media players I've found for rtv files are pinnacle showcenter and roku hd1000. There is even a dvarchive client for the roku box.

For portabliilty I have a 12 inch powerbook g4, The pinnacle showcenter is not upnp complient and uses a webpage pull approach, there are many apache/tomcat based servers commerical and third party that can feed that client . These work equally well from the powerbook or a pc notebook. In other words from my notebooks we can call up any movie on our servers via a simple web interface and play it in videolan.
Equally since it is on a shared drive I can copy the movie onto the notebook harddrive and take it with me. further if you have a 802.11g card for your pocket pc you can do about the same thing. There is a pocketpc udp version of vlc.

The powerbook also has svideo out, if I want to connect to a tv.

Check out this links for something else we've tried (This is a site a few of us most rtv and tivo folks have put together)

http://www.distributed-home.com/mt/weblog/atoll/archives/windows_clients/index.html

Question on Studio 9?? Haven't used it , used studio 8 and wasn't very impressed. Instead for a cosumer level program I would use ulead video studio, for more advanced I use sony (formerly sonic foundry) vegas video and send the completed video out to a standalone dvd recorder.So the longest delay is incremental rendering of composited scenes.

http://www.distributed-home.com/mt/weblog/cassie/archives/2005/01/use_your_dvr_an.html#more

http://www.distributed-home.com

we would be most interested in any comments on the above.
webmaster@distributed-home.com:(

[STL]

Originally posted by wg21
:confused: Transcoding, you guys are doing something very wrong! It should not be doing much if any transcoding. When I used to make dvd's from rtv files (that is so... out dated) I used to use revue with rtvtools to create a dvd complient file. At the time, I was using Revue (with rtvtools) to supposedly "clean" my RTV mpg file, but for some reason Sonic MyDVD would still want to transcode it -- and then crash while doing so. So tell me again what I was doing wrong...besides trying to us Sonic MyDVD (which totally sucks).

[STL]

Originally posted by STL
I then got Roxio's VideoWave 7 (because it was FREE after rebate) and it is better, but still feel it is too slow -- and I have a 3.4Ghz machine with 1G of RAM. Here is a follow-up...
Several nights ago I realized I never updated my Videowave 7 software after installing it from the CD. After doing the online update, the software seems to work much better! It seems to do a faster job encoding (maybe less re-encoding) and doesn't bloat the MPEG files as much as it used to. I had a project already created that was 4.9GB with the old software, but after the update the same project came in at a much more believable 3.8GB. The source material (which is six RTV MPEGs and one MOV) only totals 2.3GB.

[BaysideBas]

I found that with Sonic MyDVD, if you open a file for edit, even if you immediately close it without making any edits, it will transcode the file for the burn. I don't know whether marking the files for the "chapter" preview results in transcoding as I've never found a need to use that feature. But for straightforward output with menus works fine for me. Just avoid anything fancy.

[Bargonaut]

At the very least, MyDVD will convert the audio to PCM, unless you have the AC3 upgrade, and then it will convert to that format. In my experience, this program is very strict about what is compliant with the DVD-spec.

On the other hand, it makes very compatible DVDs. If you want to make DVDs from Replay files without transcoding at all, use rtvtools or VideoReDo and then author with TMPGEnc DVD Author. Works perfectly with no transcoding.

-BS

[BaysideBas]

I would stay away from any TMPGEnc products. Have you seen their license terms? The app will periodically call the mothership to re-authenticate. If the publisher goes out of business, or if you run a totally non-Internet connected setup, you're SOL. And this for software you paid good money for?

[hdshark]

I use DVArchive to download shows to my PC. I mostly edit them with evtedit (which uses RTVtools). Sometimes, I use VideoReDo.

I keep most shows on external FireWire drives and stream from them when I want to watch them. I am currently using a low end Athlon XP machine as a server, but I am planning on switching to a Mac Mini (smaller, less power, less noise).

When I want to burn shows to DVD, I use ULead Disc Creator 3. I used ULead DVD Movie factory 2SE before, which also worked fine. I also tried Nero 6.x and it also works fine, i.e. no transcoding. Nero is probably more economical. You can get the OEM version for less than $10 at many online outlet stores (e.g. surplus computers.com). This version is missing some features but it is perfectly fine for burning edited ReplayTV shows to DVD. If the material does not fit on a DVD, I use DVDshrink or rejig to transcode.

[bshor]

Just found out that VideoReDo v2 is soon going to be released, with some impressive features, such as built-in commercial detection and a preview mode. More details here:

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewtopic.php?t=556

[Bargonaut]

From DanR at VideoReDo:

Version 2 will consist of two products, VideoReDo/Basic and VideoReDo/Plus (names may change). Basic will consist of the functionality of what has been released to date. In other words it will do the basic editing chores.

Plus expands on that with support for Ad-Detective, Previews, Thumbnails, Audio Display and most of the new upcoming features we've been talking about for the future. Plus will cost a little bit more, but we believe increased the functionality makes it worthwhile.

The good news is that all Version 1 users will be allowed to upgrade to Version 2/Plus without additional charge. Our way of saying thanks to all who have helped make our first year such a success. BTW, Feb. 24 will be our first anniversary.


In case you want V2 at a discount, buy V1 and get the coming upgrade for free.

-BS

EDIT: typo

[RobDMB]

I just wanted to add that this really is a great program. EAsy to use but best of all the author, Dan, is extremely responsive and provides excellent support.

[lizard_boy]

Just gave this a try, gotta say I'm impressed. Videoredo was easy to use and did a great job of quickly editing out commercials. Combine this with Dr. Divx (1.04) and it's easier than ever to get Replay mpeg files to .avi.

[Ed Rempalski]

If you switch from DrDivx to PocketDivxEncoder you'll double or even triple your encoding to .avi's, it's so much better than the good Dr. It batch modes very well and will even shut down the PC when done. Give it a try!

http://divx.ppccool.com/

[aeblank]

When do the two different V2s come out?
I've been putting off buying this, but this is enough to get me going again.

edit: nevermind. Just got it, to be sure. =)

[mhargr03]

I'm in.

[bshor]

PocketDivX seems to be for encoding to handheld devices. What about for "home theater" profile DivX's (720x480)? Vidomi works for me, but is a little long in the tooth ...

Originally posted by Ed Rempalski
If you switch from DrDivx to PocketDivxEncoder you'll double or even triple your encoding to .avi's, it's so much better than the good Dr. It batch modes very well and will even shut down the PC when done. Give it a try!

http://divx.ppccool.com/

[Bargonaut]

I realize I never posted my results in this thread. I did make a tool to generate a VideoReDo project file from the Replay evt files. Here is the thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4975964

-BS

[Ed Rempalski]

I would email Oliver, the author of PocketDivxEncoder, he's been very responsive to comments and questions. I've been using it to to create media for my Archos player but maybe it can be enabled to do larger sized video.

[jackshakes]

anybody edited any HD mpeg-2 files with this app? I tried opening some files I recorded from my HDTV Wonder and VideoReDo Crashes.

[BaysideBas]

Originally posted by jackshakes
anybody edited any HD mpeg-2 files with this app? I tried opening some files I recorded from my HDTV Wonder and VideoReDo Crashes. And the reason you're posting this question on the "ReplayTV & Showstopper PVRs" forum is??????

I think you may just have better luck in having your question answered on the VideoReDo forum.

[jackshakes]

Let's see ... reasons I posted this question in a replay forum ...

1. because this was the only VideoReDo thread I was aware of ... I didn't know there was a separate VideoReDo forum ...

2. I had this impression that people in the replay forum were helpful with most issues regardless of the issue being replay specific or not ... being both more courteous and intelligent than most TiVo users (although it seems neither has been the case recently)

[dyker]

Originally posted by jackshakes
Let's see ... reasons I posted this question in a replay forum ...

1. because this was the only VideoReDo thread I was aware of ... I didn't know there was a separate VideoReDo forum ...

2. I had this impression that people in the replay forum were helpful with most issues regardless of the issue being replay specific or not ... being both more courteous and intelligent than most TiVo users (although it seems neither has been the case recently)

well, I think Bayside was intelligent and helpful in pointing you to the Videoredo forum (since you didn't know about it) Found Here (http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/index.php) . Also, I read his Bay's comment's and they didn't seem all too rude... just to the point. Good luck in getting your question answered :)

[Roymus]

Oh, please. There is such a thing as tone, and Bayside was laying on the sarcasm with a trowel. Six question marks is about five too many to make his point. jackshakes was more than justified in his response. I usually stay out of these, but this same thing has happened to me a few times and it's always aggravating. Please: if a question somehow offends your sense of rightness within your universe, just ignore it...there are plenty of people here who are willing to help out without the attitude.

Jack, if you haven't already found it, the VideoRedo forum is accessible from the VideoRedo home page, and it's an excellent source of information. I've already received help from there on a number of occasions, they're very responsive and virtually attitude-free. Good luck...

Roy

[BaysideBas]

Originally posted by Roymus
Oh, please. There is such a thing as tone, and Bayside was laying on the sarcasm with a trowel. Six question marks is about five too many to make his point. jackshakes was more than justified in his response. I usually stay out of these, but this same thing has happened to me a few times and it's always aggravating. Please: if a question somehow offends your sense of rightness within your universe, just ignore it...there are plenty of people here who are willing to help out without the attitude.

Jack, if you haven't already found it, the VideoRedo forum is accessible from the VideoRedo home page, and it's an excellent source of information. I've already received help from there on a number of occasions, they're very responsive and virtually attitude-free. Good luck...

Roy ?????????????????????????????????????!