[mythtv-users] Encoding to h264 to save space

[Glenn Harris]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Chris Pinkham <cpinkham at bc2va.org> wrote:
> * On Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 10:22:57PM -0500, Richard Freeman wrote:
>  > I've been trying for over a year now to transcode HD video to SD while
>  > keeping the AC3 soundtrack in place.  I've yet to find a set of settings
>  > that works reliably with seeking.  Just about anything I try works fine
>  > in mplayer though.  I don't have a frontend capable of playing HD but I
>  > am interested in capturing it anyway just so that I can get the AC3
>  > surround tracks...
>
>  I've successfully tested a hack to do just what you're looking for,
>  I transcoded from mpeg-ps containing MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio down to
>  a .nuv file containing MPEG-4 video and the original AC3 audio.  This was
>  a hack test on top of another large modification I'm working on to modify
>  the software recorder to support multiple file formats and additional
>  codecs.  Don't expect this in SVN anytime soon, but it it something
>  that's on my TODO.  I much prefer the original AC3 audio to reencoded MP3
>  in the files that I do transcode.

Hmm, I was under the impression that the currently available
'uncompressed' option would leave all the channels present in the
audio.  I did the simple 'ear' test by playing an hd show after I
transcoded to MPEG4 and had what sounded like surround channels coming
through my rear speakers.  This was limited to about 5 seconds.  After
that I started transcoding all my hd material like mad.  Heh, oops.
Guess I should have been a little more thorough in my testing.

--Glenn