[mythtv-users] video formats

Tim Coote tim+mythtv.org at coote.org
Fri Jul 30 09:56:01 UTC 2010


>
>
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 29, 2010 05:37:37 pm Nick Rout wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Christopher Kerr
>>>>
>>>> <mythtv at theseekerr.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Tim Coote <tim+mythtv.org at coote.org 
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>> Hullo
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've got a separated mythtv frontend/backend based on a couple  
>>>>>> of acer
>>>>>> revo boxes + fedora 12 standard packages (mythtv 0.23). These  
>>>>>> devices
>>>>>> don't have dvd drives, so I'm ripping on macs and pulling the  
>>>>>> files
>>>>>> into the startup directory for mythvideo.  For some dvds I can  
>>>>>> just
>>>>>> copy across the VIDEO_TS directory and all's well (once I  
>>>>>> installed the
>>>>>> libdvdcss package, which was non-trivial to work out as a  
>>>>>> necessary
>>>>>> component). For others this doesn't seem to work, so I'm  
>>>>>> ripping the
>>>>>> dvds to mpeg ts encapsulated video stream using vlc, ignoring  
>>>>>> the dvd
>>>>>> menu and just playing the video. However, when I rip like this,  
>>>>>> I get a
>>>>>> 6GB file (clumsy to move around the house) and the forward /  
>>>>>> backward
>>>>>> arrows just crash the internal video player.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Should I be using a different encoding and/or encapsulation?   
>>>>>> Or is this
>>>>>> a known bug (I've seen something that may relate to left/right  
>>>>>> arrow in
>>>>>> video playback.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It would help me if I understood how to pull out small segments  
>>>>>> of a
>>>>>> dvd, to run tests on, if that's possible, so that I don't spend a
>>>>>> couple of hours ripping/transferring before I realise that I've  
>>>>>> got the
>>>>>> wrong format. Is it possible to pull of bits of a dvd - I  
>>>>>> cannot seem
>>>>>> to just transcode the VOB files, for instance, as these do not  
>>>>>> play
>>>>>> back reliably.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think most of us are now using MakeMKV - just google it, it's  
>>>>> a free
>>>>> tool which can take a title from a DVD, ISO or VIDEO_TS folder and
>>>>> remux it into an MKV which works perfectly in the internal player.
>>>>
>>>> Nice product but closed source and when they get out of beta I  
>>>> suspect
>>>> you will have to pay for it. It may or may not be worth it.
>>>>
>>>> It must check home too as periodically I get a message "this  
>>>> version
>>>> is out of date, you must update" or words to that effect.
>>>>
>>>> As far as just ripping a dvd, try:
>>>>
>>>> mplayer dvd://n -dumpstream -dumpfile mydvd.vob
>>>>
>>>> where n is the title you want to rip.
>>>>
>>>> Then you can use avidemux or handbrake to transcode if desired. I
>>>> prefer h264 in a mkv, it comes out much much smaller.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I confess I haven't been following this thread, but I just use  
>>> handbrake to rip the main title from a DVD to an h264-
>>> encoded MKV file, it even gets the chapters right.
>>>
>>> Did I miss some problem with doing that?
>>
>> No I just didn't know it would do it straight from the dvd, having  
>> the
>> chapters is excellent.
>>
>>>
>>> I looked at MakeMkv, but having to answer "yes" to something that  
>>> looked like it was written by the Microsoft Legal Dept.
>>> just went against the grain for a Linux application. I won't use  
>>> it, especially as I have a working alternative.
>>
>> Yes, but useful for post dvd material (bluray etc).
>>
>
> PS makedvd does not do any transcoding. It decrypts, rips and
> repackages to mkv. Even when it rips a dvd it encapsulates the mpeg2
> video into an mkv container. Useful for bit perfect ripping to use
> with storage groups, which won't do iso.
>

Tyler T's point about the seektable seemed to work.

Something that I probably didn't stress enough is that I've only got a  
dvd player in my mac and I'd prefer not to have to install mplayer etc  
on that platform if I can avoid it as it doesn't have good package  
management. What's a bit frustrating is the cycle time for trialling a  
new tool: a rip takes up to an hour, followed by a comparable amount  
of time to xfer a huge file, which then doesn't work.  I tried  
handbrake + vlc since the original post. I can get an h264 stream in  
mkv or m4v encapsulation, but neither plays with the internal player  
and transcoding seems quite slow (about 25% faster than real-time).






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