Conversion quality question

[chazas]

Hi, all. A bit of background. I originally purchased TVSuite solely for the quickstream fix function - I was converting TiVo files to play on my portable player with KMTTG and needed help with audio synch. I have never really opened up TVSuite on its own and played around with any settings or used it independently, I just let KMTTG call it up and use it as needed. So I'm basically a complete newbie, please be gentle.

I just upgraded to v4 and for the first time let KMTTG use the default TVSuite profile to convert some shows - iPhone/iPod touch - rather than using ffmpeg or Handbrake, both of which are also supported by KMTTG.

This has created some sort of de-interlacing/jaggie problem in the resulting files. Whenever something moves on screen or the scene changes, everything around the changing pixels shows lines, like I am looking up close at a large TV showing bad SD programming on pause.

Any suggestions? Are there any settings I could play around with to try to fix this?

[Dan203]

I don't know what's available via KMTTG but in VideoReDo there is a deinterlacing option. Setting it to Smart results in the best quality for progressive devices like iPods. By default the iPod profiles should all have this option turned on, however because you're using it via a 3rd party program I'm not sure exactly what's getting set. Can you try outputting just one file from the main VRD interface? When you're in the Save dialog click the Options button and make sure the deinterlacer setting is set to "Smart". If the output from that still looks bad please let us know.

Dan

[moyekj]

FYI, when using via KMTTG it simply reads whatever profiles user has setup for TVS4 and uses COM interface for running the encode. i.e. Result is identical to running via TVS4 GUI (or batch mode).

[Dan203]

OK I wasn't sure. In that case the deinterlacer should be on. However if you installed any of the older builds of v4 prior to 595 then it's possible the profiles got messed up. You may need to look in your My Documents/VideoReDo folder and delete a file called OutputProfiles.xml to reset the defaults.

Dan

[moyekj]

I think the key chazas is you should should look at your setup in VRD.
Start VRD GUI and select Tools->Edit Profile List... and then highlight "iPhone / ipod Touch" and then click on "Edit" button. You should see that Deinterlace mode is set to Smart if using default, untouched profile. As discussed in another thread currently 595 does not correctly identify output file as progressive even though it is, so for now you can use something like Mediainfo to check instead.

[chazas]

First try from within VRD didn't work - I downloaded a .tivo file, went into the quickstream fix dialog and told it to save as an iphone/ipod touch file. It was a small file but still took about 45 minutes to encode. The resulting file was nonetheless a .tivo file which wouldn't load to my iphone. Any clue as to why?

I'll try again this weekend.

[Dan203]

Windows XP? There have been some complaints that the file extension is not being updated properly in the QSF dialog when changing profiles in XP. The file itself is still an MP4 you just need to change the extension to .mp4 for it to work. This is on our list of bugs to fix for a future release.

Dan

[chazas]

Thanks. Yes, XP. I'll try changing the extension when I get home from work.

On a related note, was the QS fix screen the best way to get VRD to strip the .tivo wrapper, QS fix and then convert without doing any editing, or is there a more direct way from the main screen? For a newbie like me that wasn't obvious.

[Dan203]

QSF is fine if all you want to do is convert without editing. But why would you want to convert without editing? The whole point of VRD is to remove the commercials so you don't have to worry about skipping past them when playing back the file. There is even an automatic commercial scan feature which will mark the commercials for you so you don't have to scrub through and find them manually. (although you will need to verify the cuts as the ad scan is not 100% on all content)

Also if all you want to do is test the deinterlacer you should open the file in the main UI, edit it down to a single high motion scene, and then save that to the iPod format for testing. This will only take a couple of minutes, rather then 45.

Dan

[chazas]

I know I'm not using the power of the program, but I originally bought VRD solely for QS fix - an expensive solution but the only way I ever found to reliably keep the audio and video synched on TiVo conversions. I've never gone beyond that. I probably didn't need to upgrade, but since I did, I am interested in getting the conversion to work, not horribly fond of ffmpeg or Handbrake, the other alternatives that work with KMTTG. I'll have to try out the editing features, thanks for the tip.

[hydra3333]

Windows XP? There have been some complaints that the file extension is not being updated properly in the QSF dialog when changing profiles in XP. The file itself is still an MP4 you just need to change the extension to .mp4 for it to work.

This is on our list of bugs to fix for a future release.

Can you share an ETA ?

[chazas]

I renamed the file .mp4 and put it on my iPhone. I can confirm exactly the same problem. Again, an SD TiVo file, converted using the unmodified iPhone/iPod Touch profile, demonstrates jaggie/de-interlacing type errors in the resulting file around any pixels in motion. Please tell me if I can do anything else to help you identify and fix the issue, as it renders VRD unusable for this purpose.

Interestingly a couple of shows that I converted using the same settings from HD TiVo files didn't exhibit the same problem. Of course, on my old Thinkpad, they took over 6 hours each to convert. ;)

[Dan203]

When you are saving the file click the Options button in the Save dialog. Is the Deinterlacer setting set to "Smart"? If not, it should be. Go to Tools->Edit profile list, click the iPod profile and click edit. Change the deinterlacer setting to "Smart" and hit OK in both dialogs. Now try again and see if you have the same problem. (you can use the editing feature to output a small segment for testing instead of doing the while file)

If it is set to Smart but you're still seeing the issue we'll need you to upload a small sample of the source file so we can try to recreate the problem here. To do that open the .tivo file in the main VRD UI, edit it down to about 30 seconds of high motion video, then save the file as a standard .mpg. (no recoding) After that upload the sample to our FTP using these instructions...

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showthread.php?t=15807

Dan

[Dan203]

Can you share an ETA ?

We do not have an ETA. I've been busy working on other bugs and haven't got to this one yet.

Dan

[hydra3333]

No Worries. Thanks for your efforts. Look forward to a new beta in the near future :))

[chazas]

Stupid question - how do I actually upload the clip? I see the page but it's not intuitive to a non-techie.

[Dan203]

Open Windows Explorer. In the address bar at the top type...

ftp://upload:upload@videoredo.net/

This will open the FTP. Now right click in a blank area to create a new folder and rename it to "chazas", then double click this new folder to open it. Now open another Windows Explorer window, navigate to your file and then drag and drop it into the FTP window.

After it's done send an email to support as instructed in the thread I posted.

Dan

[bkh]

Hi, Dan.

Your last post gave clear instructions for uploading via ftp. You may wish to add that info to the sticky ftp thread (5733) so that others can find it easily.

[chazas]

You could make it clear that it doesn't work in Internet Explorer - it took me a while of Googling around to figure out that Windows Explorer (i.e., My Computer) was something different... Darn non-techies!!