Converting TiVo files for Samsung Galaxy

[dwhitekc]

I originally posted this on the H.264 forum and was asked to move it here.

My goal is to automatically convert videos recorded on my TiVo HD into a high-quality format viewable on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. In years past (pre-tablet) I successfully used VRD and VAP to do this on my PC. But I haven't been able to get a clean high-quality video produced yet that works on the Samsung.

It was suggested that I use Handbrake for the video conversion.

So my goal now is to create an automated process:
1. TiVo To Go downloads the file from my TiVo HD to my PC
2. VAP detects the new file and:
2a. Runs VRD to strip off the TiVo wrapper (using which profile?)
2b. Runs Handbrake (via VAPpostprocess) to convert the file to a Samsung suitable format

But I never done this before. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

Right now I have:

VRD version 3 (full version)
VRD H.264 build 629d (trial version which I'll be happy to pay to upgrade if I can get this all to work)
VAP version 0.90 (I see that 1.00 is now available!!!)
Handbrake 0.9.3
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit


Thanks in advance.

[KryptoNyte]

Dwhite, I believe the VAP developer can give you some input regarding the Tivo stuff. We will need the VAP output profile to be Handbrake friendly, not sure what options that gives us with Tivo files.

A couple questions in the meantime, though.

1) Is your video source Over the Air Antenna, or some cable service? As you probably already know, if any of the videos are "copy-flagged" by the provider, then we can't do anything with those files.

2) Are you primarly doing High Definition 16:9?

3) Are you planning to have VAP scan for commercials so you can cut them out?

4) Do you have a specific set of television programs that you record each week that are the target for this process?

5) Do you have a specific way that you would like the show (from item 4 above) filenames to appear when everything's done?

[KryptoNyte]

Maybe DLFlannery will stop by and give us a quick note on the Tivo files as well as any limitations that you may be facing with VRD version 3, and also if there is any metadata in those Tivo files that can be used.

[dwhitekc]

Thanks for the very quick response. In answer to your questions:

1) Is your video source Over the Air Antenna, or some cable service? As you probably already know, if any of the videos are "copy-flagged" by the provider, then we can't do anything with those files. Cable via CableCard. No issues (so far) with copy-flagging.

2) Are you primarly doing High Definition 16:9? It varies. Probably 70-80% is HD 16:9 but some of my providers channels are still only available in SD.

3) Are you planning to have VAP scan for commercials so you can cut them out? Not really critical. If it works flawlessly and effortlessly then that would be a plus; but I don't really mind manually skipping commercials.

4) Do you have a specific set of television programs that you record each week that are the target for this process? I have several Season Passes set up which are the majority of what I watch.

5) Do you have a specific way that you would like the show (from item 4 above) filenames to appear when everything's done? I'm flexible on this. But ideally it would be something like SeriesName_DateRecorded_EpisodeName simply to make it sort nicely.

I've been using DVD Catalyst for a couple of months which does really beautiful conversions. But the automation features in it are VERY error-prone so I end up having to essentially manually convert everything. Some of the video conversion features that I like from DVD Catalyst include:

Automatically scales both SD and HD programs to fill the screen on my tablet (1280x754)
Video and audio are properly synced (although often the first 30 seconds are out of sync)
High quality video (i.e. not grainy nor any digital artifacts) at a reasonable file size (typically about 1.4GB for a one hour HD show)

BTW, I understand that I might not get all of the features. To me the most important are the audio/video sync and the quality of the video.

If it helps, I can provide a MediaInfo listing from one of the outputs from DVD Catalyst.

[dlflannery]

TiVo input to VAP is no problem (as long as your VRD installation will load TiVo files OK). Do a QSF with the MPEG2 Program Stream profile, which will be very quick and produce a .mpg for HandBrake input. AdScan is optional per your preference, with the same profile.

I would recommend updating to the latest VAP release. Your Handbrake release is two versions old although that may not be a problem.

Check out the "VAPpostProcessHBandAP.cmd" file, installed in the VAP run-time folder, for having VAP automate your HandBrake processing.

[KryptoNyte]

Yeah, grab the latest Handbrake 0.95. It eliminated many of the audio sync problems.

EDIT: DL, are you familiar enough with the Tivo files to know if there is useful metadata in them, or if theTVdb.com will be required.

[dlflannery]

Lots of metadata in TiVo files and VAP reads it in. I'm assuming HB will be producing .mp4 files, in which case you should check "Generate Atomic Parsley Options Files" on the "Other" tab of Advanced Processing. The last part of the postProcessing .cmd file I mentioned earlier will then use the info in that options file to run Atomic Parsley to insert the metadata into the .mp4 (or .m4v) file.

[KryptoNyte]

... The last part of the postProcessing .cmd file I mentioned earlier will then use the info in that options file to run Atomic Parsley to insert the metadata into the .mp4 (or .m4v) file.

Oh. :blush:

[dwhitekc]

Great help from everyone so far; but one big problem left.

I've got all software updated to the current versions.
I've got VRD ver 3 manually doing the TiVo to mpg conversion working fine
I've got HB manually converting the mpg to mp4

But when I try to automate it all with VAP it fails.

Earlier I had a trial version of VRD version 4 installed to see if profiles would work. As soon as VAP saw version 4, it enabled the use of profiles. Now I've deleted version 4; but VAP still insists on using the now non-existent profile. The log file shows "Using profile: Galaxy Tab (H.264 MP4)" which I had created during that test. It then immediately stops the conversion with no result and no error message and moves on to the next input file with the same result.

There doesn't appear to be a way to turn that off. Is there maybe a registry setting I can tweek?

[dlflannery]

Did you run the latest VRD installation by right-clicking shortcut and selecting "Run as administrator"?

[dwhitekc]

Did you run the latest VRD installation by right-clicking shortcut and selecting "Run as administrator"?

Yes sir -- did it twice just to make sure.

[dlflannery]

Delete everything in the VAP data folder, %APPDATA%\VAP. Then run VAP and reconfigure it. If you still have problems, post or attach the VAP log file, VRDAutoProcessLog.txt, located in that same data folder.

Dd you uninstall all previous VRD versions?

[dwhitekc]

Delete everything in the VAP data folder, %APPDATA%\VAP. Then run VAP and reconfigure it. If you still have problems, post or attach the VAP log file, VRDAutoProcessLog.txt, located in that same data folder.

Dd you uninstall all previous VRD versions?

That took care of that problem; but now it doesn't appear that VRD is actually running. According to the log; VRD runs QSF for only about a second. Then the Ad Scan starts; but fails after a couple of minutes saying it can't find the input file. The Temp directory is in fact empty.

I've attached the log and a screen shot of VAP so you can see the settings I'm using. Any ideas?

[dlflannery]

I agree, it looks like the VRD COM objects used by VAP are not running at all. Go to this post:
http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showpost.php?p=98123&postcount=13
Download the attached files and follow the instructions in the post.

[dwhitekc]

I agree, it looks like the VRD COM objects used by VAP are not running at all. Go to this post:
http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showpost.php?p=98123&postcount=13
Download the attached files and follow the instructions in the post.

I ran the cmd and all I got was a command box saying "Press any key to continue". When I pressed a key, it closed. No other messages were displayed.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling; making sure to run as administrator and got the same result.

Sorry if this is a duplicate message. The first time I typed this, I got a message saying a forum moderator had to review it before posting ????? Hope this one gets through.

[dlflannery]

Try what it says in this post:
http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showpost.php?p=94007&postcount=11
Note that your VRD installation folder may be under c:\Program Files (x86).

Beyond that, if you can show that VRD's batch processing (which uses the same COM objects that VAP does) isn't working, then VRD staff would most likely try to help you. Post in the support forum for the version you're using in that case.

[dwhitekc]

First; thanks VERY much for your help and patience.

Looks like we're 95% there.

I had to uninstall and reinstall both VRD and VAP; but now they're talking again.
Conversions are executed automatically, ads are stripped, and the resulting mpg file is placed in the proper destination.

However, the final step of running HandBrake to convert to an mp4 is not being executed. I've got the post process file named "VAPpostProcess.cmd" in the designated output folder. If I understand it correctly; that's all I have to do: VAP sees the cmd file in the output folder and automatically starts it with every processed file. There is no mention in the log file of starting a post process.

Any thoughts on what I messed up?

p.s. Once it executes, I hope I've got the right commands for the HandBrake job. I took the VAPpostProcessHBandAP.cmd file that was located in the program directory; tweeked it, and renamed it to VAPpostProcess.cmd in the output folder.

[KryptoNyte]

There is a checkbox in the VAP "Advanced Configuration (button)" -> "Other" Tab, "Run Post-processing scripts by default."

Make sure that is checked prior to the start of any given file's processing for the VAPpostprocessing.cmd to run.

If you would prefer to do it on the fly, with VAP not processing, there is a checkbox on the main GUI screen, "Do Post-process," which can be flipped while the target file is selected in the Monitored Files listbox.

[KryptoNyte]

Regarding the post-processing HB encoding parameters, it's my understanding that the following may need to be enforced (based on device abilities);

Max B-frames = 0
CABAC entropy Coding = off
8x8 transform = off
Weighted P-frames = off

Max resolution = 1280x720

Suggested;

Audio encoder = AAC
Sample rate = 44.1 khz
Channels = 2
Audio Bitrate = 128 kbps
-------------------------------------
In the past, I have actually tested each of my portable devices with Handbrake GUI, and encoded a test file of a couple minutes in length, and told Handbrake to output a log file. Once I find a video that plays on <whatever> device to my liking, I enter the logfile and grab the encoding parameters for use in the VAPpostprocessing.cmd file.

If you would prefer to tweak those parameters manually, the Handbrake CLI guide is here:
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide

[dlflannery]

.......I took the VAPpostProcessHBandAP.cmd file that was located in the program directory; tweeked it, and renamed it to VAPpostProcess.cmd in the output folder.
That's the right thing to do, plus be sure Do Postprocess is configured for the file being processed, as KryptoNyte said. VAP will log a message when it starts the postprocess script and will show that as the current activity for the file. You can debug the postprocess scripts by placing pause statements any where you want to stop and look at what errors or other info might be displayed in the command window it's running in. VAP will just wait until you either shutdown the window or it finishes processing.

[dwhitekc]

Thanks for everyone's help! The automation portion is now working entirely correctly with your great assistance.

The only remaining issue is actually a HandBrake setting. If no one quickly knows the answer, I'll look on those forums for the solution (I don't want to wear out my welcome ;) ).

BUT if you happen to quickly know how to limit the dimensions of a mp4 file in the HB CLI and would like to share them; that would be great!

I have one TV series that's recording at 1920 pixels wide. The output right now from HB for this series won't play on my PC or my tablet (the tablet screen is limited to 1280x754; unsure why it won't play on my PC).

All other shows seem to work great.

Thanks again for your patience and wisdom!

[KryptoNyte]

Check out the settings in the 720p script from this thread ... just the dimensions, though, to force Handbrake into a lower resolution.

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showthread.php?t=29755

[dwhitekc]

Everything works perfectly now! Thanks everyone for your help.

If anyone is interested, the picture size options I ended up using in HandBrake were:
-w 1280 -l 752 -X 1280 -Y 752

The w and l arguments by themselves worked great when shrinking the size of a video. But when I applied it to a small SD video, it set the width to 1280 but made it much too tall. The -X and -Y parameters worked to set the maximum size.

Now my videos regardless of source are sized to perfectly fit my tablet.

Thanks once again!