Humax User but not really Humax related!

[Tropi]

Hello people.
I am brand new to this forum and delighted to see it here.
Also pretty new to VRD+, with just one day’s experience and am rather impressed with it too! :)

I use a Humax 9200T, mainly to record documentaries from DVB-TV and my focus at present, is purely on archiving these efficiently, for which the (easy) decision is to use DivX or XVid to produce *.avi files which have pretty well gained ‘standard’ status for this purpose.

The Humax is, in most respects, an excellent STB and recorder, apart from its file format of MPG2(TS) and it’s woeful inability to edit anything like accurately. It fails miserably in that respect. Hence the need for a frame accurate software editor before re-coding to *.avi with the almost idiot-proof Auto Gordian Knot.

After a fair bit of very unhappy experimentation (and some colourful language!) with other editors, I was delighted to find VRD+ and, after a short struggle with the precise ins and outs of implementing cuts, it appears to do exactly what I want, fast and accurately. Couldn’t ask for better.

After editing (gratifyingly fast and accurately!) with VRD+, I then use Auto Gordian Knot for idiot-proof re-coding to avi at standardised file sizes that match the length of the edited footage to a half CD (45 mins), whole CD (90 mins) or 1/3 of a DVD (more than 90 mins) as appropriate.

Now, at last, to my question! :rolleyes:
On saving the edited file from VRD+, is there any significance in which file format to save - bearing in mind that my sole aim is actually a good quality avi? I have used both VOB and MPG2 and honestly don't think it makes any difference to my final results. But I would love to hear the opinions of people with more experience of VRD+ than I have.

Looking forward to any comments.
Oh, and mods, please feel free to move this post out of the STB section if you think it inappropriate, or not specific enough to STBs. :)

[phd]

VideoReDo does not reencode except for a few frames around cut points so either output format will not affect the quality.

The VOB output format was designed for importing into the freeware authoring program dvdauthor.

From the Help file:
VOB - MPEG w/NAV Packets
An MPEG Program Stream with blank NAV packets. This format is suitable for input directly into some DVD authoring programs such as the open source program: DVDAuthor.

[Tropi]

Many thanks for a very swift and reassuring reply. :)

In my long experience, there is far too much software on the market that simply doesn't do what it claims to do, or with such great difficulty and 'hoop-jumping' that it really isn't worth paying for and some of it you wouldn't want to use, even if you were paid to do so.

VideoRedo Plus isn't one of those sorry, so-called 'solutions' - it's well worth the asking price and I am very satisfied with it.

On looking through the forum, it seems that most users are using VRD+ to produce DVDs for use on domestic/standalone players with their standard DVD compliance requirements. More and more players are now coming to market with built-in DivX compatibility and, for those of you unfamilar with DivX, I can thoroughly recommend this format. I just wish there were more recorders that possessed DivX capability - but they too they will come, in time.

Thanks again for a very good product and helpful, informative answers - a breath of fresh air! http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/images/icons/icon14.gif

[TimA-C]

... The Humax is, in most respects, an excellent STB and recorder, apart from its file format of MPG2(TS) and it’s woeful inability to edit anything like accurately.

Hi Tropi, nice to see another Hummy user here.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on the pathetic editing capabilities of the Humax. If anything, I think it's even less accurate with this latest version 10 software than it was before! (Thank the deity of your choice for VRD's QuickStream Fix!) As for the .ts files it produces, well, that's just how the programmes are broadcast. Blame whoever came up with the dvb-t standard(s), not Humax. (Of course there are several other things about the 9200t that you CAN blame Humax for! :) Even so, I wouldn't want to be without it now.)

[BizMark]

I'm a Humax PVR9200T owner too, and for the past month or two was getting faultless TS > DVD conversions using DVR-Studio Pro.

However I've hit a snag with video from channels such as More4 which transmit in 544x576 instead of 720x576. DVRSP, perhaps surprisingly, goes through the motions without any warning, and indeed produces a playable DVD. However, the result is a squashed image (not so surprisingly) with the frame duplicated in the spare space to the right.

On hummy.org.uk somebody mentioned that putting the video through VideoReDo would cure this problem and re-encode such material to a DVD compliant resolution. However the person (or should I say people? Around half-a-dozen recommended VideoReDo for this purpose) didn't specify exactly how they achieved this.

So, I've purchased the licence key for VRD but in the help and this forum I can't seem to find any reference to the 544 pixel wide source problem. Have I barked up the wrong tree? Does VRD not perform any such conversion? It's a shame if not, because that was the only thing I forked out the money for! All trimming and authoring is already well catered for to my satisfaction by DVR-Studio Pro.

I tried re-saving a 544x576 file using VRD to another .ts and attempted to open this in DVR-Studio Pro - mainly to try burning that to disc but also to see if the source resolution had changed, but it reported 'non compliant DVB stream', whereas the original file as opened in VRD *was* a compliant DVB stream.

Can anyone help before I start thinking I've wasted my money?!

[phd]

VideoReDo does not reencode your video to 720X576.

Many users on the forum are creating non-standard resolution DVDs.

I'm sure they'll chime in or you can search the forum.

[Anole]

... the result is a squashed image (not so surprisingly) with the frame duplicated in the spare space to the right.

The above seems to be the detail of your trouble.
I am in NTSC-land (with 720x480 video), and I process 544x480 video all the time.

Here are the things to look out for:
a) is your authoring program capable of handling this format?
- I use DVD Labs Pro, which doesn't re-encode, and it's fine.
- Nero package will re-encode, as will Ulead (whatever its current name is).

b) I've had trouble with some DVD players handling non-standard formats.
- playing on your computer is not a test
- try new DVD players and TV sets and see if you can locate the trouble.

c) There are some aspect ratio flags associated with video files.
I've never had to deal with them, so I can't speak to what would go wrong if the flags were messed up.
You might look into the question, but I don't hold a lot of hope for this course of inquiry.

d) there are many re-encoding software packages out there.
The have been discussed and documented often on the VRD forum.
I used to use and recommend WinAVI from a company of the same name, but there quite a few to choose from.

Hope these ideas will give you some directions to look for your answer.

[BizMark]

I can indeed import a 544x .ts file into Nero Vision and it happily re-encodes perfectly and burns it to DVD. However, it's not the solution I was hoping for for two reasons:

1. NV Re-encode is abysmally slow. Re-encoding via Nero Vision takes around 3x the real-time playing length of the programme! i.e. 2h45m for a 1h show!!!

2. Strangely enough, Nero Vision doesn't seem to like importing *compliant* .ts files at all! When I try to import a 720x576 file into NV, it tells me the stream is not in a recognised format!!!

The upshot is, if I want to have two shows on the same disc but the source files are in different resolutions, there doesn't seem to be a proper way of doing it. I often package two shows together that are related to each other, but shown on different channels - say one show was on Channel 4, and the other was on More 4 - both the same broadcaster (or 'network', in US speak), but the former being that network's 'primary channel' and the latter being one of their 'supplementary channels'. Very often Channel 4 will show a mainstream programme about a particular subject, and More 4 will have a more niche and 'in depth' programme about the same subject.

I thought perhaps I could get around this by transcoding all files I want on the same disc using VLC Media Player to MPEG PS mp2v files, but to be honest the time it was taking to do this transcode, followed by having to wait for NV to do its work on the 544x file meant I didn't wait to see what it did with the 720x show I was trying to twin it with, and besides, a quick look at the 720x show in the MPEG PS mp2v format, even transcoded at the highest bitrate offered (3072kb/s?) introduced artifacts that weren't present when viewing natively in TS.

I tried the trial version of something called Blaze Media Pro, but again it didn't seem to be able to cope with TS, only PS and, even then, the video image came out upside down - and using that tool's resize command only got to around 30% after 2 hours - at which point I decided it was no better than Nero Vision.

A couple of months ago I had already tried something called ConvertXtoDVD which always re-encodes but did at least seem to be a lot quicker than NV. However what I found was that all output came out progressive, and as nearly all the material I am trying to archive is interlaced, being studio-based shows or news bulletins, converting these to 'progressive' look makes them look just 'wrong' - as if I'm viewing a cine film of a video show rather than a recording of the video show itself. For that reason coupled with their completely unhelpful and obstructive support forum (they just all told me I shouldn't for any reason want to archive anything in interlaced format as it was 'old fashioned', and that I should learn to get used to watching progressive video for everything) I didn't purchase it.

I must say VRD's forum seems a lot more willing to help and the level of support is very impressive, but I do worry that I've bought a product that was never designed to do the things I require (re-size non-DVD-compliant resolutions, split files with more than one title into separate files), only to do other things that I don't require... I understand Ad-Detective and the ability to chop bits out of one file, but it seems from there you're limited to joining them only to bits from OTHER files that are ALREADY IN different files - that there is no facility to actually get bits cut out of one file and put those pieces into those different files in the first place. The Cut & Trim I thought would do this only to find (as the Help, to be fair, does point out) it doesn't actually generate a working MPEG file with header data, only a straight data 'chop' from the file - and that you can only specify the position in terms of multiples of Mb rather than cut-times or scene markers (actually, the scene markers don't seem to do an awful lot - you can't cut to them, do pre-roll previews to them, extract portions of a programme between them, etc. etc. - all functions I was hoping VRD would handle in its stride).

[BizMark]

Just a little more information - I test my discs on a Philips DVDR-610 DVD Recorder connected to a fairly standard 4:3 CRT* TV set via RGB SCART. I also have as a backup machine (for discs the Philips doesn't like) an El-Cheapo "Durabrand" VCR/DVD combi machine from Asda (the UK arm of Wal-Mart). I've never gone on how a disc performs on a PC using a software DVD player.

* Before anyone tries to sell me a widescreen LCD or plasma screen, I must point out I am still more than satisfied with the picture quality I get on my current set, and I have yet to see a flat panel screen (sub £6,000!!) that doesn't suffer from smearing and blocking caused by its own internal processing, added on top of any artifacts already present in the original MPEG2 source. In fact, viewing RGB Scart input from my Humax or DVD recorder on my CRT set still gives much more of a high-definition appearance (and that's in letterbox mode too!)

As for the aspect ratio flags, I always check these carefully and the particular programme in question I was trying to encode this time was in 16:9 and DVR Studio Pro flagged this as such. It gives you the option to force input to 4:3 (or from 4:3 to 16:9) and there is also a flag in the settings screen called "Add Sequence Display Extension (Pioneer Fix)" which you can set, supposedly to insert the resolution information into the stream header and that in theory this allows DVD players to resize the display appropriately. However, as is implied by this setting's description, this would only appear to work for Pioneer players.

I did try burning a copy of the disc with 'Force to 4:3' set, but all this did was give me the same output but anamorphically, rather than letterboxed (which was what I expected).

[BizMark]

with the almost idiot-proof Auto Gordian Knot.


Hmmmm. I downloaded AGK and found it doesn't work with any of the TS streams my Humax spews out. It spends 45 minutes encoding the audio, but as soon as it finishes this and the log shows that it's preparing to encode the video, I get a 'Bad Stream Format' error (or some such) and the process halts.

Tropi - can I take it from your experience that you feed AGK with MPEG-PS and not -TS files? I have to admit that with all the different programs I'm trying right now, I haven't had the time to try every combination of source file and application, especially as all the different pieces of software under discussion are usually used as different links in a chain rather than the one and only thing.

I think what would be useful somewhere is a website which shows, simply, what needs to be done to get files onto DVD. i.e. a flowchart with decisions and steps, and under each step list the various possible options, software wise, for achieving them. i.e. it is not always necessary to demux, it is not always necessary to transcode, it is not always necessary to re-encode, it is not always necessary to change GOP lengths, resolutions, bit rates, etc. etc. However it is often difficult to keep in one's mind's eye what you have to do and when, and what format your source material should be in, each step of the way.

BTW I transfer my TS files using the Humax Media Controller GUI as promoted on Hummy.org.uk rather than e-Linker, so that any transfer errors are fixed. However, unlike many other users I very rarely get transfer errors anyway ('Bad Blocks' stays at 0.000 throughout).

[Anole]

I use an authoring program you won't like: DVD Labs Pro ver 1.6 (not the latest)
Why won't you like it? Because of the price.
However, I picked it in the beginning, so no matter what feature I eventually wanted, it would be ready.
After two years and hundreds (if not 1000+) of DVDs, I finally made one with different sound track formats.
DVD Labs Pro can just as easily make a disc with two (or more) different video formats.
But, normal authoring programs generally cannot.

It's also the tool I use to handle my 544x480 non-standard video for NTSC use.
It does not re-encode.
On a decent computer, it takes me 20 minutes to prepare about a 4gb DVD.
On my big computer, it takes 10 minutes to do the same job.
The only concession I give is to have VideoReDo save in mpa/mpv format instead of .mpg, and that may save me an extra minute or two of the times above.

[BizMark]

Well, I just tried DVD Labs Pro and am very impressed with the interface. Still gave me the same result though; the 544 programme came out squashed. So I won't be forking out c. £100 for that - DVR Studio Pro was an easier and cheaper way of getting the same result!

I must say, I've had no end of problems trying to get VRD to do *anything* useful. Earlier I wanted to get a clip ready for uploading to a forum, for which I wanted 50% size, 512kbps single audio channel MPG containing around 3m30s of video and to come out at under or just over 10Mb.

My source material was a clip on DVD+RW and I used VLC Media Player to transcode the title I required into an MPEG 1 encapsulated, mp1v codec clip.

The resultant file played in just about everything *including* VRD perfectly. I went about the business of cutting the pieces I wanted - my first mistake, I found out at the end that what you "cut" is what you want to "throw away" - i.e. the reverse of how the phrase 'cut video' is interpreted in the broadcast and video content providing communities worldwide. In previously accepted convention, you 'cut in' to say where the cut file should enter 'in', and 'cut out' to say where the cut file should exit 'out'. In other words, a 'cut in' is your start and a 'cut out' is your finish, of each scene. I saved my file and found it had left everything I didn't want, and had trimmed out everything I did. Oh well, no hap, I just inverted the selection and did it again. Not terribly clear though, that the 'cut in' and 'cut out' actually mean 'cut out from here' and 'cut out to here'. To be fair, DVR-Studio Pro is also bad in this regard - i.e. taking an internationally understood, industry standard set of terms and reversing or changing their meaning.

This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that the result turned out to be no better than GOP-level editors, with the audio sync going WAY out - more than 2 seconds, from the point of my 2nd cut point. This rendered the clip fairly worthless, and meant I had to go down my old route of transcoding the clip to MPEG2, demuxing using PVAStrumento to mpv/mpa, then using Cuttermaran to make the cuts on these and then finally remux using its inbuilt TMPEGEnc implementation module.

I thought the whole point of VRD though was to get rid of all these previously cumbersome steps, and also that the point of it was that it gave TRUE, FRAME-LEVEL editing? Because unless you cut on the GOP (and you can't see WHEN you're on the GOP) you get the same problems you'd get with any other editor.

So the morals of my story?

1. For web clips, transcode to MPEG2, demux and edit using Cuttermaran (NOT VRD), transcode resultant MPEG2 file to MPEG1 using VLC Media Player then finally import said MPEG1 clip into RealProducer Plus;

and

2. For DVDs - I've given up on using ANY of the current crop of MPEG editors out there at the moment for DVD recording of TV shows - seems far too costly, cumbersome and/or time hungry - time which as someone with a day job I don't have - I just want to archive TV programmes I know I'll want to see again in the future and that I know are unlikely to ever get an official DVD release.

With that in mind, I think (for discs where I know some content is going to be from a 544x576 channel), simply playing out the programme from the Humax and recording directly to a DVD Recorder, using the humble SCART lead, is going to give better results and at least take only as long as the programme's running time, rather than days, weeks or even maybe months of fruitless experimentation and broken promises from software that promises the earth.

[TimA-C]

Hi BizMark. Don't know why you're having all these troubles with .ts files from your Hummy and VRD. I've had my Hummy since last April and have been using VRD for about 8 - 9 months before that and I don't get many problems at all.

A few points/suggestions;-

1. Don't use Media Controller GUI for your transfers - it often introduces errors during transfer. Use the command line version of Media Controller, OK you have to type the number(s) of the recordings to transfer as they appear in the list of available recordings rather than clicking the mouse button a few times - BIG DEAL! It's a hell of a lot quicker than waiting for the recording to transfer a second time to repair the bad bits introduced in the first transfer.

2. When you install VRD it asks how you want to use the edit feature (i.e. cut the selected areas or save them) AND the setting is in the Options menu. I think you're also initially asked if you want to edit a frame level accuracy when you install. If not, this option is also available in the 'Options' menu.

3. I've been an active member of both Hummy.org and the Humax 9200t forum at digitalspy.com since I got my Hummy and I've never read a post that said VRD would magically sort out a 544x576 recording. In fact, there are loads of threads concerning this very problem - I've contributed to quite a few! - and the general concensus seems to be to either use an authoring package that accepts non-dvd standard video and just gets on with it without re-encoding (e.g. DVD Labs Pro - as Anole has already mentioned - or one of the free ones based on dvd author such as GUI for dvd author or DVD Styler etc.), or an authoring package that re-encodes as part of the authoring process (e.g. Nero, etc.), or re-encode it first using an AviSynth script and encoder or some utility that will do it for you before authoring. VRD HAS NEVER EVER PRETENDED TO DO THIS!!!

FYI my method is;-

Transfer from Hummy using the wonderful Media Controller (Thanks Andy) which takes a little under 20mins/Gb. (YAWN!) The Hummy is connected to the PC with a 1.8m Belkin AV quality USB 2.0 lead which cost around £6 from e-buyer.com and did speed up the transfer process.

Edit/Join with VRD and then save the file as either a .mpg (for authoring in TMPGenc's DVD Author 2 or 3), a .vob (for authoring in DVD Styler - noticeably quickens the process over using .mpg files), or .mpv & .mpa files (if I'm re-encoding by feeding an AviSynth script into CinemaCraft's Encoder (basic) before authoring).

If necessary I'll change the aspect ratio flag, and/or the reported bit rate, and/or the Maximum GOP size when saving in VRD by clicking on the 'Options' button on the 'Save as' dialog box.

I do this a lot and very, very rarely have problems with my discs. If you find a magic combination of flags/settings that will get around the 544x576 or the even more annoying pillarboxing that the BBC do (4:3 programme broadcast in a widescreen envelope) then please let me know. I've spent a lot of time reading and experimenting and have settled (for the moment) on the method(s) described above. Good luck on your quest to find the best method(s) for you.