Support for DVR-MS files

[Anonymous]

I've just found your product & it looks great. I will be testing at home this evening.

If you were to add support for Microsoft's DVR-MS files produced by Windows XP Media Center Edition you would make a lot of people very happy & it could be a very big market for you.

DVR-MS files are MPEG2 in an ASF wrapper that contains details of recorded TV shows. At present there is no completely satisfactory solution for either editing these files or authoring DVDs from them. There are authoring applications that have either no editing (Sonic Primetime) or poor editing functions (Sonic MyDVD). There are other such as Intervideo WinDVD Creator that can be used for editing but insist on re-encoding the entire MPEG2 file thus adding hours to the process, There is a freeware DVRedit program but this appears to leave damaged filkes that cannot be imported by some authoring packages. Finally there is another freeware application DVR-MS Ripper which mostly works in extracting the MPEG2 files but sometimes has A/V synch problems.

So the MCE world is waiting for a simple product that can be used to edit out commercials & either have simple DVD authoring functions or simply produce DVD-compliant MPEG2 files that can be used in any authoring package.

Cheers

Nigel

[DanR]

If you were to add support for Microsoft's DVR-MS files produced by Windows XP Media Center Edition...Hello Nigel,

I've already thought about that, but haven't acted upon those thoughts. :(

Can you tell me:

1) Do you have any opinion on the size of the XP MCE market? Perhaps refer me to some forums where its discussed.

2) I'd like not to purchase an MCE system right now, is there any docs on the format of the ASF wrapper. Perhaps you could use VRD's trim feature and upload the 1st 20 MPG of an ASF file to the FTP site? If its not too complex, we could add it fairly quickly. I'd love to pursue this market.

[Anonymous]

[quote]
1) Do you have any opinion on the size of the XP MCE market? Perhaps refer me to some forums where its discussed.

I guess that Microsoft aren't going to release sales figures but they are definitely making a big push with MCE as the centrepiece of your home entertainment system. They are planning on releasing MCE Extenders later in the year which are set top boxes that would stream video, audio etc from your central MCE server. The newsgroup microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter plus these two sites www.thegreenbutton.com & www.xpmce.com are good starting points.


2) I'd like not to purchase an MCE system right now, is there any docs on the format of the ASF wrapper. Perhaps you could use VRD's trim feature and upload the 1st 20 MPG of an ASF file to the FTP site? If its not too complex, we could add it fairly quickly. I'd love to pursue this market.

MCE is available as part of MSDN if you want to build your own system for development. There is an MCE SDK & a lot of documentation on MSDN. Specifcally about DVR-MS http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/directx9_c/directx/htm/aboutthedvrmsfileformat.asp

I will try & edit down or perhaps better just record 20 seconds of TV so that the file size is manageable. DVR-MS files run to about 3GB/hour. Where should I upload to?

[DanR]

Thanks Guest (feel free to register).

Upload to: ftp://videoredo:videoredo@ftp.drdsystems.com/ Suggest you create your own folder for the file.

[nigelb]

I have uploaded 26MB file that I recorded last night. It's in the directory nigel-dvr-ms It's Test-pal.dvr The file extension should actually be dvr-ms

Let me know if there is any more that I can do to help.

BTW I had registered but forgot to log in

Cheers

Nigel

[DanR]

Thanks Nigel, I'll look at it over the weekend.

[Tom]

Nigel,

what is that "Look East" in your folder good for ?!

Tom

[nigelb]

Nigel,

what is that "Look East" in your folder good for ?!

Tom

Nothing as far as I know. It's a bizarre mystery to me as to how it got there although the short clip was recorded from the BBC Look East news programme. The original file name was actually "Look East; Weathr_BBC One_26_02_2004_18_46_47.dvr-ms". I actually still have the command line ftp session here in front of me & I cannot see where 'Look East' came from. On reflection I should have kept the original file name as there is information in the file name that should be reflected in the metadata.

I'll upload a smaller file just as is without renaming.

Cheers

Nigel

[DanR]

Nigel, Just wanted to let you know that I'm still looking at what it will take to support the MCE file format. There appears to be some patent issues related to that format. It will take me a bit of time to sort all of that out.

Just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten about it.

[nigelb]

Dan,

Any update on DVR-MS support? The latest version of MCE 2005 is due for release next week & will be generating a lot of interest & new customers.

There is still no decent package for editing & burning recorded TV shows to DVD,

Cheers

Nigel

[DanR]

Hi Nigel,

We are moving ahead with MCE file support, but I can't give you a firm date yet. We have a research project under way to figure out how to access the files, and our business development person is working on the licensing details with MSoft. That's about all the details I can give right now.

Anxiously looking forward to the new release as well.

[Larry]

Does this still look promissing for the future?

[DanR]

It still an important part of our future plans, hopefully something in Q1 '05.

[MonocularJack]

I want to throw my vote in for how great editing and converting of dvr-ms files would be. I usually use SageTV to record everything and then VideoReDo to cut the commercials but MCE2005 with an XBox Extender is making my wife much happier.

I can edit and burn dvr-ms files with Nero but their interface for navigating around videos feels like doing surgery with a butterknife, it just lacks percision and the ability to quickly run through a video and snip out the unwanted parts.

After reading tons of threads the MCE community would *love* (and pay for) an easy to use dvr-ms editing tool, especially if it dumped it out in standard mpg format.

[Harry]

a noob question from my side: what are dvr-ms files?

another m$ proprietary file format?

[Anonymous]

DVR-MS is a Microsoft Digital Video Recording, the format that Media Center Edition stores recorded TV in. It is a Microsoft format but it's not proprietary and you can learn how to work with it via the MCE SDK. Some more information about the format here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/dvrfilechanges.asp

Basically it's a wrapper around MPEG-2 that contains metadata and support for encryption and the broadcast flag. I'm not a huge fan of the format but I can see why they did it. If Tivo had to bow to the broadcast flag so do other large companies. At least the opened up the format instead of hiding it's internals in some blackbox.

[Anonymous]

this may be useful to some people.. it's a DVR-MS to MPEG2 file convertor. Direct download it from here:

http://www.digtv.ws/temp/


or go here and read some elementary docs/help:

http://forums.dvbowners.com/index.php?showtopic=2493

[Anonymous]

OK - I need a definite eta on this

Q1 - is that pretty definite,

Im happy authoring to DVD from within MCE but am truly fed up with having to accept the extra space taken up by adverts and space taken up before and after a program.

You would not only make my life a lot easier but you could look at the possibility of a MCE moduleto edit through the interface as well as externally.

Thanks

Si

[DanR]

OK - I need a definite eta on this

Q1 - is that pretty definite,

Can't be definite now, but will start the research so we can plan the project. Give us a couple of weeks.

[DanR]

Can someone do us a favor and upload a very short (< 50 mb) DVR-MS clip to our ftp site? ftp://upload:upload@videoredo.net

Please create and put in a folder called DVR-MS.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

will upload something shortly

[DanR]

Thanks. Our MCE machine isn't setup right now so that will be a big help.

[Anonymous]

Currently uploading 2 files into a folder called DVR-MS, one is a BEST quality sample and the other is the lowest (FAIR) quality, please feel free to request other samples if required

Should be fully uploaded in 1 hour

Regards

Simon

[Anonymous]

files uploaded to FTP

Out of interest are you looking at being able to save the edited dvr-ms file out as a mpg file? as well as just editing the dvr-ms files themselves

thanks

Simon

[DanR]

Out of interest are you looking at being able to save the edited dvr-ms file out as a mpg file? as well as just editing the dvr-ms files themselves I don't know yet. It will depend on how hard that is to do, and what the demand is. We are meeting with a number of MCE vendors at the CES this weekend, and will get some feedback from them.

How useful do you think that feature is?

[Anonymous]

I believe that the export to mpg may be frowned upon - just my suspicion.

personally speaking it would be great to edit the dvr-ms files leaving the description etc in place and also be able to extract to a mpg file for reencoding to wmv or divx or whatever for long term archiving format you use.

Not being able to extract to mpg isnt a killer, as retail MCE boxes should have in the majority of cases the sonic encoder to allow authoring of DVD's onto DVD, these could if you wished be converted to divx - not ideal but you see its a possible solution.

even better would be export to mpg and xml file with the description in as well?? that way we still have someway of seeing what the TV episode was about....

ive tried the other tools available for extraction or reencode but none work on my setup, others have better success but my system dosent like them so your proper product is my preferred choice.

hope that helps

[Anonymous]

thinking about it

I do like the idea of the videoredo interface in overlay mode so you could edit the video on the tv screen if need be, simple tick boxes to select delete orginal file etc etc

but just a dream, although someone else has tried with a program called dcut - again can't get this to work

[DanR]

The export to MPG will be our default mode. XML description and/or DVR-MS output are possibilities, but not definates. Since the MCE can play MPG program streams that shouldn't be a problem other than the possible loss of program description.

[DanR]

An overlay mode for MCE, Sage and Snapstream users might be nice. Haven't had many requests for that. We polled some users a while back and found that many of the Sage and BTV users used the software as an advanced capturing tool, but not as a playback tool. Usually burned videos to DVDs. I think that will change in future as more people become comfortable with having a PC in the living room.

[Anonymous]

I agree, most users still dont use a remote, but those that do are seeing a whole new world - myself included.

[DanR]

As a long-time Tivo user, I have yet to see the advantage of MCE, over a Tivo, other than the ability to author a DVD and that is possible with some Tivo hacks. When I want to record a show off the air, I usually use BTV or Sage to queue it up.

What kind of benefits are you seeing with MCE vs. a DVR like Tivo or Replay?

[Anonymous]

I have some high def dvr-ms files that I recorded. Would you like a sample for your R&D?

[DanR]

That would be great, but no larger than 50-100MB. Put in the DVR-MS folder, please.

Which capture card are you using?

[Anonymous]

I too have a TIVO, however here in the UK theyve pulled out, yes the TIVO still wins over any pvr, however its long term viability is limited, my box will fail at some point and its replacemnt cost through limited number of dealers and re registration will cost in excess of £500 ~ $800 so the choice would be to migrate to MCE.

Other than cost I like the option to store video's for playback - and of course the mce has radio, music and picture viewing built in.

So in short TIVO has better PVR quality while MCE looses quality while gains features and ease of expansion.

Si

[DanR]

I understand. Tivo is much less expensive, $100 + ~$100/yr. Get something equivalent in with a similar form factor (ITX motherboard) + software (XP + BTV/SAGE/MCE/Medio) would have cost between $500-$800.

[Lester Burnham]

I too have a TIVO, however here in the UK theyve pulled out, yes the TIVO still wins over any pvr, however its long term viability is limited, my box will fail at some point and its replacemnt cost through limited number of dealers and re registration will cost in excess of £500 ~ $800 so the choice would be to migrate to MCE.

Other than cost I like the option to store video's for playback - and of course the mce has radio, music and picture viewing built in.

So in short TIVO has better PVR quality while MCE looses quality while gains features and ease of expansion.

Si


I always liked the idea of TIVO - but I think Sky's PVR is pretty good - the downside being the subscription requirements.

The twin tuners is a good idea, so recording two things at once is possible (and you can even watch something else (previously recorded that is) whilst two recordings are going on). And it storing the signal encrypted and as broadcast means that the quality of recordings is identical to anything received as broadcast.

The upsides of Sky+:-

Capable of two recordings
No loss of quality
HD is easily upgraded
Can output DD5.1 signal to A/V equipment, if the programme is broadcast as such (mainly just movies on Sky)

Downsides:-

Tied to Sky (for PVR functionality)
Recordings can fail for no apparent reason - and then you get nothing - not part of the programme
Nothing like the TIVO system for pre-emptivaly recording your preferences (just simplistic series link which you have to manually select)
Nothing configurable for recordings in terms of quality - this is fixed by the box software, so you can't reduce quality for capacity - this is no doubt because it doesn't decrypt or decode when recording - just records the tuned signal, and decodes and decrypts when you playback

When I was in the market for a PVR I did consider a TIVO - but the lack of new retail (high street) sales put me off, as did the effective pull-out of TIVO in the UK.

Plus some people view the TIVO as not that great for picture quality - whether that is truly deserved, or not, I'm not sure, but you take on board these sorts of comments when researching what to buy.

I did consider the Freeview PVRs (DVB) but as I already have Sky, I couldn't use these to record Sky (they only record from their own tuners) so I'd only be able to use them to record terrestrial Freeview channels.

I did consider DVD recorders with HDDs, as well as normal DVD recorders, and although the prices have come down recently, I liked the idea of a staging area that HD PVRs provide - and the DVD recorders with HDs are still quite expensive.

And as I managed to get Sky+ for £99 including installation, it seemed the most cost-effective option. As I already had a DVD burner for my PC (albeit unused, and since replaced, as it proved to be unreliable) I bought a TV capture box in order to archive stuff from my Sky+ box (which is where VideoReDo came in for me).

The one thing I liked about TIVO being compatible with all the other sources - but effectively pulling out of the UK market, and the expense of the solution just put me off, really.

[Anonymous]

Guys - can we please drop the discussion, we seem to be getting slightly off the subject and lets face it , we could discuss TIVO SKY+, MCE, BYTV, SAGE til the cows come home.

Back onto subject, yes extraction to mpeg is highly desirable, just recorded a 3 hour movie and it wont archive/author to DVD due to its size, so extract to mpeg and re encode is the only option.

Regards

Si

[Lester Burnham]

Guys - can we please drop the discussion, we seem to be getting slightly off the subject and lets face it , we could discuss TIVO SKY+, MCE, BYTV, SAGE til the cows come home.


A tad ungrateful, I feel - you're the one coming here requesting functionality and demanding ETAs...

And you yourself prolonged the discussion on PVRs when it suited.


Back onto subject, yes extraction to mpeg is highly desirable, just recorded a 3 hour movie and it wont archive/author to DVD due to its size, so extract to mpeg and re encode is the only option.

Regards
Si


Perhaps Dan and his company should just drop everything and serve your needs and wants, after being so gracious about a little thread drift.

[Anonymous]

many apologies - prolonged the discussion to answer Dans request.

Dont mean to be rude or ungrateful - however when there are no other options available, space running out on my pvr etc thats why Im enquiring about eta's

Dan - apologies for being a typical demanding customer :oops:

[DanR]

We appreciate the input and DVR-MS is important to us. The research is planned to be started next week as mentioned earlier.

[MonocularJack]

What kind of benefits are you seeing with MCE vs. a DVR like Tivo or Replay?

I've been away getting married so I'm playing catch-up on my favorite threads. The biggest benifit for me with MCE is expandibility. I know you can hack into your Tivo to add new drives but I feel more comfortable doing that to my PC or just tacking on a USB 2.0 external drive and getting instant capacity upgrade.

The other benefit is the extender concept. I use MCE2005 + XBox Extender over a wireless network and it works great. I used to be a huge SageTV fan and I may be again now that I've heard they are supporting an extender concept (ok, just a rebranded MediaMVP but it works for me). That plus mlbdude's SageMCE STV gives me (and the wife) everything we are looking for. I really think the MCE interface is one of the best while Sage's default one looks a little too "designed by a techie".

My only big issue, and this is where VideoReDo comes in, is the ability to burn to DVD. The machine I record on doesn't have a DVD burner. I want to convert the dvr-ms files into MPG, transfer them to my main machine and burn them there.

I think it's *great* that you are starting work on dvr-ms editing/converting. I'd buy your product all over again for that functionality.

As a side note, I've never used Tivo or Replay, I'm sure they are great products and the friends that have them swear by them. My nerdly nature just enjoys the PC nature of MCE more.

Shawn

[fcassia]

I wouldn't touch Microsoft MCE even with a 10-ft pole. Besides the proprietary MS-DVR format, the Redmond Empire is charging $150 per copy of MCE.

I personally think that WinMCE is going to be a big flop, just like the whole TabletPC concept "nice idea, but too expensive and with a lot of shortcomings".

I have no crystal ball, but I can see that the future is going to be of LINUX-powered set-top boxes and PVRs.

Take a look at the Prismiq Media Player (www.prismiq.com / www.prismiq.org) it's a media player running Linux and the server (file-server software) that runs on your home computers is written in 100% Java, so you can stream your files from Linux, Windows, and MacOS-X.

Prismiq is also working on a linux-based digital video recorder as I write this.

Windows-powered devices are never going to be able to compete with linux based ones on price, because OEMs can take the linux kernel and tweak it and create their own software on top of it without having to pay any cent to Redmondia.

And here's another one, linux-powered. Look at this beauty.
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/121/amino_aminet500_iptv

So, MS-DVR support? I couldn't care less. Yet if there were a version of VideoRedo for Linux (i'm currently forced to use Mainactor for Linux, a commercial video editor that DOES re-encode on every save), I'd purchase it inmediatelly.

Two thirds of my PCs at home already run linux (I'm keeping a pair of notebooks running Windows because I must use it for work, yet at some point I'd just run Windows 2000 inside Linux using a virtual machine).

Just my $0.02
Fernando

my VideoRedo review:

Digital video gets the axe, quickly
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20305

[null_pointer]

I am not here to get into a LINUX vs Windows war I just know that I have a need for DVR-MS support.

I have written a Scheduling tool called Web Scheduler that has an option to write DVR-MS files, the file format is quite good, it is fast and reliable for storage of video and audio streams, fast seeking etc etc, I am not here to convert people over the the evil MS cult just my observations.

Anyway I am just hanging out until DVR-MS support is added and then I am definitely jumping on board the VideRoDo wagon.

So the question is will it happen and how long (for DVR-MS support that is)?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't touch Microsoft MCE even with a 10-ft pole. Besides the proprietary MS-DVR format, the Redmond Empire is charging $150 per copy of MCE.

Me either, can you imagine trying to do a hotkey combination with a 10 foot pole? I prefer just using my remote from about 8 feet away.


I personally think that WinMCE is going to be a big flop, just like the whole TabletPC concept "nice idea, but too expensive and with a lot of shortcomings".

I have no crystal ball, but I can see that the future is going to be of LINUX-powered set-top boxes and PVRs.

I disagree and agree with you. I don't think MCE is going to be a flop and in fact I see it only gaining more momentum, especially with the new updates coming out to add Cable-based HD recording instead of just OTA HD. I'm still using SDTV so I don't really care but seems the HD people are *really* passionate about this. After reading interviews with Gates and other MS managers from CES it seems Microsoft is really going to push MCE hard. I'm pretty excited to see the ways they incorporate MCE into Xenon (XBox2).

On the other hand I do see Linux-based setup boxes making great inroads. At CES Frey announced SageTV for Linux, specially for OEM's to start playing with for their own branded boxes. My scuffed crystal ball says the real way for Linux-based systems to shine will be 1) connectivity with Windows machines and 2) a slick UI.

Connectivity because the market you really want to hit is the consumer market and most consumers either have a Windows or Mac machine. My uncle can setup Windows XP just fine yet even though I'm a senior software developer it took me at least a week just to sort through the fanboy "Use this distro, no this, no this one is best with this patch, oh wait, you have a PVR-350, edit this file... and this file... and recompile" just to install MythTV on Fedora.

UI because much of the PVR software out there frankly looks like it was designed by techies. Look at how well the iPod is selling vs. other more than likely technically superior products. It just looks cool, is simple and accessible to the average consumer. If have 10k sunk into my HT I want my PVR software to look at least as sexy as the components.

I don't want to get into a PVR software pissing match, I personally will use any OS + PVR software that takes less than 30 minutes to install, allows me to get to my recordings, connects to my Windows laptop so I can take CSI on the road, can stream to some kind of "extender" and has a UI that I feel like I'm cheating on my wife with every time I use it.

So far MCE is the closest for me but far from perfect, with SageTV (with the SageMCE "skin") making a very close second.


Prismiq is also working on a linux-based digital video recorder as I write this.

Is there a link for some screen shots? I don’t care if it can read my mind, if it doesn't have a simple, clean, professional UI I'm not going to put it anywhere near my living room. Nothing throws off your poker game like the wife calling and asking what bizarre combination of keys will get her to her Operah shows.


And here's another one, linux-powered. Look at this beauty.
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/121/amino_aminet500_iptv

That does look nice but I couldn't find a price or any indication of who is interfacing with it. I hope they start making systems bigger than 80GB though, go on vacation and that puppy will fill up fast.

That was more like .03 cents but hey, what are Tuesdays for?

Shawn

[gudthor]

I just wanted to add some (positive) pressure to the dvr-ms debate, it is a feature that would be very, very useful.

I also want to thank the creators of VideoReDo for a great product, I had been looking for something like this for a long time. My Pinnacle Moviebox USB was all but useless due to audio-sync problems until I started running the files through VideoReDo.

Looking forward treating my dvr-ms files with VideoReDo !

Thor Reynisson,
Reykjavik, Iceland

[Anonymous]

I'd like to add my voice to the others asking for support for DVR-MS files.

I use MCE 2005 and think it the best and most likely successful version of a
PC-based media application. I am currently using it to record over the air HDTV,
which works well...but the downside is the HUGE files it creates.

I have a definite need for resizing and compressing these files with DivX, but the
problem is the DVR-MS format. I really need a way to convert
these files to MPEG2 (while editing out commercials to boot) in a quick
way so I can then compress them with something like Dr. Divx.

I am not a current customer, but would be one if you support this - just
make sure you can support HD files, both 720p, 1080i, 480p and 480i.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

If it helps, I found this information on converting a DVR-MS file to a
MPEG2 using GraphEdit.

http://www.microsoftusernetwork.com/mcored/knowledgebase/kb-dvrmstowmv.htm

[Anonymous]

Check out
http://microsoftusernetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=163&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[DanR]

Does anyone have some MCE V5 samples especially DVD they can send us on a DVD? If so, please email or PM and I'll forward the address.

Also could use an upload of MCE with PAL video.

[null_pointer]

You can create DVR-MS files with any DirectShow application, I have written a Scheduler that uses the DVR-MS file format and from my understanding Media Portal also outputs or can output DVR-MS files. It is not just MCE that can create and use this format, it is a general file container format for capturing and storage of Mpeg2 video and audio data for DirectShow applications

I can send you some samples captured with Web Scheduler and I guess there would be a lot of other users that could as well:

http://forums.dvbowners.com/index.php?showforum=28
http://dvb-ws.sf.net

I think in the future more and more DirectShow applications will start to offer DVR-MS as a file output option.

[DanR]

OK, we have the PAL upload. But could use some HD / AC3 DVR-MS files for testing.

You can create DVR-MS files with any DirectShow applicationMy understadning is that the DVR-MS format is subset of the standard ASF format. Is that correct?

[Anonymous]

My understadning is that the DVR-MS format is subset of the standard ASF format. Is that correct?


From my understanding yes that is basically correct, it is a file container format that can mux and store Audio and Video streams. It add a few things to the ASF format notably DRM, DRM is an option but not a requirement of the DVR-MS file format, if you do not want to your application does not have to implement it.

[bidmead]

> ...what are dvr-ms files?

"DVR-MS files are MPEG2 in an ASF wrapper that contains details of recorded TV show" (from Guest elsewhere in this forum.)

Has anybody ascertained the point of DVR-MS (apart from providing yet more pocket money for Bill)? Here in the UK we've taken to FreeView (DVB-T) in a big way, and are using devices like Nebula simply to slam the MPEG2 stream down onto the hard drive, with a tiny bit of tweaking en route that turns the transport stream into a program stream. The resulting files slip smoothly into VideoReDo and/or can be crunched directly using VirtualDubMod. I'm not clear what, if anything, DVR-MS brings to the party.

--
Chris

[DanR]

I'm not clear what, if anything, DVR-MS brings to the party. There are two advantages that I can see of DVR-MS.

a) The ASF wrapper will work with many other codecs besides MPEG. I would expect to see a WMV version of MCE sometime in the future.

b) The ASF wrapper has built in support for DRM. This is missing from many parts of the MPEG world.

These are obvious advantages for Microsoft. I'll leave it up to you to determine how significant they are for the end-user.

[Anonymous]

On the subject of DRM and the FCC 'broadcast flag' protection for MPEG2 streams.

Will VideoReDo honour this protection? ie: Will we be able/not able to edit a protected digital TV stream?

Will VideoReDo allow the end user to set/clear this protection for their own home (video camera etc.) recordings, should they wish to distribute the MPEG2 video.

Does DRM impact on the DVD authoring process or effect copying a home authored DVD?


So far as I'm aware, unless the software/hardware handling the protected MPEG2 stream knows of/reacts to the protection flag setting - then it should blithely ignore it (possibly a poor analogy, but kind of like how most older VCRs will ignore macrovision settings on original DVDs/VHS tapes)?

Your comments on this are most welcome.

[DanR]

On the subject of DRM and the FCC 'broadcast flag' protection for MPEG2 streams.

Will VideoReDo honour this protection? Our lawyers are looking into this now. All we can say for sure is that VideoReDo will not violate the law.

The FCC ruling is somewhat complex. We believe that its not simply that you have to honor the "copy bits" but rather if the "copy bits" are set then there are limitations on copying such as high-res material can only be copied digiitally up to 480 i/p, the current DVD resolution in the US.

[MonocularJack]

Just popping my head in to see how dvr-ms progress is coming. Are you still in need of sample files or a guinea pig to test things on? Since I do all my recording via MCE 2005 I haven't been using VRD and I think I'm going through withdrawls.

[DanR]

Thanks, we have all the sample files we need. Things are running a bit behind here, but rest assured we will get to MCE within a week or two.

[MonocularJack]

Thanks for the update. After developing software for 12 years I automatically tack on "running a bit behind" when asking (or giving) project updates. A lot like some people add the phrase "in bed" to the end of their fortune cookies. *grin*.

Keep up the great work.

[Anonymous]

I just want to add my voice to support dvr-ms format. I use Media Portal (http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net) which saves into dvr-ms format. And this program would be ideal for chopping out ads before either archiving to HD or DVD in an mpeg format.

Media Portal is an open source project and totally free. I'm currently using it to run my HTPC, using a remote to control the TV, DVD, CD, etc players. If VideoReDo was designed to be controlled via a remote then I'd have a solution for doing all this on my TV (I have no monitor connected to my HTPC).

[DanR]

VideoReDo works great with a remote control. Please see the recent discussion here about HTPC usage.

MCE / DVR-MS support is comng soon, please be patient.

[MonocularJack]

Not that it matters much now since it sounds like a beta is close and I'm guessing you've probably already come across this info but just in case...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnxpmce/html/dvr-ms.asp#dvr-ms_topic9

Found the article *great*. Spent probably too much time at work writing code snippets around the presented interfaces.

Congrats on getting the Plus beta out. I'd try it out but all my video is now in dvr-ms format. I'll just wait a bit longer.

[DanR]

That's a great article, wish I'd seen it sooner, but guess it just came out (dated March 2005). Isn't that interesting about their editing API.

Wonder if its frame accurate or GOP accurate/

Hang in there DVR-MS is coming to VideoReDo. :)

[Anonymous]

I'll buy your product the day the software supports DVR-MS. =)

I'll use it for editing OTA HD DVR-MS files.

Does it look like it'll still be a few months (weeks? days?) before you'll release the update?

[DanR]

DVR-MS SD will go into beta test this week. HD may be right away or may be later, there are some questions on how the audio is stored in file. If its MPEG1 or AC3 audio, then it should also be this week.

[Anonymous]

Excellent!

I can supply any amount of sample HD DVR-MS files (recorded in MCE with an ATI HDTV Wonder) you need... I currently have about 400GB of OTA HD DVR-MS files on my hard drives, and am recording more every day.

[MonocularJack]

DVR-MS SD will go into beta test this week. HD may be right away or may be later, there are some questions on how the audio is stored in file. If its MPEG1 or AC3 audio, then it should also be this week.

Woooohooo! *doing a dance of joy*

[Peter]

I currently have about 400GB of OTA HD DVR-MS files on my hard drives
Holy crap! :shock: That's a LOT of disc space! Do you have a separate room for your harddrives? :D
(I went from a 40 to a 160 last year... thought I was doing good)

[KenFab]

I currently have about 400GB of OTA HD DVR-MS files on my hard drives
Holy crap! :shock: That's a LOT of disc space! Do you have a separate room for your harddrives? :D
(I went from a 40 to a 160 last year... thought I was doing good)
I just registered on these forums so I'm no longer the "Guest" with 400GB of HD material. ;)

Actually, most of my HD recordings are being stored on a single Seagate 400GB SATA drive. I haven't done a tally recently, but I've probably got another 600GB or so of HDD space on several PCs that are networked throughout my house.

From what I’ve seen, that’s not too uncommon these days (especially amongst those with HD capability and/or large video/audio libraries), and many people have capacities exceeding several terabytes. =)

[Anonymous]

250GB USB drives now going for $110 and bare drives for $69 at Circuit City. So, it's not that difficult to quickly add up a lot of disk space which is really needed for HD material. At Fry's you can occasionally find sales of 250-300GB going for about $70 (ultimate low was $56 for 250GB), even well over a year ago (nearly two).

I have over 5T of HD files, mostly on USB drives. Something like 25-30 1 hour shows on one drive. Now with VRD, and removing the commercials from my favorite movies and series, I've managed to get an additional 25% on each drive.

Transcoding would improve it even more, but I haven't automated it yet and it takes too much CPU time to do. Plus I'm afraid I'll lose most of the quality inherent in the original.

It's great to have easy access to entire seasons worth of a shows in HD. Now I don't have to go out and buy any DVD sets. Soon the DVD collection will cost just as much as the hard drive, it is not that far off right now. The quality of the video is much better than any DVD.

[DanR]

DVR-MS files are now supported in Build #351 for both Classic and Plus.

You should be able to open, edit and/or QSF them. Output is to program stream or elem streams. Should work for both SD and HD streams.

Also, please enable the "Diagnostics" option in the Tools>Options>Advanced Stream. If you have issues, there might be some useful info in the log file.

[KenFab]

Whoohooo! You rock man!

Now, I'll do as I promised and order your software right after I post this. :)

I'll do some testing tonight when I get home from work and report my results.

Ken

[DanR]

Now, I'll do as I promised and order your software right after I post thisThanks, but test it first please.

[KenFab]

Now, I'll do as I promised and order your software right after I post thisThanks, but test it first please.

Fair enough. :)

I just download the trial and 351 beta here at work to check it out (I've got a sample ~30 minute DVR-MS HD file here I can work with) and immediately noticed something that's missing... a new "Files of type:" for DVR-MS files in the Open dialog box. Small issue, but an issue nonetheless. ;)

EDIT - nevermind... I found the option in the program to add it myself. Nice feature!

I'm out the door right now and heading home to do some testing...

[KenFab]

Well darn, I really hope I'm doing something stupid, but so far things aren't going so well...

Using 351, at first I tried opening a 30 minute DVR-MS HD PBS show (~3GB)... CPU shot up to 100%, HDD spinning like mad, then after several minutes it crashed with no error.

2nd try, I opened a 30 minute DVR-MS **SD** show (~1.67GB)... CPU at 100%, HDD running, then a couple minutes later I get an error dialog:

"Unable to open: C:\HD\***.dvr-ms Overflow the previous packet buffer."

3rd try, I opened a 30 minute MPG file I recorder from Sage (~1GB)... it opened right up and played immediatly.

I got the same results trying to open an HD DVR-MS file on a PC a work.
The box I tried at home is an AMD XP 3200+, 1.5GB Low CAS Corsair RAM, Geforce 6800GT AGP, 120GB Western Digital WD1200JB PATA HDD.

Per your request, I'm currently using the trial version of your software... installed 1-6-2-284, then 1-9-0-351 next and ran 351.

I've got a couple more PCs around the house I could use as well (including my HTPC which is Athlon 64-based).

Please tell me I'm doing something stupid. I'm really looking forward to editing my DVR-MS (SD & HD) files. :)

Ken

[Anonymous]

I am getting simular problems to ken, cpu shoots up to 100% on initial open then goes down to about 40-50% but no response from VideoReDo.

Works Ok with MPEG files, my DVR-MS files are SD created by Webscheduler/Dvico

[Anonymous]

Similar. CPU spike. On short file (1 minute), VRD responds that it cannot open the file. When I do a QSF, it says it's not an MPEG stream.

When I open a 1 hour file CPU holds steady @ 70% for a while (at least 2 minutes) with VRD "not responding." So, I end the task.

With diags turned on, there's nothing in the log file, but "03/24/05 21:00:49 VideoReDo/Plus started. Licensed to..."

[DanR]

Did you enable the diagnostic on Tools>Options>Advanced Stream. If so, can you email your VideoReDo.log file to support@videoredo.com (as an attachment please).

Also, see if you can find the file wmvcore.dll in your windows\system32 folder. This windows file is the key to DVR-MS support. I assumed that everyone has it on their system, but if you don't VRD is smart enough to disable DVR-MS support. I'm hoping that your problem is related to either the absence or location this file.

[DanR]

My bad. DVR-MS support was disabled in the release version. VRD was treating them as regular MPEG files.

Build 352 now up on the beta FTP site. This should work much better.

[Anonymous]

My bad. DVR-MS support was disabled in the release version. VRD was treating them as regular MPEG files.

Build 352 now up on the beta FTP site. This should work much better.

Just tried 352 and it works well now

Thanks,
CV

[nigelb]

I am the person who started this thread by first requesting this feature just over a year ago. I have been popping back every so often to see whether dvr-ms import was implemented & today is my lucky day:-)

I have immediately purchased a copy. It works great on the test file that I tried, very smooth & quick editing plus then I just save as MPG for quick authoring.

There is interesting new stuff to explore in the Beta version of VideoReDoPlus like Ad-Detective.

Thank you so much for this. It's been a long wait but well worth it.

[DanR]

Hi Nigel, I remember you. Didn't you upload a DVR-MS clip for us to look at a year ago?

While Ad-Detective is great, don't forget to check out previews and thumbnails.

Thanks for being patient with us. Who thought it would take so long :)

[Anonymous]

Hi Dan

All I can say is job well done - and thanks for your understanding with your impatient customers

Regards

Simon

[Anonymous]

Hi Nigel, I remember you. Didn't you upload a DVR-MS clip for us to look at a year ago?

While Ad-Detective is great, don't forget to check out previews and thumbnails.

Thanks for being patient with us. Who thought it would take so long :)

Yes, I did upload some files for you.

Ad-Detective does have potential but I encountered problems with it detecting on one recording that I have where it does go to a black screen before advertisements but not when it is the channels forthcoming programmes advertising. It does appear that VideoReDo is so fast to use when stepping through the video that unless Ad-Detective is 100% it is actually easier just to do it manually.

Cheers

Nigel

[DanR]

Personally, I like to use Ad-Detective as an assist to manual editing. That is position just before the start / end of adverts and then like VideoReDo find the black frames.

We will be adding more intelligence into Ad-Detective in the future so hopefully it can find your situation.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "the channels forthcoming programmes advertising". Can you elaborate a bit?

[Anonymous]

For me manualy editing, is always quicker.

But this feature will help many that do not understand or want to manualy edit. But they will still have to set this feature up for their captures.

Whatever the new feature it is all a bonus for the videoredo project and its users. Therefore making it a stronger product than the rest of the MPG editors.

Videredo is still winning Dan :D

[DanR]

Videredo is still winning Dan Thanks.

[stk]

I've been keeping an eye on this thread too. I'm very happy that you guys put in this feature. But I'm getting an audio sync problem when I tried it out with a Fox HD show I recorded. The audio is fine when I play the show in Media Center or Media Player, but it's out of sync when I'm editing in VideoRedo and in the output file. I'm using build 353.

[DanR]

We are trying to track down the source of the sync issue. Some users have reported quite a bit of success by setting the manual sync adjustment ( Tools>Sync Adjustment) to about 500 msec while editing. The good news for them is that the sync offset appears constant on all videos captured by their machine.

Can you see if that works?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, 500 msec seems about right. And it does stay constant for me. Thanks.

[stk]

Yeah, 500 msec seems about right. And it does stay constant for me. Thanks.

Whoops, guess I wasn't signed in when I replied.

[DanR]

Until we can sort this out properly, we have 2 choices:

1) Pull support for dvr-ms format.

2) Add an audio delay option to the options menu to automatically a user settable audio offset. This way you can edit your DVR-MS files and MPEG files without having to change settings. We do need to verify whether or not the audio lag is consistent across multiple files. There have also been some reports of distorted audio during editing, but these don't appear to carry over into the output file.

[Anonymous]

Please dont pull the support Dan

I cant seem to see any problems on the files ive edited so far.

thanks

Simon

[DanR]

We've talked about it quite a bit here, and we've decided to keep the support in VideoReDo, but it won't be formally listed as a supported file type until we can resolve this sync issue.

Curious, what capture card are you using in your MCE system?

[zaphod7501]

While this comment is not specifically about the DVR-MS files the lipsync offset seems to be a general problem with digital streams. I've seen this problem with live viewing on STB's (set top boxes) and even digital video clips inserted into TV programming. (the live announcer is in sync but the vieo clip that they play in a window is out of sync) It seems that this is a trade-off for improved picture quality that no one in the media is talking about. I just installed a MyHD MDP-130 and plan on using VRD to resync all my digital captures. I suspect that each channel will have a unique offset and that it is actually a transmission problem.

[Anonymous]

Hi Dan

Im capturing using a PVR 250 (not mce edition) using a SCART (in the Uk) to Svideo converter from my SKY Satellite receiver, works very well indeed. so the capture is actually analogue, which may well support the post above?

Will try edit a few longer movies etc to see if I can get the audio synch to appear.

In the future Dan will you be supporting output to DVR-MS? therefore allowing the metadata to be kept ?

thanks

Si

[DanR]

In the future Dan will you be supporting output to DVR-MS? therefore allowing the metadata to be kept ? No decision on this yet.

[Anonymous]

For Lip Sync problems the best remedy is to install the Win OS again from scratch. You also need to format the Boot partition you use for your Win OS, which can be done when installing Win OS again.

** Not forgetting to Backup Important DATA before you do this **

This what i do whenever i encounter Lip Sync problems, corrects it every time 100% :wink:

[nigelb]

In the future Dan will you be supporting output to DVR-MS? therefore allowing the metadata to be kept ? No decision on this yet.

It would be really nice to keep the metadata reagarding the TV show in a text file then it could be used when authoring the DVD or even just burned as a text file with programme description etc.

Nigel

[Mycroft]

Interesting programming information from Microsoft re:Media Center.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnxpmce/html/positionchangeraddin.asp

[Anonymous]

Are you guys still working on the sync problems for ms-dvr files?

I just recently started using my MCE comp for video capture. I will try the trial version but was interested in knowing if you are still working on this feature and above listed audio sync problem.

Thank

Andrew

[DanR]

Yes, we are still working on it. Been tied up with other stuff, but we hope to get back to it within a few weeks.

[Anonymous]

Thank You for the fast reply. I will give it a go.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

I have tried this and it works beautifully. I'm so impressed with the ad detective. My project was a 3 hr sporting event captured by my MCE computer.

I first converted the ms-dvr file to mpeg2 with video redo(with zero audio sync problems).

Then I used video edit magic to convert to dvd format(ifo, vobs etc.).

Then I used dvdshrink to fit the 6.7gb dvd files on a regulare dvd+r.

There was very little loss of quality and from ms-dvr to dvd took about 4 hrs total.

My only question is, are you folks looking at saving the output file in dvd format? this would elimate part of the multi-processing on the original file and save time.

Thank You

Andrew

[aaquick]

also,

If anyone has any advice on a better way to get from mpeg2 to dvd, please let me know. DVD Lab-pro is very good but also very expensive. I will buy this program but will have a hard time coming up with the $199 for dvd lab pro.

[aaquick]

Correction:

I have tried this and it works beautifully. I'm so impressed with the ad detective. My project was a 3 hr sporting event captured by my MCE computer.

I first converted the ms-dvr file to mpeg2 with video redo(with zero audio sync problems).

Then I used video edit magic to convert to dvd format(ifo, vobs etc.).

Then I used dvdshrink to fit the 6.7gb dvd files on a regulare dvd+r.

There was very little loss of quality and from ms-dvr to dvd took about 4 hrs total.

My only question is, are you folks looking at saving the output file in dvd format? this would elimate part of the multi-processing on the original file and save time.

Thank You

Andrew

I used DVD-lab PRO to convert from mpeg2 stream to DVD. I tried video edit magic but could not figure out how to do it there.

[Lester Burnham]

also,

If anyone has any advice on a better way to get from mpeg2 to dvd, please let me know. DVD Lab-pro is very good but also very expensive. I will buy this program but will have a hard time coming up with the $199 for dvd lab pro.

Don't know about better way, but a free way - all I use to author, now, is the freeware GUI_for_dvdauthor.

Suits me down to the ground, you can use motion menus, animated thumbnails, and it doesn't re-encode.

From VideoReDo, though, you would need to save your mpeg files as VOB type (from VideoReDo) but with the extension mpg.

Given the choice of two other commerical packages I have for authoring, I use nothing but GUI_for_dvdauthor, these days.

[laggytoad]

Is there a way to get my DVR-MS files to WMV format?
I have a small clip of myself in a local TV commercial and would like to send it to some family in WMV format so they can play it on their PC's (they have no PC knowledge and no software DVD players, but I know they have WMP)
The clip was recorded off air using an ATI HD Wonder in MCE2005 with best quality.
I have used VRD to cut and save as a "Movie File (Mpeg)" but cannot get WME9 to convert it. It keeps giving me errors no matter what output options I try.
Is it possible that I need to set some output options in VRD to make it WMP friendly?
I appreciate your expertise! you would think that M$ would allow it's "special" formats to play well together...HA!
Sorry I'm such a noob, but I can't find an answer to this problem and figured I should just let the pro's answer this one for me. I apologize if this anwser is somewhere on the forum but I don't even know what to search for if it is! :?

[phd]

I have personally found WME to be a bit buggy and prone to crashing as well.

I tried Anole's recommendation of WinAVI video converter to work rather well. Free trial available that watermarks output.

Give it a try!

[Anonymous]

Using trial version to see how good dvr-ms editing is. Ergonomics and speed are great. My first attempt has audio that was both out of sync and jumped in places. Put in the 500ms offset and now just jumping. Any ideas? Will the full version help. PS It doesn't jump when playing original file. PPS I am using Hauppauge NOVA-t DVB card to record terrestrial digital TV in UK.

[DanR]

Will the full version helpNo.

VRD does not use the DVR-MS DirectShow decoder to read the file which is probably why you are having "jump" problems. About 50% of our DVR-MS users have great success out of the box. Most of the rest can use the audio sync adjustment to solve the sync issue. A few, perhaps youself, don't seem to have any success. My suggestion would be to use a program like, DVRMSToolboxGUI to convert to MPEG. Its free and uses the DVR-MS DirectShow decoder. I know its not as convienent as reading the original in VideoReDo, but that's the best solution I can suggest. For now anyway.

[sonome]

VRD does not use the DVR-MS DirectShow decoder to read the file which is probably why you are having "jump" problems. About 50% of our DVR-MS users have great success out of the box. Most of the rest can use the audio sync adjustment to solve the sync issue. A few, perhaps youself, don't seem to have any success. My suggestion would be to use a program like, DVRMSToolboxGUI to convert to MPEG. Its free and uses the DVR-MS DirectShow decoder. I know its not as convienent as reading the original in VideoReDo, but that's the best solution I can suggest. For now anyway.

The above is exactly what I have been doing with my dvr-ms files before bringing them into videoredo - I'd definitely vouch for this method. It has solved all my sync/jump problems (and DVRMSToolboxGUI is relatively quick to convert the file to MPEG).

[Anonymous]

Me My first attempt has audio that was both out of sync and jumped in places. Put in the 500ms offset and now just jumping. Any ideas?
DanRMy suggestion would be to use a program like, DVRMSToolboxGUI to convert to MPEG
sonomeI'd definitely vouch for this method. It has solved all my sync/jump problems
This does work - not much of an extra step as its quick and simple.
Thanks a lot
:D