Hauppauge 1212 hd pvr

[sanjonny]

sorry, search everywhere and could not find a good answer. i just got the 1212 and am learning the ins and outs. my biggest question is what is the best format to output the files for processing in videoredo? i have been using vdredo for awhile but the h.264 world is new to me. i am recording either from cable box or tivo and wondering if i should choose m2ts or ts for my high def files and should i use variable or fixed bitrate and about what level. mp4 doesnt seem to work very well as output for the 1212.

i also plan to shrink the files, either using vidredo or something else, but for sure vidredo to cut commercials and such. for regular tivo files, not using the 1212, i download the tivo file, decrypt to mpeg, edit in videoredo and shrink using xvid (but as we all know vidredo doesnt do xvid/avi.

so what are the best input settings for videoredo using the 1212 and suggested processing out settings like switching to mkv in or out of vidredo. would prefer to not encode at least initially after making the cuts, but do want to shrink most files whether best to do that in vidredo or not, i guess will have to be determined.

play most files using a brite-view stb which rocks as it plays almost anything, definitely more than the wdtv .


just as an example, i can take a tivo 30 minute show at hd , edit in vidredo to 22 minutes and crunch it down to about 200mb at 720p in xvid. there is some quality loss but it still looks fine to me.

what would be a similar process using the 1212 and vidredo. is mkv the best output? i do like the chapter features of mkv and they play well on the briteview.

any help from you other video experts and 1212 owners would be greatly appreciated. i know just enough to be dangerous.

[Quicktime]

Hello.

I use a 1212 to copy component material from a Motorola 3416 stb. All three output formats worked when i tested them at 720p, but not all would preserve 5.1 sound. VRD was ok with 720p but error prone with 1080i.

I am away from home at the moment and don't recall which one I finally settled on.

Why would you not use the Hauppauge1212 bit rate setting to get the final file size, seems to me that re-recoding to compress would give poorer quality.

The quick answer is 4MB variable bit rate, mt2s works, gives ok 720p and can be manipulated by VRD.

[sanjonny]

thanks, i will try that and post back. i really just have to find the best fit of size vs quality. right now, i take stuff that is not copy protected off the tivo in mpeg format up to 1080i 1920 and vrd works fine to edit and such. then i shrink with xvid. believe it or not, i get better shrinking quality if the starting file is bigger. but i have not dealt with the m2ts format before. will play around with bitrate and such too. i am using the 1212 for copy protected files to archive since i have a small drive in the tivohd and big drives on my server.

[sanjonny]

Thanks QuickTime, just learning about the new format. It seems h.264 is the way to go, I just have to figure out how to balance out what I am doing so I get a reasonable quality and file. I now have read a bunch more and it sounds like the compression/clarity is better than xvid, I just have to capture correctly and then cut out commercials. My first née question is does either m2ts or ts allow me to keep chapter marks? I have also been playing with mkv recordings and love that functionality. I cannot find the difference between to ms and m2ts in any form that makes sense, which one ultimately is more efficient? I think I will try some new recordings with lower nitrates and size and see how they turn out. Any other comments or help is greatly appreciated.

[salience]

I had some awful problems with TME - it was version 2.0.45.11 that came on the Hauppauge software disc. Jumping video, bad audio sync, and much more you donty want to hear about. Once I upgraded to version 2.4 everything finally works like it should. However, go to the ArcSoft site and try to find an upgrade! I couldn't even find mention of TME - so..... I had to download 2.4 from the internet torrent posted by a kind soul. Has anyone found TME upgrades at ArcSoft?
With the TME 2.4,
A few observations so far: I capture HD TV from French & UKFreesat satellite receivers using an HDMI connection routed through an HDFury3 (which defeats HDCP). So far I've stayed in 720p which I believe is (almost) as good as 1080i, especially at lower capture bitrates. I am currently using 7M vbr capture rate and AAC audio, and file sizes are quite reasonable, a bit over 1GB/hour. I agree the best way to attain the file size you want is to set the original capture to the apprpopriate rate. Also, staying in h.264 seems the best choice (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC ). I capture to .ts since it seems the most basic of the 3 ArcSoft TME options, and then edit out commercials with VideoReDo. You can save to .mp4 from there but apparently only with AAC audio, not AC3, correct me if I'm wrong. Otherwise you can only save to .ts and then you will probably want to convert to .mp4 or .mkv as an additional step. You can use MKVMerge for the latter. I havent noticed any differences using 'hardware acceleration' in TME, does anyone have some insight there?