Ts 2 Dvd

haggard

How to convert files captured onto the Dreambox HDD into DVD compliant format

You have just captured a horror movie : The_Bush onto your DB HDD and would like to make a DVD of it. The steps are as follows:-

1. First get
HJ-Split (freeware h**p://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/)
PVAStrumento (freeware h**p://www.offeryn.de/dv.htm)
Mpeg2Schnitt (freeware h**p://www.mdienert.de/mpeg2schnitt/)
TMPGEnc

2. Check that you can play the movie out of your DB. Menu -> File mode ->recorded movies . Check that you can see the DB from your PC, e.g. open your web browser and type ftp://192.168.0.24 (or whatever IP is assigned to DB) and you will see a window with all the directories on your box, including one called hdd.

3. Open hdd in the window. The first time, you will see a lot more files than you expected. Transfer the files The_Bush.ts, The_Bush.ts.001 etc by dragging and dropping into a new directory called (e.g.) THE_BUSH on your PC or PC external drive. They will be no bigger than 1GB each.

4. You now need to join all the files into a big one. I use HJ-Split which is simple and reliable. You first need to rename the files. Each file ending in 001, 002 003 etc needs increasing by 1. Start at the highest, e.g. .ts.003 becomes .ts.004. Then rename The_Bush.ts to be The_Bush.ts.001.
Start HJ-Split, click on JOIN and choose The_Bush.ts.001. Click START and all the files with the name The_Bush will be joined. You now have a new file The-Bush.ts which is the whole movie in transport stream.

5. Check that the movie plays by dropping it on the PowerDVD icon. If PowerDVD starts but does not play, drop the movie icon onto the PowerDVD control panel. If it still doesn’t play, the file is corrupt.

6. What happens next depends on whether or not you want to edit and/or remove superfluous languages. If yes, jump to 7.
OK, so you are happy with the movie as it is. Now start PVAStrumento. Select the file The_Bush.ts. Click on Make PS. Choose the directory THE_BUSH in which to store the new file, which will be called The_Bush.mpg. Click start and either read the log text as it unfolds or read it later if you have trouble with the resulting file. Congratulations. You are almost done. Jump to 10.

7. OK, so you need to remove some languages and/or edit. Start PVAStrumento. Select the file The_Bush.ts. Click on demux and choose the directory THE_BUSH. Click start and wait a few minutes. You will now have some newfiles, The_Bush.mpv, The_Bush.mpa and possibly The_Bush-01.mpa etc. These .mpa files are the audio tracks. To be absolutely sure, click on them to play and listen to the language. Delete all the language files you don’t want. Rename the one you keep (if necessary) to be The-Bush.mpa. If there was only one .mpa file then there was only ever one language. If you only want to remove foreign languages and not edit, then jump to 9.

8. OK you now want to edit. Start Mpeg2Schnitt. Load The_Bush.mpv and the associated audio file gets loaded automatically. Edit away. Export the edit under a new name, e.g. The_BushCut. MpegSchnitt sets the extensions .mpv and .mpa.
You now have The_BushCut.mpv and The_BushCut.mpa.

9. OK, you now have the demuxed files The_Bush.mpv and .mpa or the edited demuxed files, The_BushCut.mpv and .mpa. Although PVAStrumento will demux files, it won’t remux. So use e.g. TMPGenc – tools menu and remux to a single .mpg file, The_Bush.mpg or The_BushCut.mpg. These files should be smaller than the original joined .ts file. This step can be omitted if your DVD authoring tool will import separate V and A files and keep them in synch.

10. You should now have a DVD compliant mpeg2 file. Play it with PowerDVD and sample through to check that the synch is OK and that you have the right language. If you are happy with it, delete all the files except this one. Use your favourite DVD authoring tool to create a DVD.

Thanx 2 Wiljo, Offeryn for guidance on PVAStrumento.

Haggard
22.10.04

BGonaSTICK

Nice post. Mind if I make it sticky?

haggard

Sure. Go ahead.

wallycharlo

ive seen on another guide (doom9) that you can load several .ts files into PVA, and as long as you do it in the correct order it will be ok. so maybe there is no need for the hjsplit step? must try it and see.

BGonaSTICK

Yeah, I've done that. Works fine.

john_graydon

Going to get into this end of things now,
1st i downloaded HJ split
2nd Can play movie out of dbox to tv.
I can see dbox from web brouser
can open directory hdd, can see all movies there.
3rd open hdd in window....CANT DO THIS....Whats wrong

Happy Dreaming

BGonaSTICK

For Windows Explorer to see your Dreambox HDD correctly, the DB must be running a samba server.

Just FTP the files up to your PC and play with them there.

john_graydon

Thanks didnt know i had to use ftp to view the files. Got into them and re numbered the first movie.
Will come back and let you know how i done.

Happy Dreaming

john_graydon

Joined up the files ok. Dragged it on win dvd 5 & would,nt play. Will try another one tomorrow and see if it works.

Happy Dreaming

BGonaSTICK

No it won't. You need to follow Haggards guide above!

Either that or get the Elecard decoder for your favourite player here :-

_http://www.elecard.com/download/

or get the VideoLAN player here :-

_http://www.videolan.org/

See Klona's guide for more here :-

_http://www.dreambox.net.au/%7Eklona/v3.1/guide_eng/dbox-howto.htm

You don't need to rename/mess-about with the .ts file fragments. PVAStrumento will join them all up into one nice file for you.

STICK

john_graydon

Got down to part 6 of haggards guide. Was going to ask what was PVAstrumento. Knew win vid wouldnt play the ts file. So something else was needed. Knew this was going to be a bit tricky, but has to be done.

Happy Dreaming

BGonaSTICK

Yes, it's not a nice process. Don't be too disappointed either if you get to the end and still don't have perfect audio and video.

I played around for best part of a week, and could only get it 98% perfect.
That wasn't good enough for me, so I won't bother again until some more/better tools come around.

mbranco

Sorry, I'm a newbye about this argument, but I don't understand why to use several programs to do the job.
As I wrote in another place I like as this one, with a tool like Nero is possible to master a dvd reading directly from the .ts files on dreambox.
Why doing several intermediate steps on your pc? Maybe for quality results? It seems to me that the dvds I obtain are quite good (but I know so few about A/V streams) ...

BGonaSTICK

Hey, that's very interesting. Will try it when I get time. Can't say when that might be though!

john_graydon

Will await you testing with interest. ( still havent continued with the project yet)

Happy Dreaming

haggard

Suddenly noticed there was a rebirth of thread.
It is all messy.
For me, the .ts files ftpd from DB wont play on e.g. Windows media player but they do play with VLC (Videolan) which is designed for streaming.
Also, talking recently to Wilja, author of PVAstrumento, he points out that when converting from TS to PS (which makes an .mpg out of .ts), no need to join with hjsplit. Just select all .ts files which will be movie.ts, movie.ts.001, movie.ts.002 etc and make sure they are in the right order. No need to rename. Then make either a PS or demux to make a .mpv file an .mpa file (or many mpa files if many audio tracks), depending on what you plan to do next.
mpeg2schnitt is extremely good for editing, it will only let you cut on valid frames and not half way thru a GOP as some editors do.
Then TMPGEnc will do the rest, e.g. remux or make DVD.
I find it becomes routine after a while and for archive purposes, I just use the nice feature in TMPEnc to blank out the logo to black.
It will be easier when the record asics chips will do all this for us in the next generation of DB.
Occasionally, a movie.ts has something funny in it. e.g. the 1983 Smiths concert did a glitch half way thru and I had a hell of a job smoothing that out. Also, there were 4 identical audio tracks (for D/S/N/F) which made it messier.

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I'd like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. Mark Twain.
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121fred

Hi lads
You can do the converting editing and burning easily on a Mac. FTP the .TS files to mac, use MPEG Streamclip to convert to virtually any file type you like, I convert to Quicktime. You can do basic edits in Streamclip or fancier edits in iMovie for 4:3 or Final cut for 16:9. Burn using iMovie or Toast (makes menus easily). Takes a little time for conversions but works perfectly every time and produces exact replica quality copies. I have tried on PC using PVA strumento etc but it is no where near as easy or as good quality. I know this is little use if you only have a PC but you may be able to get access to a friends or Hire one to do all your DVD's etc.

Cheers 121fred

121fred

Sorry lads wrong thread

haggard

I have found Nero to be sh*te a lot of the time but I will certainly look into it and check out what Nero does to .ts streams. If it does the job then brilliant, I will change my mind about it. The only way that a process could make the quality worse than the .ts would be by re-rendering to a lower bit rate. I wonder what Nero will do however to a .ts that has 5 audio tracks and 4 changes to the video format (4:3 -> 16:9 etc) as often happens. And also, I like to cut the crap out at the start and end and also if necessary, blank off the logo and even subtitles.

---------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. Mark Twain.
---------------------------------------------------------

mbranco

Hi Haggard,
I'm very interested to know your opinion, because I'd like to know more about DVD authoring from Dreambox.

Just a couple of things about Nero:
1) with Nero Express you can, as well as picking multiple .TS files as input files, also doing the usual authoring tasks (cut, titles, chapters, ecc.)
2) several people told me that, even having the last Nero version, they are not able to open .TS file with Nero Express. I think I was able to do that because I've the right codec (I don't know which is the right one between the several I've installed, maybe that one which come with Bitcontrol). I think so because my Nero log says it opened the .TS file using, besides its own "Nero Video Decoder", a component of DirectShow Runtime (quartz.dll).
So I think that, if you are able to look at a .TS file with Windows Media Player, you are able too to open a .TS file with Nero.
3) I think that Nero does a decode and after a re-encode of the stream, because it takes a lot of time (4-5 hours to master a film on dvd); I'd like to find a quickest way, but I'm interested in an unattended solution (one step way).

john_graydon

Hi Mbranco
Spent a lot of time on this a couple of weeks ago without success, I have nero
Start Smart with express in the menu version no 6606. Is this the version of nero you have.

Happy Dreaming

mbranco

Hi John_Graydon,

yes, I've the same version (and for Nero Vision Express: 3.0.1.14).
But, as I wrote before, I think that you must have the right audio/video codecs:
can you see the .TS files in Windows Media Player?
If no, try to install one (for example, BitControl) : after this, Nero is able to open the .TS files.

haggard

It is the re-rendering - 4 hrs that bothers me, it is so unnecessary unless you want to blot out logos and subtitles (can Nero do this?). Altho I have to say that usually re-rendering never seems to harm the quality unless you go down. Now a movie off the DB is typically 2.5GB so it means either DVDs are deliberately undercompressed to make them harder to copy 1->1 or the sat movies are sub quality. I dont see it, so if re-rendering increases the file size, it can't hurt. Re-rendering down might.
When I first started .ts -> DVD 18 months ago, I was working on files captured off Freeview (UK DTT for non UKers) and they had a mean bit rate of 15Mbps in the header -- some short cut to avoid putting the real number in during TX. This caused Ulead MF DVD author to re-render unnecessarily. Wilja, who wrote PVAstrumento, sorted that to the extent that I dont even know if 15 is there or not now. I have my system so smooth that I need some incentive to make me buy the latest Nero -- and then find it doesnt work for me. My method aint broke so i wont fix it. But others -- please -- pioneer the Nero route and tell me what to do.

---------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. Mark Twain.
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chuckles

Probably out of order here, but why not use Ngrab? You get one file in MPEG2 then straight on to a DVD, ts dead easy.

john_graydon

Could you start a new thread on using Ngrab, How to record etc to DVD.

Happy Dreaming