I've been reading thro' the thread with a great deal of awe... you guys are amazing! I have somewhat succesfully converted a couple of files. My hitch is that the right hand side of the screen is green(about 1/3), kinda annoying. I,m sure I'm missing something straightforward, but to be honest most of the tech baffles the hell out of me!

Doob

For anyone working with the SMI files output by this program, I have noticed an odd bug with WMP 9 that might get in your way -- after playing back a movie with captions, WMP keeps a "lock" on the SMI file.  You cannot move or delete the SMI file until you completely close down WMP.

Normally Media Player keeps a "lock" on any file that it is CURRENTLY PLAYING.  So if you are paused, playing, or displaying in any way a movie file, you cannot move or delete that file.  For the WMV movie file, Media Player releases that lock when you either move on to the next movie file, close the current file (File...Close from the menu), or remove it from your playlist.

If that WMV file has a matching SMI file for captions, though, WMP keeps the lock on the SMI file.  I always convert my files on my local hard disk, test them out in WMP, then move them out to a network drive.  I find that I need to shut down WMP before I can move them out to the network.

If anyone sees this problem, it is not the fault of DVR 2 WMV, it is a problem with Media Player!  Also, you will only see this problem if you activate the option to keep captions in DVR 2 WMV, because that is the only way you will get the SMI file to begin with.

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Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

I'm still having quality problems.  I have a file that I'm converting using NtscVBR/1pass (2 pass never finishes, after finishing 1st pass and writing a file, it sits and keeps counting time elapsed and time converted matches time length of file) and it is decent quality, but whenever a scene pans I get a "blinking" effect of clear and blurry images.  That's a bad description, here's an example:  Characters are walking through a wooded area and as the camera pans, the leaves are clear for a second, then blurry, then clear, blurry, clear.... it drives me nuts!  I've rebuilt my MediaPC (2ghz, 256, 15,000rpm Ultra160 HDD, 64mb NVidia MX-440se video card, NVDVD 2.55, no Microsoft updates yet just the raw MCE2004 build, Latest Nvidia drivers) and have the same problem, so I know it's not legacy/bloat crap.  I've played with Media Encoder profiles in the past (not currently installed on rebuilt system) and cannot find ANY combination of settings that makes this panning problem go away.  I'm almost convinced that it's the nature of WMV files that because of their encoding there aren't enough key frames during complicated scenes, but with the hundreds of postings I've read on the subject and level of expertise/quality I've observed in these forums I cannot believe that everyone would find it acceptable! 

I do love the app and LOVE how it cuts a 1.5gb edited show into 350-500mb (since I have like, 90 episodes of The West Wing) and look forward to using the heck out of it, I just have to get the quality a little better in complicated scenes.  Maybe I don't have the latest patch of something (I'm pretty sure I do) or need to modify the Media Encoder profiles (I have a hard time understanding some of the options) or just need to accept that it's a flaw of the codec?

Please, I appeal to the wide level of experience out there!  I've read just about every post relating to DVR2WMV and tried everything I can, updated everything I can, and have been hacking away at it for weeks!  I'm not just posting this out of ignorance, I've done my homework to the best of my ability so I'd like to get some outside opinions!

Thanks for an otherwise EXCELLENT app and all the dedication/work that's gone into it, I just need a little help dotting the T's and crossing the I's!

Try using quality 90 VBR.  That's what I use most of the time.  If that doesn't help, then chalk it up to compression.

-aseigler

Wow, thanks for the quick reply!  I don't recall seeing Quality 90 VBR in the default install.  I did read a posting about someone who made 60,90 & 120 minute VBR profiles to fit a show of corresponding length onto a 700mb CDRW, but never saw what the exact settings were so I could duplicate it or a link to download it.  Do you know, or is it built into a newer version that I missed (I have RC 3.5)?

Thanks again for the input.

You'll need to make a custom profile.  To do this, download and install the Windows Media Encoder, and then use the Windows Media Profile Editor to make a new PRX file.  You can specify whatever parameters you want to in there.  I use quality VBR 90 for audio and video, typically.  The results are pretty decent.  I would attach a .PRX file for you, but TGB is broken.  "One of the files you have attempted to attach to this post is not a permitted MIME type."

-aseigler

Hey Jeff,

just as a FYI I am the owner of a Toshiba e800/e805 PPC.  This is capable of resolutions of 640x480 (VGA as opposed to QVGA).  In the coming months there will also be more machines with this sort of spec on the market.  It would be great to be able to take advantage of this!

Thanks for your effort & keep up the good work!

Paul

So is this project dead?

I haven't seen a release in ages.

No, the final should be out within days.  Or maybe hours.

-aseigler

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Jeff Griffin
www.jeffreygriffin.com

I found two very curious cases where the SAMI file did not turn out as expected.  After converting more than 80 shows, these are the only ones where I have seen any problems.  The main conversion went fine -- the only problem is with the captions.

The first was from an Outer Limits show named "Think Like A Dinosaur".  When I played the original DVR-MS file in Media Center, the captions appeared correctly through the whole one-hour show.  After converting to WMV, though, the SAMI file seems to show the captions exactly one minute behind where they belong, and they stop after 25 minutes.

The second was from another Outer Limits show named "Final Appeal".  These captions were synchronized properly, but they stop after 5 minutes.

For both shows, the captions ran the whole length of the show, with good synchronization, when played back in Media Center.

I tried to attach the BIN files to the post, but I kept getting an error from TGB -- "not a permitted MIME type."  I also tried to e-mail them to jquiet, but I got a "bounce" message that his address is not recognized.  E-mail me if you want the BIN or SMI files to diagnose the problem.

These two shows and several other Outer Limits I recorded off of SciFi Channel in the US had the largest BIN files I have seen.  They are all around 200 KB for a one-hour show.  They also generated a "smi.Channel2" file.  I tried playing back the CC2 in Media Center, but it did not recognize anything on CC2.  I reviewed the files generated by DVR 2 WMV and they are nothing but repeated "[ffff]" characters at many timestamps.  I do not know what it means, but it does not seem to be a real caption track.  Several other Outer Limits shows recorded in the same marathon did convert properly, but they all had a large "Channel2" file filled with nonsense characters.

Let me know if you need more examples.

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Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

Zip the files before posting them as an attachment and TGB will accept them. Jose can then have a look.

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Jeff Griffin
www.jeffreygriffin.com

Can anyone give me an idea of the quality difference between the original file and the converted WMV file? What are the main advantages to converting to WMV?

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Mike Garcen
TGB Moderator | MissingRemote Editor/Reviewer| Microsoft MVP - Media Center
My MCE Setup

On an standard TV, with video that is not high motion (sports), you'll be hard pressed to notice a difference if you use quality 90 VBR or a bitrate in the 4000 - 6000 Kbps range.  You can use lower quality or bitrate and the quality will suffer accordingly, but the file size will also drop.  You will need to experiment with it to find an optimal setting for what you're trying to do.

-aseigler