Well I have taken all your concerns from RC 3 and I have one word for ya... FIXED!

This is really just a shakedown version before I label it 1.0 so give it a whirl and let me know how it works for ya.

http://www.thegreenbutton.com/downloads.aspx

One note... You will need to go in and select a profile before the program will work. Once you have done this you are off to the races!

Same goes for the command line version, becuase of the change to the PRX file names you will need to specify a prx file. This will be fixed for the final version.

Thank you for making such a great program! Your dedication to provide free, useful, quality, programs is simply amazing.

Thanks again for making this free,

CG

crashes when I select start.  Does same on stand-alone as within MCE

this is error message

 

************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at dvr2wmv.CCDvr2WMVClass.set_Profile(String )
   at DVR2WMVFE.Conversion.StartConversion(String dvrFile, String profileFile)
   at Test.Form1.ConvertFile()
   at Test.Form1.StartConversion()
   at Test.Form1.WndProc(Message& message)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///k:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.0.3705/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
DVR2WMV
    Assembly Version: 1.0.1617.37356
    Win32 Version: 1.0.1617.37356
    CodeBase: file:///K:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/DVR2WMV.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///k:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///k:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///k:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
DVR2WMVFE
    Assembly Version: 1.0.1617.29146
    Win32 Version: 1.0.1617.29146
    CodeBase: file:///K:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/DVR2WMVFE.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///k:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll
----------------------------------------
Interop.dvr2wmv
    Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///K:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/Interop.dvr2wmv.DLL
----------------------------------------
Interop.cc2smiLib
    Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///K:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/Interop.cc2smiLib.DLL
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
application or machine (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.

 

Did you have an older RC installed? What profile are you using? Try selecting a different profile and let me know if that works.

Because of changes that were made you HAVE to select a different Profile before the program will work if you have had an older version installed.

I get the following error in stand-alone:

"No combination of intermediate filters could be found to make the connection. The program will now exit"

In the MCE version - I just get "loading...." and it sits there.

Any help greatly appreciated
Cheers

Golfy

That means that it does not like your DVD Decoder. Try setting compatibility mode to yes (if you use NTSC, this will not work for PAL). What decoder are you using?

I am not sure why it would hang on the loading screen. It should catch any corrupt files and inform you before exiting. Is there anything out of the ordinary about your system? Do you have watched network folders? How many files do you have that it should be finding?

Jeff,

Why rename the quality modes?  They used to be High, Medium, and Low for VBR and CBR.  Now they are NTSC, PAL, and PocketPC.  I can understand that low-quality is best for PocketPC, but I thought NTSC and PAL are just different broadcast standards.  Do I have to use NTSC encoding quality to play back in NTSC?  I tried using the PAL encoding, and got a file that was twice the size in MB and looked "squished" horizontally.  Maybe the quality somehow matches the broadcast standards, but it is confusing to me.  You may want to go back to the simpler High-Medium-Low names.

By the way, the captioning is working perfectly.  I LOVE it!  I have almost a complete collection of "Good Eats" (93 episodes) and I am going to start converting the whole set.  Thanks!

More good news -- I have been testing with DVR-Edit and DVR2WMV together, and even after heavy editing, the files convert smoothly for me.  Even the captions remain properly sync'ed.

Also, since the bitrate is so much lower than the original file, they stream fine over a regular 802.11b wireless network.  With WMP9, I can fast-forward, rewind, play and jump around the files, all over the house, wirelessly.  There is a little lag, but it basically worked.  These same files in DVR-MS caused MWP9 to completely hang with simple playback.

Thanks!!

Does your TV use PAL or are you in a NTSC country? Basically they were changed because medium was worthless and this just kind of made sense... If the PAL seting works..?

Great to hear that the rest is working for you though, and good to know CC is working again.

Quote: Jeff, Why rename the quality modes? They used to be High, Medium, and Low for VBR and CBR. Now they are NTSC, PAL, and PocketPC. I can understand that low-quality is best for PocketPC, but I thoug...

The first version of the program did not easily support PAL. This version adds a profile for PAL and a simple way to select it.

I suggested some of the name changing and my initial suggestions were "Home Theatre" and "Pocket PC", in other words, naming according to usage. Of course it would be better if the program were able to determine if the file is PAL or NTSC on its own. Would that be possible Jeff? By looking at the frames per second? or the resolution? you would think the meta data would have something? or that the Microsoft APIs might offer a function to determine this?

I just did a dump on the metadata and could not find anything that identifies if the file is PAL or NTSC. I also seem to remember Alex saying that they are both recorded the same so I am not really sure that the different files are needed but was hoping to get some feedback from PAL users on this.

I unfortunately have the opposite news. While RC2 worked fine, both RC3 and 3.5 are having the problem I described in the previous thread...

When using the standalone GUI, the file reaches the end but the encoding time goes on forever (I've waited up to 6 hours). When using command prompt, it gives the storage blocks error I mentioned previously. I haven't tried the version used inside media center yet.

Worst part is that this is happening to files I've recorded and edited over the past week. It seems to be file based; I have the same problem on the same files on multiple machines. I've had the cmd version crash a few times and have sent the data along.

I'm at around a 50-60% success rate, and this is on a freshly installed machine and everything. Is there anything I can do to provide you guys more info to help track down this problem? I'm trying a few different things over here to see if I can isolate it manually.

Thanks!

-Tim

Jeff, I am in an NTSC country -- I guess the new names really DO correspond to the TV systems, since the PAL setting distorted my TV frame ("squishing the picture").  Your explanations make 100% sense -- I agree that "medium" was pretty worthless, so I have no problem dropping it.  My wife and I reviewed the High, Medium, and Low settings, and we are converting everything with High VBR (now called "NTSC VBR") and we are very happy with the results.

I have edited commercials and converted about a half-dozen shows now.  Each show started out about 1.5 GB (with commercials, DVR-MS) and is now about 250 MB (no commercials, WMV).  I figure I have saved over 6GB so far -- I am going to owe you a massive hard disk before I am done!

Three minor things you might want to clean up.  Neither is important, but they would add a bit of polish:

• The ".bin" file that is created during the ripping process is never deleted -- at the end of a successful conversion, it should probably be deleted (I delete it by hand)
• A ".smi.Channel2" file is created that I assume carries the closed captions for channel 2 -- often there are no channel 2 captions, so I recommend deleting it at the end if there were no captions written out
• In the "Standalone" UI there is a menu item "File ... Save As" that does not seem to do anything at all -- I recommend removing it

Alexb,

The point of keeping the bin file was in case there was a mistake in the closed captioning. You would be able to send me the problem description and the '.bin' and I would be able to debug it. Also if I ever came up with improved decoding rules you might be able to feed all the .bins into a command line tool and get the new .smi files.

There has not been one complaint about the closed captioning so either it works rather well or enough people are not using it yet. I suppose if that holds up there is no reason to keep the file or perhaps we might not even need to generate it.

".smi.Channel2" file is supposed to carry the closed captions for channel 2 but I have never found any meaningful closed captions in that file. I would appreciate knowing if you have ever found anything worth keeping, like an alternate language? Again, if it seems to be 100% worthless we could delete it, but I don't know yet.

Jeff,

If you got the video size option of "same as input" working then NTSC and PAL would be a little closer to sharing the same high quality/home theatre profile because they do use different resolutions and right now the profiles have an specific video size in them.