Thanks for the response from "the source"!

I understand that 480x480 is not a DVD spec resolution (It's SVCD), however DVDs authored with mpeg2 footage of that type have been playing back just fine on my home DVD player so I guess my DVD player recognizes the stream anyway and goes along with it.

I wish DVD-A would have an option where you can just burn whatever spec MPEG2 footage you have onto a DVD without using recompression, completely ignoring standards. I don't think it would be too hard to add a feature where you could set it so no footage is recompressed regardless of original properties.

TiVo records at 480x480? Are any of the quality settings at 720x480? If not, I hope TiVoToGo remedies this. I was looking forward to that coming out, but sure don't want to go through the hassle of converting one to the other. Ugh.

Rob

I have created a DVD with SVCD specs and it works fine. Actually, the results are quite impresive. The only problem of course is that you do not end up with all the DVD type menus.

If I remember correctly, it was with NERO that I burned the disk.

Well I actually have a DirecTiVo which is a DirecTV satellite tuner and a TiVo built in one. Since DirecTV is sending the MPEG2 stream directly, there is no recoding happening in TiVo, it just saves the data stream straight off the satellite. Hence there is no quality setting on DirecTiVo and the MPEG2 stream is 480x480.

It would surely be nice to burn DVDs with such media streams with DVD-A instead of using some primitive DVD Authoring software. All it would take is adding capability to ignore the media type prior processing by DVD-A and just trust the user that they are burning DVD compliant files instead of forcing a recompress onto them. Doesn't sound like a big task to me......

Well I actually have a DirecTiVo ...

Ah. Okay. Just out of curiousity, what bitrate is used in DirecTV's stream? [edit: Strike that -- just re-read your original message.]

All it would take is adding capability to ignore the media type prior processing by DVD-A and just [emphasis mine.]

But 480x480 is not DVD compliant, is it? If the program "trust[s] the user that they are burning DVD compliant files," and the user burns a 480x480 file, that user has betrayed the program's trust....no? ;-)

Rob

How do you get the video out of the DirecTivo unit? Do you have to remove the disk? I have been wanting to get a PVR for a long time, but I didn't like the quality degradation of the original Tivo and InstantReplay units that did real time MPEG encoding. When the DirecTivo units came out, the idea of capturing the satellite stream seemed perfect: I could have all the advantages of Tivo, with absolutely zero quality degradation. If I could just archive the shows I wanted to keep -- putting them on a DVD -- I would have purchased in a heartbeat.

However, I was never able to find a way to get the MPEG stream out of the box and onto a shiny disk without removing the disk drive, which is way too much hassle.

So, back to my question: How do you get the MPEG stream out of the DirecTivo unit?

johnmeyer wrote:

However, I was never able to find a way to get the MPEG stream out of the box and onto a shiny disk without removing the disk drive, which is way too much hassle.

As far as I know, by "removing the disk drive." ;-) Not every time you want to extract something, but at least once so that you can install the files that let you do it over the network. Do a Google search for "extract TiVo," and you'll find plenty of help on the subject. You'll need either a DirecTiVo or an older standalone TiVo. The newer standalones (aka, Series 2) can be hacked, but I don't believe anyone's managed to extract content from them. Or if they have, they can't decrypt it.

TiVo is working on a feature to let you transfer content to your PC and onto DVD, but so only Sonic is expected to have "the keys" for unlocking the data. (Naturally, they have to have some kind of "security measure" in place.) Essentially, this means that you'd need one of Sonic's TiVoToGo-enabled applications to burn the DVDs, but I believe it will be a standard DVD. I can smell the "Sony, why doesn't Vegas+DVD support TiVoToGo files" threads now... ;-)

Rob

Rob,

Thanks. Good info. Very useful.

I have put some modifications onto my TiVo hard drive that allow me to get to the streams via my local network.

Basically you have to:
1) add a USB network card to your TiVo, and have it enabled and set up to work with TiVo and your local network.
2) Disable the encryption hashing on TiVo so the recorded files are not encrypted.
3) Set up a server application on TiVo that you can connect to from your PC and transfer the files with.

www.dealdatabase.com has a bunch of good TiVo hacking info, with TiVo scripts (it's a CD ISO) you can set everything up so it works, and with TyTools you can extract the files to your PC.

And while you're at it, you can increase the original 40 hour DirecTiVo to a 105 hour DirecTiVo by adding a new hard drive.

Compliant or not compliant, my Sony DVD player has no problems playing back DVDs with the above MPEG specifications from a DVD. It has more problems playing back a mini DVD that is a DVD spec burned onto a CD-R (see: it doesn't work at all) than it does with 480x480 mpeg2 streams existing on a DVD disc.

I just wish I had the option to record such media directly using DVDA2, but I guess it's just a dream.....

Consider this:

If DVDA did allow users to put non-compliant media on a DVD and then that DVD did not play properly on their DVD player (rightly so -- that such a disc does play on your player is an accident), they'd come back here and complain about DVDA, whining that it has another "bug." It's the same as people who used to complain because Brand X web browser didn't support the BLINK tag (which Netscape engineers have admited was a gag in the first place).

DIYDIYD.

Rob

While I agree with some of what you say, I am still perfectly happy with the SVCD compliant MPEG2s on a DVD as they play back just fine on my Sony set top player.

Given that most DVD players can play back SVCD just fine, by the time the mpeg stream gets to the decoder chip it is compliant for the chip as it is capable of playing back SVCD.

Again, this is just my own personal quirk, and I guess I should not have brought it here.....

I guess I'll just keep using the open source DVDAuthor.exe to author such non-compliant discs.

The more I use DVDA2 the more lacking I find it.

It's "lacking" because it won't ignore the DVD specs? Even though ignoring those specs would cause more problems than good (because such discs would probably fail for most people)?

Sound logic you've got there.

Rob

I am using this method with other DVD authoring programs (DVDMaestro, TMPEGEnd DVD Author, Spruce...), and they accept SVCD files without a hitch.

The thing is you use a program called DVD Patcher that changes the resolution indicator in the MPEG2 file, so other programs can read it as DVD compliant.

Read about the trick here:
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/187390.php

The guide I refered to before deals with mixed PAL and NTSC, although the principle is the same. Here is a page with links to guides about doing SVCD to DVD-R:

http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?tools=154&madeby=&formatconversionselect=&howtoselect=%3B&orderby=Date&listall=1&archive=0&search=Search+or+List+Guides

When I said lacking I meant lack of scripting and multi angle video support as two examples. Ignoring the DVD specs wasn't on my "lack of feature" list, it was more on my "annoyances that cause me to use other open source soluton" list.

Se my newest rant post for more info.

Interesting. So if DVD Patcher actually changes the resolution indicator, does / could the patched file fool DVDA as well? Might be a solution for GTakacs.

Rob

Se my newest rant post for more info.

I'll pass, thanks. :)

Rob

Yup, this might be the holy grail of non-compliant DVD burning!

The author's website is gone (it says "forbidden"), but I managed to find a download on the German Chip magazine website. I will try it tonight and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tip Josh15, I appreciate it! Finally an answer with a possible solution instead of questioning my intentions! This is not the first time that instead of getting responses or solution to my issue at hand, I got lectures about what I should and shouldn't gripe about relating to Vegas and DVD-A.

Thanks again, I'll keep you posted.


On a side note:

Burning the original stream that came directly off the satellite might not be the best idea not only because of the non-conforming resolution, but because it might not be perfect and can have hickups in the data stream. While a DirecTV tuner is used to seeing such hickups, like missing fragments of GOPs or corrupted data and it is capable of ignoring them and handling it to the best of its knowledge, DVD players assume that they have screwed up the read when they encounter such data corruption and they try to re-read the faulty data until eternity causing the disc to stall.

Hence it might worth the effort to re-code the entire footage to DVD compliant streams and elliminate the issues that arise from corrupt data in the original stream.

It is quite interesting that by the time I find a solution to my initial issue, I find something that is more of a problem.

Is there some kind of GOP doctor that can fix the corrupted mpeg2 stream without re-encoding the entire stream?

This is not the first time that instead of getting responses or solution to my issue at hand, I got lectures about what I should and shouldn't gripe about relating to Vegas and DVD-A.

Life sucks. Get a [bleepin'] helmet. Perhaps you're getting such "lectures" because your "issues" are asinine. You're complaining that DVDA doesn't cater to your DVD player's penchant for non-spec DVDs. You were told why it won't. But instead of just accepting that fact, you continue to insist that this is a fault of the software, which is absurd.

So your DVD player plays DVDs that have SVCD video. Big deal. Your DVD player plays CDs -- should DVDA burn CDs? It probably plays VCDs -- should DVDA burn VCDs? How about those cool DVD data discs that have lots and lots of MP3s -- gosh, what's the matter with this lousy software that it doesn't make those?? Sorry, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, and it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a DVD authoring program would require DVD compliant files. Especially when playing non-compliant DVDs is unreliable. You've got a program that doesn't care about the specs? Fine, go use that.

Do you go to jacket-required steakhouses and send your burger back to the kitchen because it's not fried like McDonald's?

Have you walked out of a movie theater lately because the movie was on film, not on VHS?

If you happen to like the sound of squeaky shopping cart wheels, would you complain to the manager of a grocery store 'cause their wheels don't squeak?

Ridiculous situations? Yes. But so is yours. If something is working properly, don't ask the proprietor to break it.

Rob

bStro, you have $0.02 for every topic practically. Can you actually resist the itch to respond to any one thread? I bet not.

I already got answer to my question, some people give solutions rather than question my objectives to whom I am grateful. Some just like to bring people down for not walking the paved road. I bet you drive a Camry, because anything that is out of the ordinary would be forbidden.

Given that the DVDs that I want to author off my TiVo are only for my own entertainment and I don't plan to release them to the public, I just don't see why I should care if it is DVD compliant and long as it works in my player. As long as it works for me, that is all that matters. Te fact that DVD-A can't burn such discs without modifying the header of the mpeg2 stream is something that I can be content with. Given that there is a workaround it is no longer an issue for me.

If you would go and read the guide that Josh15 linked you would see that I am not the only one trying to do such an absurd thing as burning SVCD compliant footage onto DVDs.

Maybe you should put down the hammer that you like to pound with on others heads and see that the world is not black and white.

As far as this topic is concerned I am done, unless someone can point me towards some kind of GOP doctoring application that would fix corrupted GOP in an mpeg2 stream.

Can you actually resist the itch to respond to any one thread?

If you'll notice, most of the threads I reply in, I'm helping others use DVDA, not complaining that it won't bow to my every whim. And I've been thanked for my help here many, many times. Can you say the same?

Excuse me for being constructive rather than whiney. If that bothers you, may I point out the "Ignore This User" button? It's right there next to my handle. :)

Rob