Hi all - Happy New Year!

I just received an Archos AV500, which says it'll play .avi files in MPEG-4 Simple Profile with a soundtrack in MP3 or WMA format. I went out and bought a Plextor PX-TV402U-NA USB tuner, which hardware encodes avi in DivX and MPEG-4 (full specs at http://www.plextor.com/english/products ... hspec.htm#). I'm using the latest KnoppMyth for simplicity.

Ok, now my question... What's the simplest way to use Myth to get an avi acceptable to the Archos AV500? I've recorded a few shows with Myth, but trying to export the files via nuvexport fails because of a parameter to ffmpeg, "-vcat", which isn't supported by my ffmpeg (provided by KnoppMyth). I tried to update ffmpeg but nuvexport disabled almost all my choices. I should probably build ffmpeg myself, huh?

I wish I could just record and use the files directly instead of having to transcode them (which seems to take as long or longer than the show itself). Can the transcoding begin almost simultaneously with the recording (i.e. the transcoding would start a few seconds after the show starts recording, so it finishes almost simultaneously and I wouldn't have to wait another hour or two at the end)?

Thanks for any tips.

Rgds,

Bret
I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed
psychiatrist is our "friend." -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

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Bret A Schuhmacher

Hey, I'm kinda in the same boat, except I havn't bought the AV500 yet.. Hopefully soon... Outside of the transcode stuff, how do you like the unit? Sound and video come out ok?? I now carry an MP3 Player and DVD player when I travel and that is becoming a pain, so I want to move to one device.

Not sure this will help, but maybe... I run this command:

mencoder /myth/tv/pretty/Las-Vegas_The_Bitch_Is_Back.mpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=600:vhq:vqmin=2:vlelim=-4:vcelim=9:lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01 -vop scale -zoom -xy 320 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=96 -o /myth/video/LV_Bitch.avi

And that creates a much smaller, yet still watchable video file that I can SCP to my laptop when I am away from home to watch...

Any chance you could try doing that convert and letting me know if the AV500 will play the resulting file?? If so I may have to speed up my purchase...

Ideally I would set this as a job option in Mythsetup and then when I record something, in addition to running the flag commercial job, it would run this (granted it wouldn't start til after the recording was over) but then would put this small Portable file in a directory and I could go get it when I wanted... Or maybe even do something similar to http://www.myth2ipod.com/ and have it do it overnight for me automatically..

Dunno about using mencoder... when I ran your command it ran and ran and ran and ran... Didn't seem like it'd ever stop.

Here's what I use to convert all the files in the /myth/pretty directory and put them on a smb share (either a directory on a box or the Archos directly):

#!/bin/bash

echo `date`
export DISPLAY=:0
smbmount //192.168.1.5/mythtv /videos/ -o username=administrator,password=XXXXXXXXX,rw,dmask=7777

for i in `ls /myth/pretty`
do
avidemux --load /myth/pretty/$i --save /videos/`basename $i`.avi --quit
done

echo `date`


Avidemux seems to do a decent job. Now, if I could just get commercial_cut to work, I'd have smaller files...

Rgds,

Bret

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Bret A Schuhmacher

That mencoder command worked great to convert a file for my Archos Gmini402, and I believe it uses the same files as the AV500. The coolest part is that mencoder is included with my knoppmyth R5A30.1, so this is a very painless solution. Thanks for the tip!

Here's what I used:

root@mythtv:/# mencoder /myth/pretty/The_Simpsons-Feb12_2006_1830.mpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=600:vhq:vqmin=2:vlelim=-4:vcelim=9:lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01 -vop scale -zoom -xy 320 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=96 -o /myth/pretty/simpsons.avi

video length: 30 minutes
input file size: 1103 Mb
output file size: 153 Mb

The file took about 10 minutes to convert on my AMD Athlon 2500+

My plan is to create a script that converts selected files from the pretty directory and converts them, writing directly to the USB mount of my connected Archos player. The ultimate solution should be a snap: select the files you want, connect the archos to the USB port, and run the script. I figure I can convert and copy about 10 Gig of video (30 hours worth) to my unit overnight.

David

Hey dgyoung, glad it works for you.. I use it for my Neuros and it is great!!! I would love to see the scripts you create. I am too lazy/incompetant to write decent code.

I put mine into the /myth/video folder, that way from a browser I can go to http://mywebsite.com/myth/video_url and I get a listing of the videos and can download. I spend a LOT of time on the road, so when I eventually make it back to my hotel room, I download the latest TV and either watch it on my laptop or if I am getting on a plane, transfer to the Neuros.

For me a script that would execute right after the program is finished, or, better yet, one I could execute via the web interface would be great... But again, I am totally incompetant when it comes to scripting and PHP.

I envy your performance... I ran the command line above on a 30 minute program and it ran ALL NIGHT (14+ hours) and didn't write a file out when it finally did finish!

Here's what my mencoder says about itself:
root@mythtv:/# mencoder -v
MEncoder 1.0pre6-3.3.5 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Pentium 4/Xeon/Celeron Foster (Family: 8, Stepping: 7)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: Type: 8 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
File not found: 'frameno.avi'
Failed to open frameno.avi
No file given

Exiting... (error parsing cmdline)



Will someone else please check their version for me and post the details? Maybe I just need to upgrade...

Thanks,

Bret

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Bret A Schuhmacher

Hey Bret. Just checked mine and it is identical except for the CPU line:
CPU: Intel (Family: 8, Stepping: 1)

Otherwise it is identical to yours.. My CPU is in fact an Intel Celeron, 2.93 Ghz.

The mencoder command works great, roughly 30-40 minutes for a full hour tv show.. It doesn't cut the commercials, but frankly that doesn't bother me all that much. nuvexport command would run all night for me and I would get nothing.

Thanks Scanman717. I just checked and there is a newer version. Maybe I'll upgrade.

Do you get lots of errors? The pgm gives me TONS of this while it's "working":
1 duplicate frame(s)!
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]2. marker bit missing in 3. escb A-V:-0.041 [3:104]
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]Error at MB: 159
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]concealing 2147483647 errors

1 duplicate frame(s)!
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]1. marker bit missing in 3. escb A-V:-0.042 [3:104]
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]Error at MB: 38
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]concealing 2147483647 errors

1 duplicate frame(s)!
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]2. marker bit missing in 3. escb A-V:-0.043 [3:104]
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]Error at MB: 36
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]concealing 2147483647 errors

1 duplicate frame(s)!
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]1. marker bit missing in 3. escb A-V:-0.044 [3:104]
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]Error at MB: 160
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]concealing 2147483647 errors

1 duplicate frame(s)!
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]2. marker bit missing in 3. escb A-V:-0.045 [3:104]
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]Error at MB: 16
[mpeg4 @ 0x8554de8]concealing 2147483647 errors


Thanks,

Bret

_________________
Bret A Schuhmacher

I have seen that error, only on files that I have already cut and transcoded.... I record a lot of tv movies and the commercial cut function doesn't work real well for me in those instances, so I have only the commercial flag operation run after the program is recorded and I do not transcode the files...

So, try turning off transcoding and then try that command on a new show that hasn't been transcoded.

Thanks again, Scanman717. In the last few minutes I uninstalled mplayer, updated mencoder and reinstalled mplayer (there was a dependency that apt-get couldn't figure out). I retried the mencoder command and I still got lots of errors. However, I also got about a 141MB file written in about 10 minutes! Lemme see if it plays now...

Rgds,

Bret

_________________
Bret A Schuhmacher

Just thought I would post an update.. I addeed this command as a "User Job" When you do this make sure in mythtv-setup you check the box to alloe the user job (it is on the page before the one where you put the command itself).

This command will now automatically dump a small video file that I can download to my laptop or to my Neuros. I can get to it anywhere via: http://mywebsite.com/mythweb/video_url

The command is:
mencoder /myth/tv/%FILE% -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=600:vhq:vqmin=2:vlelm=-4:vcelim=9:lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01 -vop scale -zoom -xy 320 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=96 -o "/myth/video/%TITLE%-%SUBTITLE%.avi"

Just wanted to thank you for posting this information, and to note it works great with KnoppMyth R5B7

Just wanted to note in the code its "vlelim" for when I search for this again


Thanks again

Thanks for posting this script. I was able to use mencode to convert my pvr350 file into an .avi file that I was able to play on my Archos AV500. Does anyhone have any suggestions on how to incorporate the mencode commands into a bash script to take care of all the files I have previously recorded? My plan for the future is to use the mencode command as a user job option when recording future shows, but in the meantime I have too many recordings with too long of names to want to type them all in manually.

Any help would be extremely appreciated. Unfortunately I am a complete Newbie when it comes to Linux and shell scripting. I am just amazed that I am even able to record at this point .

I have transfered all of the filenames I wanted by using ls into a text file. I am just unsure how to itiratively read from the text file and place the file names into the mencoder command.
Thanks.
Julie

Chrisj thanks for the reply but now I'm thinking I have something on the box set up incorrectly. When I use the cat command it is not grabbing the filenames from the file. Instead the name of the file containing the file names is being assigned to the variable .

When I run cat from the command line, it does return the list of names in the file. I have experimented with and without " ' " to no avail. does anyone else have any suggestions?

Julie

P.S. for those having problems with mencoder where they get the error message "File not found: 'frameno.avi'". I have deduced that the problem isn't with a frameno.avi file not being included in the install but with whatever problem is listed following the "Failed to open frameno.avi" error message. I get this error message when I have a typo or some other problem with the mencoder command and it goes away once that problem is fixed even though I didn't change the installation (although my first reaction to the problem was to upgrade to the newest release of mplayer).