[mythtv-users] Filename confusion - .nuv and .mpg

[Michael T. Dean]

Matt wrote:

>I've used myth for about 2 years now.  I've always known that it
>stores .nuv files,
>
True, but only when your realize that ".nuv files" simply means files 
whose filenames end with ".nuv"

> but for the first time in a long time I looked in
>my saved recordings directory and saw many more .mpg files than nuv
>files.
>
>What I'm used to seeing is: 1070_20050407005900_20050407013100.nuv
>
>and what I see now for recent recordings is: 1065_20051105020000.mpg
>
>Why is that?  Is something being transcoded?  Does it now just default
>to save to .mpg?
>  
>
Previous versions of Myth always used the ".nuv" extension regardless of 
the file type.  Current SVN will put a ".mpg" extension on any file 
that's actually an MPEG-2 System file.  Therefore, users with DVB (which 
is broadcast in MPEG-2 TS) or ivtv cards (which output MPEG-2), now get 
".mpg" extensions.  Because the original is an MPEG-2 System file, 
there's no transcoding going on--just file naming to make people who 
think the file extension actually means something (i.e Windows 
users/people who have used MS operating systems long enough to buy into 
Bill G's "you can tell what kind of file it is by the extension" dogma) 
happy.

If you have a frame grabber, Myth actually encodes the video as either 
RTJPEG or MPEG-4 inside a NuppelVideo container.  Therefore, for these 
types of cards, you will get files that end with the ".nuv" extension.

There's no reason to worry about the filenames, so you don't have to 
change your ".nuv" files to ".mpg" files (although you can with 
mythrename.mpl--but be careful with it--see 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/162886#162886).

Mike