[mythtv-users] MythArchive -- why I've given up

Andreas Schaefer andreas.schaefer at madplanet.com
Sat Jun 16 18:16:03 UTC 2007


Hi Marc

I do not know MythArchive because I used lower level tools (some of them
are used by MythArchive). If you cannot use MythArchive I would suggest
that you give Avidemux, dvdauthor and the burning tool of your choice a
try. The only drawback is that Avidemux which I use to edit the
recording does not know anything about the commercial flagging of
MythTV. On the other hand you can edit the recording in a way that it
really looks cool.

I have a PVR-350 which records the show in MPEG-2 and so I do not loose
any quality through the recording and editing process. If the audio is
out of sync then you need to make sure that the frames are cut at a key
frame. This way it should be smooth transition. I even managed to
compress a long movie so that it fit onto a single DVD.

The duration of the process could be due to unnecessary conversion. If
your shows are recorded in MPEG-2 then you can use it as is. In Avidemux
you can set the format to '*MPEG PS A+V'* and then editing and saving a
file is done in minutes.

I have documented my quest to burn a recorded show on my blog:
http://www.madplanet.com/weblog/blog/schaefa/. Just search for
'avidemux' and you should find my descriptions. Be aware that
'dvdauthor' has changed and my description is probably out of date.

Have fun - Andy

Marc Barrett wrote:
> I recently posted a question about recording VHS movies to MythTV.  Several people then
> assumed that my real intention is to use MythTV as a "dubbing station" for transferring videos 
> to DVD.  That is honestly not my intention.  I've completely given up on MythArchive, because I
> just cannot get it to work.  So my real intention is to transfer a few VHS movies to my hard
> drive and keep them there.  
>
> Anyway, I thought I'd ask about MythArchive, and maybe offer a few suggestions.  There are
> two real problems with MythArchive for me: it is too complicated, and takes far too long to 
> run.  There are a lot of settings for this and that, and every test of a setting or a combination
> of settings takes FOUR HOURS to run.  So far I've just ended up with discs where the audio 
> was subtly but noticeably out of sync with the video, or discs with some kind of "fringes" 
> around movements in the video, and so on.  Something or other ends up going wrong
> every time I've tried.  If each test took, say, five minutes, I could figure it out, but with  each 
> one taking hours, I gave up.
>
> My suggestion would be for a way to record a show in a format such that it would be 
> ready to dump to a DVD in a fashion that takes much less time.  The show would be 
> stored on the hard drive so that no further transcoding would be necessary, and the 
> show could be dumped to a DVD in minutes.  Something like this appears to already
> be there (I've seen settings for transcoding after recording in the setups), but every time
> I've tried MythArchive some further transcoding always seems to be required.
>
> Too bad gputrans does not appear to have gotten very far.  I have a good nvidia card, and
> if transcoding really is necessary, it would be nice to be able to use my card to speed it
> up.
>
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