[mythtv-users] down sizing

[John Pilkington]

On 10/12/14 22:06, Daryl McDonald wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 6:26 PM, Daryl McDonald <darylangela at gmail.com
> <mailto:darylangela at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 10:35 PM, Daryl McDonald
>     <darylangela at gmail.com <mailto:darylangela at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 9:05 PM, A. F. Cano
>         <afc at shibaya.lonestar.org <mailto:afc at shibaya.lonestar.org>> wrote:
>          > On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 12:13:36PM -0500, Daryl McDonald wrote:
>          >> Is there any way to get a movie recorded in HD (14GB with
>         ads in) to
>          >> burn onto a DVD (4.7GB)? I've done low quality transcodes on
>         6.8GB
>          >> recordings that end up at 5GB.  027 fixes in Ubuntu 120.4
>          >
>          > I asked how to transcode to SD a while back for a different
>         reason:
>          > slow CPU, and was given this command that has been working great:
>          >
>          > mythffmpeg -i <HDfilename>.mpg -target ntsc-dvd
>         <HDfilename>SD.mpg
>          >
>          > It's been working great, although very slowly on my old/slow CPU.
>          > At least I can watch the SD versions that come out.
>          >
>          > Others have commented extensively on size and quality issues,
>         which
>          > are all relevant to fitting the files on the DVDs, so more option
>          > tweaking might be necessary if the files are really long.
>          >
>          > Augustine
>          >
>          > _______________________________________________
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>          > mythtv-users at mythtv.org <mailto:mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
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>
>         I recorded in HD because that was the way it was broadcast. As
>         advised, however it did work, after transcoding the file size
>         went to
>         10 GB and when I burned the DVD it showed 3GB to be occupied, it's
>         automagic!
>         Much joy.
>
>
>     I'm reviving this thread because I haven't really had "much joy"
>     what has happened is when I select SP which give a size appropriate
>     to the space on the disc I get a recording that is 30 minutes long
>     instead of the original 90 minutes. To the best of my knowledge I'm
>     following the wiki, some category names have changed since .21,
>     using the cutlist brings it from 14 Gb to about 8 Gb then selecting
>     SP reduces it to 2.7 GB but the result is only the first third of
>     the recording.
>
>     I'm using mythtv.27 fixes in a 14.04 Ubuntu desktop.  any ideas?
>     Daryl
>
>
> I got a little further with a different recording, 1:13 of 1:30 but it
> terminated, see log at:
>
> http://paste.ubuntu.com/9467715/
>
> I haven't, as yet tried transcoding first, because it seems that the
> mytharchive process transcodes again anyway, which if I read correctly
> compounds quality reduction. Can the encoding profile be changed while
> transcoding first? And would that make burning the DVD simpler?
>
I didn't reply to this earlier, because I'm in the European environment, 
and because I don't use all the facilities offered by  mytharchive as 
distributed. I prefer to take things one step at a time.  I suggested 
using the ntsc-dvd line above, which clearly reduces quality but is 
likely to work and produce, for a 90 minute recording, a file that ought 
to fit on a dvd. (I usually work with total sizes from around 4.3 to 4.7 
GiB).  I would move the original file, replacing it with the new one, 
clear the cutlist, rebuild the seektable and cut with mythDVBcut; 
mythtranscode --mpeg2 ought to work instead.  Then use mytharchive with 
no re-encoding.  I create an .iso and burn/verify with k3b.  No 
guarantees given, but I do have many myth dvds, most carrying around 3 
hours of good SD viewing.  ISTR that US based suggestions were offered 
at about the time of your revived post.

HTH

John P