[mythtv-users] lossless transcode with .18

[Boleslaw Ciesielski]

John Gage wrote:
> I am using .18 and like it just fine.  I may upgrade to .19 at some 
> point but for now, I've been sitting back and enjoying what I have.  
> However, that said I'd like to archive some files to DVD so I can 
> watch them later.  I have a PVR350 which produces MPEG2 .nuv files.  
> So far, I've been using nuv2dvd which works just great.  The only 
> thing missing is having the commercials removed.  I can use the video 
> editor to load and make edits (if needed) to the cutlist and transcode 
> the file to permanently remove the commercials but that will produce 
> an MPEG4 file which is not good for nuv2dvd.  I can retranscode it 
> back to MPEG2 but the now triple encoding would probably take a bite 
> out of the quality of the video.  I have heard that there's a lossless 
> MPEG2 to MPEG2 trancode that can be used to zap the cutlist but I'm 
> thinking that's only available in .19.  Is that correct?  Is there 
> some what to do a lossless transcode in .18? 

Probably not _exactly what you are looking for, but 0.19 has a 
standalone version of lossless mythtranscode called mpeg2fix. It can be 
compiled so it doesn't need any myth libraries and does not access the 
database, so it can work with your 0.18 installation (I was doing that 
for a while before I upgraded to 0.19). You need to provide the cutlist 
on the command line though:

mpeg2fix -f -p -i input.mpg -o output.mpg -c "1000 - 1200" -c "3500 - 3600"

The svn version even has the additional -e dvd option to insert the DVD 
NAV packets so the resulting file can be fed directly to dvdauthor 
without remultiplexing (but that's not in 0.19).

Bolek

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