[mythtv-users] Is someone using VLC to convert mythtv recordings into iPod or another format?

[Jon Larson]

Sven Nielsen wrote:
> Martijn Morriën schrieb:
> > I'm trying to get myth2ipod working on my Fedora Core 4 (Jarod Wilson) MythTv 
> > 0.20 machine. All installs well, but when ffmpeg starts converting it fails. 
> > I'm trying to fix this, but that is another story....
> >
> > Instead of fixing my problem I saw that you can also use VLC to convert video 
> > files.
> > VLC has rpm's available for easy installment and there is some good 
> > documentation at: http://wiki.videolan.org/Ipod 
> > <http://wiki.videolan.org/Ipod> for my conversion case. (I need to convert 
> > from PVR500: mpeg2 to mp4)
> >
> > I was wondering if there are MythTv users out there that use VLC to convert 
> > videos as a user task and what their experience is/was?
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Martijn
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >   
>
> During the last weeks nuvexport (which uses mythtranscode and ffmpeg) did not 
> work using the debian testing packages from www.debian-multimedia.org. 
> Communication between mythtranscode and ffmpeg was not working and ffmpeg failed 
> to get any data from the FIFOs mythtranscode set up. This problem was fixed a 
> few days ago with updated packages. This might be the reason for your problems 
> with ffmpeg?
>
> I do not recommend using vlc for transcoding. Quality is worse since it aims on 
> providing realtime transcoding for live streaming. Furthermore, ffmpeg gives you 
> a lot more codec options to control the transcoding process.
>
> If myth2ipod won´t work try the following or a similar line (i do not know the 
> exact codec resolution requirements of an ipod) with directly with any avi / mpg 
> / nuv file:
>
> /ffmpeg -i <some_avi_mpg_nuv_file> -vcodec mpeg4 -vtag MP4V -b 300 -g 300 -bf 2 
> -s 352x288 -acodec mp2 -ab 80 -ac 2 output.avi/
>
> If you can succesfully transcode and watch a video this way, file a bug for 
> myth2ipod, or, just wait a few days or weeks until somebody else recognizes and 
> corrects the error.
>   
To follow up on what Sven said, you can also use the pdatranscode script 
as an alternative to myth2ipod, pdatranscode has some pre-defined 
encoding profiles for mencoder, and does not require nuvexport.

If you want to use similar encoding settings to what you would get from 
myth2ipod+nuvexport+MP4Box, just insert this into the 
"transcodercommands" section and set the "transcoder" command in the 
config to 'ffmpeg' :

  'ffmpeg' => '/usr/bin/nice -n19 ffmpeg -v quiet -y -i {infile} -aspect 
1.33333333333333 -r 29.97 -croptop 10 -cropright 14 -cropbottom 10 
-cropleft  14 -s 320x240  -vcodec mpeg4 -bit_rate 300kb -flags 
+4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -acodec aac -ar 32000 -async 1 -ac 1 
-ab 64 \'{outfile}.temp.mp4\' && MP4Box -add {outfile}.temp.mp4 
{outfile} && rm {outfile}.temp.mp4',

I've modified the pdatranscode script for my own use and added the 
podcast functions from myth2ipod so that I get the more advanced 
file-management functions available in pdatranscode+the RSS feed 
functions from myth2ipod.

The basic script is here: 
http://www.tux.org/~peterw/linux/pdatranscode.pl.txt

Jon