[mythtv-users] Question on recording sizes and DVD burning

Wed Jan 22 04:12:42 UTC 2014

On 1/21/2014 5:02 PM, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
> On 01/21/2014 06:17 PM, John Finlay wrote:
>> On 1/21/2014 2:03 PM, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
>>> On 01/21/2014 04:16 PM, John Finlay wrote:
>>>> On 1/21/2014 8:51 AM, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
>>>>> On 01/21/2014 11:32 AM, John Pilkington wrote:
>>>>>> On 21/01/14 15:21, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
>>>>>>> On 01/21/2014 09:56 AM, John Pilkington wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 21/01/14 14:27, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 01/21/2014 09:08 AM, Joseph DeGraw wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> A while ago I upgraded my hardware to include HD recording with a
>>>>>>>>>> ceton
>>>>>>>>>> card and its been great. However, My girlfriend wants to burn
>>>>>>>>>> some of
>>>>>>>>>> her shows to DVD that are 2 hours long. However the size of the
>>>>>>>>>> files
>>>>>>>>>> are like 10 gigs. In mytharchive they can come down to just
>>>>>>>>>> over 5
>>>>>>>>>> gigs.
>>>>>>>>>> The shows are 1920x? HD from comcast provider. I was thinking
>>>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>>>> reducing them to 720i would be fine to make them smaller to
>>>>>>>>>> fit on
>>>>>>>>>> DVD.
>>>>>>>>>> This brings up transcoding (which Im looking into right now) and
>>>>>>>>>> profiles.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> How do you handle this?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> jdegraw
>>>>>>>>> Ok, I have gone into the menu in mytharchive after reading an
>>>>>>>>> older
>>>>>>>>> thread and selected a recording profile. I guess my only question
>>>>>>>>> is :
>>>>>>>>> What do the different profiles mean?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> HQ, EP, LP, SD
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I know if I select a SD setting it will not finish and stalls
>>>>>>>>> out. I
>>>>>>>>> dont even get an error message. Therefore, Iam trying the LP one
>>>>>>>>> for a
>>>>>>>>> single sided DVD for a 10 gig, 2 hour Lifetime Network movie.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> MythTV .27 / Mythbuntu 12.04 based
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> With much of the USA now apparently HD only this is clearly
>>>>>>>> getting to
>>>>>>>> be a common problem, and at present I don't think MythArchive
>>>>>>>> handles
>>>>>>>> it well.  The encoder options are defined here: (Fedora build)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> /usr/share/mythtv/mytharchive/encoder_profiles/ffmpeg_dvd_ntsc.xml
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> and are used within
>>>>>>>> /usr/share/mythtv/mytharchive/scripts/mythburn.py
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I suspect that the best option would be two-pass specifying the
>>>>>>>> required file size; a fairly minor edit of the HQ option, probably,
>>>>>>>> but requiring some research in the ffmpeg documentation or code.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As far as I can see the -b:v value doesn't do much.  The pal-dvd
>>>>>>>> profile, which I use, seems to focus on a q value of 2 as its
>>>>>>>> guiding
>>>>>>>> light.  That isn't specified in the file above.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If at present you are getting a 5 GB file the m2vrequantiser option
>>>>>>>> within MythArchive will shrink that quickly with a quality that
>>>>>>>> should
>>>>>>>> be acceptable, but I wouldn't like to rely on it for much higher
>>>>>>>> ratios.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> HTH
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> John P
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>>>>>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>>>>>>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you John,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, It seems that SP is the profile to use on these large HD
>>>>>>> recordings.
>>>>>>> Iam having a problem that it seems to take a rather long time to run
>>>>>>> mytharchive and it seems to be stuck at this point:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *mythffmpeg -threads 6 -v 1 -i
>>>>>>> "/var/lib/mytharchive/temp/work/1/newfile.mpg" -r ntsc -target
>>>>>>> ntsc-dvd
>>>>>>> -b:v 4771k -s 720x480 -acodec copy -copyts -aspect 16:9
>>>>>>> "/var/lib/mytharchive/temp/work/1/newfile2.mpg" -map 0:0 -map 0:1 *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I see that mythmmpeg is still running and taking up ALOT of CPU
>>>>>>> time.
>>>>>>> Using 'Top' it shows approximately 200 in cpu usage. Seems to
>>>>>>> just sit
>>>>>>> there for hours. Is this normal? I dont have any error messages
>>>>>>> in any
>>>>>>> of the logs - mythburn.log, progress.log, kern.log.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What does show in 'top' is that mythmmpeg is still running and
>>>>>>> sometimes
>>>>>>> will spawn another mythmmpeg process.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> jdegraw
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I think it's normal.   That's one of the problems.  Try
>>>>>>
>>>>>> mythffmpeg  -v verbose -i "infileHD.mpg" -target ntsc-dvd
>>>>>> "outfileSD.mpg"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> on a short recording and see how it goes.  I'm not sure how far my
>>>>>> experience, with h264 recordings, relates to yours, but the -copyts
>>>>>> seemed to be the main problem for me.  ffmpeg -i <filename> should
>>>>>> show what you're dealing with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>>>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>>>>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>>>>>
>>>>> I will give that a try. Thank you very much for your responses.
>>>>>
>>>>> I did try it earlier on a 1/2 show and it did a good job and burned
>>>>> the
>>>>> cd. Currently, mythffmpeg is still running but at a lower cpu use.
>>>>> But I
>>>>> dont see any disk activity. So, Im going to just let it run till this
>>>>> afternoon. I will also try your suggestion and see what I get.
>>>>>
>>>>> Last time I actually ran out of swap space. So, I bought an
>>>>> additional 4
>>>>> gigs to boost me to 8 gigs. Now that is not a problem anymore :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Nothing in the error logs and mytharchive log still shows the
>>>>> mythffmpeg
>>>>> command line in the log as the last entry. Perhaps I assumed that
>>>>> something was going wrong and killed the process, removed the lock
>>>>> file
>>>>> and cleaned up the temp directory when I should have just let it run
>>>>> instead?
>>>>>
>>>> I gave up using mytharchive and use mythffmpeg to transcode my HD
>>>> programs for making DVDs and use a command line like:
>>>>
>>>> mythffmpeg -i <inputfilename>.mpg -map 0:0 -map 0:<1 or 2>
>>>> -deinterlace -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 16:9 -acodec copy
>>>> <outputfilename>.mpg
>>>>
>>>> The -map 0:<1 or 2> is used to select the best audio channel which
>>>> usually is ac3 5.1. I leave out the -deinterlace if the program is
>>>> 720p. I copy the audio since I see no reason to transcode it to mp2.
>>>> For a 120m movie in 1080i it takes about 140m using my old dual core
>>>> AMD and produces a file which is about 4.1G. The transcode uses about
>>>> 120% CPU according to top.
>>>>
>>>> Then I use dvdauthor and mkisofs to gen the ISO.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>>>
>>> Ok, Adding to my last post (sorry) I guess the reason it takes soooooo
>>> long for me is that Iam rescaling a 1920x<whatever> recording with a bit
>>> rate of 9000 to a 720 resolution and a bit rate of 4771.
>>>
>>> I will just let it run and see how long this thing goes. Probably look
>>> around to see if this thing is broadcast in 720 instead. Then I dont
>>> have to convert the video and it will probably take alot less time.
>>>
>>> jdegraw
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>> Actually it seems that you are transcoding to 480 not 720. The
>> confusion is that you are going from 1920x1080 (1080i) to 720x480
>> (480i) . Try a command similar to mine and see if that works better.
>> If so then the command generated by mytharchive is likely the problem.
>>
>> John
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>
> John,
>
> Im running your settings right now. This will probably take a while and
> not sure if I will still be awake when it finishes. I noticed you didnt
> use the 'threads' option in your command line for mythffmpeg. Any reason?
>
>
You don't need to run the command for long to see if it is working 
better. What is the fps it's working at? Should be over 10 fps for it to 
finish in under 6h

John