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A Few Questions

2017-12-12
2018-08-07
  • jamie simon

    jamie simon - 2017-12-12

    Hi,

    I'm not nearly as savvy as the rest of you seem to be, but I stumbled across this program and LOVE that I can convert my Tivo files to a file type that will play on my tablet.

    For some reason, I couldn't create a SourceForge account but Kevin was kind enough to exchange a few emails with me to get me up and running. I have read through the Wiki manual section and a lot of it was a bit too technical for me. I was hoping I could throw a few questions out to the community and maybe get some assistance.

    1. I have a Windows 10 computer with 12 GB of RAM, and I have a Tivo Premiere XL. My speend test on WiFi generally is about 95 mb/s. However, when I'm downloading files from the Tivo, it's taking 4-5 hours for a one-hour HD program. I just ran the speed test while it's downloading and it's using about half of my bandwidth. Is that about right? I have been running the program since about 10 last night (it's now 8:04 the next night), and only about 5 of the 10 programs in my queue have transferred. Is this normal?

    2. On my settings, I have checked: decrypt, Ad Detect, Ad Cut and Encode. Encoding profile is ff_h265_high_rate (that was it defaulted to, should I change?). Here's what I want to do: I want to transfer the Tivo files/TV shows to my laptop so I can play the probably as an MPEG (haven't tried transferring to my Galaxy tablet yet). Does it download a version of each type of file? Or does it download one file and then run a program to axe the commercials? I have several versions of each file and Kevin explained they are a, independent of each other, and b, I can configure my settings to delete them upon completion. If what I want to do is what I mentioned earlier in this question, are those the right settings? Could the Encoding profile be what's causing the transfers to take so long?

    3. When I click on "disk usage", it tells my Tivo is 99.3 percent full. Yet if I open my Tivo directly, it's only 79 percent full. I have nothing in my deleted folder that could be taking up that space, so... ?

    Sorry for the long post, but I'm a total newbie and want to use this program the best way I can. It really is awesome.

    Thanx so much,
    Jamie

     

    Last edit: jamie simon 2017-12-13
  • Finbarr Cnaipe

    Finbarr Cnaipe - 2018-08-07

    Hi Jaimie,

    Don't know if you'll get this reply as you posted WAY back in December...

    Anyway, for the sake of trying to be helpful, I will pitch in my 2 cents...

    • Transferring from TiVo to PC:

      • Transfer needs to be either Transport Stream (TS) or Program Stream (PS) format.
      • If your TiVo content is already h.264 you MUST use TS transfers.
      • TS is faster than PS
      • BUT TS can cause glitches and audio-sync issues.
      • PS will prematurely abort if there is a problem with the TiVo recording.
      • For me, PS is better than TS in terms of consistency. (i.e., less aborts than "glitches").
      • My TiVo Premiere Ethernet is 100mbps. Not very fast.
      • TiVo Premiere XL4 is MoCA, which is faster than 100Mbps.
      • I would recommend connecting the KMTTG PC to Ethernet for best transfer speed.
      • TiVo files are encrypted, and need to be decrypted
      • You can setup KMTTG to either decrypt after files are dowloaded, or,
      • You can setup KMTTG to decrypt simultaneously WHILE they are downloaded
      • (I use decrypt while downloading).
      • Once the file is downloaded and decrypted, you can then work with them.
    • Working with your transferred files.

      • Once you have the decrypted file on your PC, it's either mpeg2 or h.264 format.
      • The editing takes place on your PC with the transferred file.
      • So Ad detect and commercial cutting takes place on your PC.
      • After that finishes, the encoding process also takes place on your PC.
      • The encoding process re-encodes the file into a format and container you want.
      • Containers "contain" a video stream and audio stream(s).
      • Containers can be ".mp4", "mkv", etc...among others.
      • Re-encoded video streams can be h.264, h.265, mpeg2, etc. (amongst others)
      • Re-encoded Audio streams can be AAC, mp3, AC3 (DD.51), DTS, etc.
      • So the "Container" contains something like: h.264 video + AAC audio + AC3 audio
      • The above example is what an iTunes .mp4/m4v container looks like, and is very popular.
      • The idea is to create a container that matches your player capabilities.
      • For me, I prefer mp4 container like iTunes format above...it is compatible with ALL my players
      • So, I use the Handbrake Apple TV3 encoding preset in KMTTG.

    You indicate you selected h.265 encoder preset, but that will be less compatible with players/devices than h.264. h.265 is becomming more mainstream, but is not quite there yet. Older devices cannot play h.265, so if you make a h.265 file, it will need to be transcoded again for any player/devices that can only handle h.264. h.264 video looks great for up to 1080p video.

    Personally, I prefer Handbrake to do the encoding, and I've installed the Hanbrake CLI within KMTTG. If you've installed the KMTTG tools, then there is a version there, and I'd suggest using the encoder Handbrake presets. Just pick one that covers the common denominator of what your devices/players support. For me that is is the hb_appletv3 profile. All of my devices can support that format...so I don't need to have multiple files. Also, this is a 1080p format, so I'm getting pretty good quality. (I cannot see the difference on my 1080p 70in TV between blu-ray and a KMTTG / Handbrake encoded mp4 file...provided the orginal TiVo recording has good...

    Finally, encoding an mpeg2 2hr movie to mp4 (h.264 + aac + ac3) takes a long time...on my 4 core/8 thread Intel i7 machine anywhere from 2-4hrs depending on the content and using a custom encoding preset I've created.

    Hope this is helpful!

     

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