Only Audio Getting Encoded (on Roamio Pro, using TS option)
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Some episodes have started to have trouble encoding the video portion of the file. The files are stored on a Roamio Pro (NOT updated to Hydra). I'm using the "Download TiVO files in Transport Stream format" and "Decrypt using tivolibre instead of tivodecode" options.
There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to which episodes encode properly. With the show I'm currently having trouble with, one day's episode encodes fine, then the next day's episode might not. Out of 25 or so episodes I tried to download and encode, about 8 of them ended up as audio-only files. All 25 episodes were all recorded on the same channel, on consecutive days.
The TS file comes down as a 6.6 GB (KMTTG lists size as 6.73 GB), with a .TiVo extension. The decrypted file is the same size, and ends up with a .ts extension. Then the encoded file ends up at about 60MB. If I try to play the encoded file, it has one partial frame of video, but then nothing but audio. I'm encoding using the ff_droid profile. I tried a different profile and it has the same issue.
The episodes play fine on the TiVo.
Any ideas?
Ran into this problem with kmttg trying to transfer a Doctor Who episode (on BBCA) to my Mac. Now trying pyTivo (http://www.pytivodesktop.com/mac.html) and the download seems to be working, at least it's a much larger file than the small audio file that I was getting with kmttg.
Make sure the decrypted .ts files play in VLC VideoLAN or like player before anything else.
Nope, the .ts file doesn't play. VLC shows just a blank picture with audio.
So that's the problem. Sounds like it's not decrypting correctly. TS files can be problematic to decrypt. By size of the file sounds like it's mpeg2, so if you turn off "Download TiVo files in TS format" my guess is decrypt will work properly and then you should be able to play .mpg file and encode it etc.
That was it; thanks! Is there a way (other than guessing based upon file size) whether a video on the TiVo is mpeg2 or mpeg4?
On TiVo in Diagnostics menu where it shows tuner information for channels you can tell. Or if you have a downloaded .TiVo file you can use "mediainfo" to tell.
Note that if you are on Windows platform you can use DirectShow Dump to decrypt instead (you need partial TiVo Desktop installed at least for that), and it has no problems decrypting any TS file. VideoRedo also can decrypt if you have that (again WIndows only).
Got it; thanks again!
Have been having the same problem in recent weeks, OSX and Windows. TS does the trick most but not all of the time. Didn't have this problem til about 2 weeks ago. Now intermittent but more frequent.
File begins to download like normal, then about 10 percent or so of the way to completion it quits, moves to decrypt and subsequently checked steps. Occasionally the ts toggle on/off will remedy.
Here's an update. If I login to the Tivo via a web browser I can transfer over the entire .Tivo file. (ts format works, haven't tried mpg) Again when trying to download via kmttg, in windows or Mac, ts or mpg the full file won't come over. And, again, this has begun to happen in the past couple of weeks. Can only see last 50 or so recordings in browser, any idea how to list or page through the older recordings?
This is happening to several of my shows recently as well. It seems to be largely NBC shows, but there are some others as well. All of these used to download and be processed just fine. I've switched between downloading in TS and not, which used to work, but no longer does now. All of these hour long shows appears to be around 1.8 GB as viewed in the kmttg interface. I have logged directly into the Tivo web server and checked/downloaded from there too, and it's 1.8GB there. None of them will encode properly - I always just get audio with no video. Any other ideas here?
I'm using kmttg 2.4e along with the 2.1n tools on windows.
Are you able to play the decrypted .ts files with Windows? If not you are missing Windows codecs and need to install K-Lite codec package or something similar since you may be missing codecs to play .ts files and .mp4 files. Alternatively use VideoLAN VLC to play back decrypted or encoded files to see if that works.
I did as your suggested, and installed both K-Lite codecs (I used the "Basic" version, let me know if that was incorrect and I should use something else) as well as VLC player and I have redownloaded/redecrypted one of the episodes I am having trouble with and I get the same result. 1.8GB file once decrypted (1.8 GB original file as well). Only audio. The video is there somewhere - it wouldn't be 1.8GB without it, only 75MB probably. Any other ideas?
Probably a decrypt issue then. Make sure you have at least a partial TiVo Desktop installation, then go to kmttg config--Program Options and enable "Decrypt using DirectShow Dump"
Last edit: Kevin Moye 2018-01-25
Installed Tivo Desktop Plus (had a license from years ago), selected the dsd option. Same issue. 1.8 GB file, no video, only sound.
Can you play the .TiVo file now via TiVo Desktop and see video?
No it appears not. And Windows Media Player can only sees it as 12 minutes long. Something is definitely messed up with it - yet when it decrypts, it's an hour long with no video.
Well, so that would indicate that if not even TiVo's own software can handle it that the problem is in the download itself and some kind of incompatiblity with TiVo's software. Nothing that can be done about that unforntunately.
Well, poop. Thanks for your help on this.
I use kmttg with a TiVo Bolt and receive my content as H.264 via comcast/xfinity... What I have found is that most of the programs download correctly as TS, but a small, consistent subset end up with corrupted video which gets dropped by fffix. This doesn't seem to be tied to a specific codec or bitrate. If I go back and re-download those failed items as PS, they are then viewable (though the download is slower).
I assume this is a bug in the TiVo itself. If kmttg wanted to work around this it would need to e.g. download a small sample as both TS and PS, and see which of the two results in valid video after the tivolibre step.
Thanks Carl. I have tried this with both TS and PS type downloads and I get the same result each time. The end result is audio with no video when all said and done.
just revisted here, i see now there are lots of download failures now that H264 is more prevalent. FWIW I have had better luck by turning off the "tivolibre DirectShow compatibility mode" flag, I'm getting pretty successful downloads of H264 content with no audio sync issues...
SOLVE for me at least. I was screwing around with the settings and found that I had TS Download turned off. I check that and the downloads started working. Then I added the Decrypte feature and that worked too. Now everything is downloading correctly and if watchable in VLC.