[ExtractStream] Anyone else working on this?

[Robert J. Seymour, Jr.]

From: gkm@g... [mailto:gkm@g...]
> I've been wanting to pull streams off my TiVo for some time now.
> The plan is, instead of grabbing shows with the TiVo, then to tape,
> extract the stream, Divx the show, then put it on CD. [ ... ]

> What's needed now is software to convert that data to DiVx and burn
> the resulting mess to CD. I've got Linux servers that I can put a
> burner in and that would be the best solution, but if a windows only
> solution is around, I can live with that.

This is the route I currently take with DVD movies and TV shows captured on
my ATI Radeon AIW. I'm planning on doing this from my TiVo as well once I
get the ethernet card. The encoding process is very CPU intensive, but the
results are very good (*much* better quality than VCD) and can fit a full
DVD movie on a CD. You'll still see encoding artifacts with this much
compression, but I don't find them particularly distracting (YMMV). I'll
make VCD copies of most things as well, but I keep the Divx version around
as my computer archive and play from the computer when I want better quality
(the VCD is more convenient since I can just stick it in my DVD player).

> Has anyone tried this? How'd you do it? How well did it work?
> (can one actually get a 2 hour show down to a CD and still have it
> watchable on a TV sized screen?) Does the Surround sound remain
> intact?

First, extract and download the streams to MPEG2 as per the ExtractStream
instructions (the Tivo box itself doesn't have the horsepower for effective
Divx encoding.). There are linux tools for MPEG2 to divx encoding, but I
tend to use the windows tools which I think are much better and easier to
use (my windows box is also faster). Search around and you'll find lots of
options, http://www.divx-digest.com/ is a good place to start for windows,
http://xmps.sourceforge.com/ or http://www.emulinks.de/divx/ for linux.

As for quality, try it out and judge for yourself (or download some tasty
divx shows or movies from gnutella and install just a player). I find the
results to be respectable on my 36" TV at high levels of compression (a
little over 2 hours per CD - about 1Kbit/low and 96Kbit MP3 audio), and
nearly identical to cable with lesser amounts of compression (say 1 hour per
CD - approx 1.7Kbit/low w/128Kbit MP3 audio). You loose surround sound and
typically encode the audio to MP3 for space savings. To compare to Tivo's
MPEG2 compression, I'd say that divx rates somewhere between basic and good
depending on the amount of compression you use.

Overall, I think divx on cd is the best combination of quality, archival
cost, and convenience for archiving. The main downside is that they are
only playable on a reasonably fast computer, which may not be part of your
a/v system. S-VHS will have comparable (though often less objectionable
downsides to) quality but the tape cost is comparatively high, storage is
bulky, and the process isn't automatable (you could script the entire
archive to divx process to run every night). VCD is compact and playable on
a DVD player, but the quality is a lot less than Divx (I find it distracting
most of the time). DVD-R is still just too damn expensive (drive and media
both), though that's the ideal route in the long run when costs come down.

Regards, RJS


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com