help solicited

[angra]

I've been working through getting extraction running. I've had _some_ success, and some hurdles. I'd like to present what I've tried, and hope that someone here will have some suggestions as to what to try next, or where I'm going wrong.

I have a sony svr-2000, 13 partition image. 2.5.1 system software. turbonet interface card. Tivoweb 1.9.3 modded to include /tystream locs. Desktop PC is a athlon 1200 with 1G RAM, running win 2k. Hrm that's all the background info I can think of. 

First thing I tried: TivoApp (as distributed) - nice app, completely failed for me. Endless signature failure messagess.

Then: TivoApp with mfs_streams in place of ExtractStream. This works great if I only extract to .ty. If I attempt to directly extract to mpg, the program crashes. OK, not ideal, but progress.

Then: I tried using vsplitb to split the stream, and then import these into (tmpgenc, bbmpeg). This works, but is _way_ slow. It takes approximately 4x stream time. This leads me to believe that they are doing a lot more work than is necessary to multiplex the streams back together. Does this sound right? 

I also tried using tystream to convert the .ty directly to mpeg. Skipping the first chunk seems to allow this to work. sometimes. Sometimes it crashes halfway through. The first extraction I tried worked great - it converted in about 5 minutes (30 minute show), but it would only load into WinDVD, and not tmpgenc, or elecard, or hrm, the other dvd demonstration program I have. I can look it up if it matters.

So, I guess I am looking for a reliable path to go from .ty to .mpg that 1) will work in as many viewers/editors as possible (or at least 1 good one of each), and 2) takes less than 4x stream time to convert. 

Am I hoping for too much?