Media server program to transcode .WTV files.

[benwood]

I have a WDTV Live Plus and I use it to watch Netflix and DVD ISOs. Now I'd like to use it to watch the TV shows recorded on my Windows Media Center 7 machine. All of the TV programs are recorded as copy freely so that's not a problem. I know that the WDTV can't view WTV files natively. But I was wondering if any of the media server programs like Plex, PlayOn, Subsonic, Serviio, etc can transcode WTV files on the fly into a form the WDTV can use. I don't care about scheduling, deleting, etc recordings. I just want to the view them. My media server's hardware is a 3.8 ghz AMD A10-5800K APU running Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with 8 GB of memory.

 

[Binky]

Several programs can convert to an MPG format, including MCEbuddy and my favorite DVRMSToolbox (which can also mark and/or remove commercials). I don't know of any on-the-fly transcoders but I've never looked for one.

Wouldn't it be easier to just get an xbox or an extender? The ceton was just on sale for a little over $100, and a used xbox or an older generation extender can be bought for even less.

 

[glugglug]

VLC will do it I think.

 

[destrekor]

Is there any software yet that can interact directly with .wtv files?
Specifically for commercial skipping.

I see everything requires transcoding - is this like transcoding between two completely unrelated codecs that requires some dedicated horsepower, or more or less simply moving the video and audio data from one container to another?

 

[glugglug]

I use comskip (paid version) to scan the WTV files for commercials. ShowAnalyzer does it with the free version, but failed on too many of them.

Apps that convert WTV to MPG or DVR-MS are just doing a container change. But maybe you WANT to transcode it if sending to something other than an extender because a) mpeg-2 is pretty crappy compression, so HD recordings may be a higher bitrate than your WiFi, and b) H.264 has more modern hardware support.

 

[destrekor]

I use comskip (paid version) to scan the WTV files for commercials. ShowAnalyzer does it with the free version, but failed on too many of them.

Apps that convert WTV to MPG or DVR-MS are just doing a container change. But maybe you WANT to transcode it if sending to something other than an extender because a) mpeg-2 is pretty crappy compression, so HD recordings may be a higher bitrate than your WiFi, and b) H.264 has more modern hardware support.

I may in time make some changes and look into other possibilities, but for now, I'm really only using the HTPC itself for recording and playback. I like the full experience, and the HTPC is connected to my surround system and plasma, so I tend to only watch video when I can utilize that.

Sometimes I'll watch TV in my room, and at that point, it's either streaming services or, if desired, I can watch and record live TV using my desktop (which also has Windows Media Center), since I am using an HD Home Run on the network.

If I get into transcoding into H.264, it'll be because I actually got much more interested in remotely streaming when I'm not at home. I utilize Remote Potato for that at the moment - mainly for the remote scheduling, but I think if I switched to smaller files it could stream better. That, or also install a server like Plex on my HTPC.


Now, regarding Comskip - can you continue watching the recordings within WMC, and the tagged commercials can be skipped/are auto-skipped right there?
I'd like to keep the HTPC very streamlined, in that absolutely everything possible occurs within the WMC interface for the sake of easier operation with my Harmony remote.

Once configured, I imagine Compskip itself runs in the background and starts working whenever a new recording gets created in the directory? Does it work like, as in I can record a show, and start watching the show and skip commercials while it is still recording?


I did just see that Comskip cannot read copy-protected recordings.
I do record some TV that is DRM-flagged. Is there any way around that? With container-changing, transcoders, or anything?

 

[glugglug]

There is absolutely nothing that can read the copy protected files, other than media center.

comskip/DVRMSFileWatcher can be configured to either scan the files while they are being recorded or wait until a few minutes after the recordings end. Also, you can set the number of workers doing the scan. If you are recording to a single drive and have a whole bunch of tuners, the drive may not keep up doing recordings and commercial scanning at the same time, so when running with just one green drive I set it to only scan 2 shows at a time, and any other simultaneous shows would have commercial scanning queued for after those end. (I have 6 tuners)

This is probably the best guide for setting up the commercial skipping. They use ShowAnalyzer instead of comskip but the idea is the same.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/how-to-automatically-skip-commercials-in-windows-7-media-center/

The free version of DVRMSToolbox and DTBAddIn that will be required for this doesn't support Windows 8 yet -- you would need to get the donator version of that as well for Win 8.

 

[spencers]

I use MCEBuddy to transcode wtv files.

But it's not on-the-fly.

 

[rdb4133]

I use MCEBuddy to transcode wtv files.

But it's not on-the-fly.

+1 I've been using MCEBuddy for over a year now.

 

[rbk123]

I use WTVWatcher to convert the file and then Lifextender to remove the commercials (in that order). I run them as automated jobs overnight, not realtime.

Dclive helped me with that, so credit goes to him.

 

[tential]

I'm using handbrake right now to convert my .wtv files. It onyl takes 6 minutes or so for each file. Definitely worth it to convert me 4 GB file to a 300 MB file (they're for a kid so not as high quality as I'd personally do a ocnvert for myself.)