TS container conversion

[JediNight]

Heyas~ I'm a couple years out of practice on the encoding side of things, as I haven't really been involved in much since like 2005. But lately I've tried downloading a number of the lossless transport streams for shows, but haven't been successful in preparing it in any way that would allow a re-encode.

MPC and VLC won't even open them. MPlayer can play them at least, but using Mencoder with a number of CLI settings doesn't result in a workable raw for AVS. WMP of all things can play them (boggle?). Premiere actually imports it properly. DGavc gags on it, and TMPGenc wants to re-encode it to 720x480 and refuses to let me adjust to the correct resolution. AVS won't import them using Directshow or Mpeg2 source.

I've tried with the Tales of the Abyss Ep1, ToraDora Ep1, and even a Xam'd TS just to see if it was any different. All with the same above-mentioned problems. The puzzling thing is I used to work with TS files years ago, and never had any issues.

Anyone got any tips for an "out of shape" encoder?

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by JediNight

lossless transport streams

... Japanese TV is all coded with MPEG2. MPEG2 isn't lossless. (Noone sane would ever broadcast lossless video anyway, it'd take way too much bandwidth.)

Originally Posted by JediNight

MPC and VLC won't even open them. MPlayer can play them at least, but using Mencoder with a number of CLI settings doesn't result in a workable raw for AVS. WMP of all things can play them (boggle?). Premiere actually imports it properly. DGavc gags on it, and TMPGenc wants to re-encode it to 720x480 and refuses to let me adjust to the correct resolution. AVS won't import them using Directshow or Mpeg2 source.

You've tried pretty much everything except the correct program. The reason DGAVC gags is because they aren't AVC, and if directshowsource/MPC doesn't work that means you probably don't have a recent enough haali splitter (which does support transport streams). But never mind dss, what what you should do is treat it just like a DVD and use ye olde DGIndex to index, and then mpeg2source() (dgmpegdec.dll, comes with dgindex) to load it in Avisynth. Then you obviously need to apply IVTC, decimation, cropping and resizing but that's not TS-specific.

(Edit: note of possible interest: it is possible to remux transport streams to MKV with Haali's GDSMux.)

[NicestBoat]

As TheFluff said, you're using the wrong tools.

For japanese HDTV broadcasts(tales of the abyss/toradora) which are 1440x1080(i) mpeg2, a DGIndex->YMC->YATTA->avisynth->.. workflow tends to be fine.

For xam'd, it's probably a HDMI capture, at 59.94fps encoded with h264. It was captured from a ps3 which was displaying it at 23.976fps. You'll probably have to use one of the AVC indexers or something, I haven't tried it myself. Also you'll have a aaabb dupe pattern(23.976*5/2), where a and b are unique frames, you may selectevery(5,1,3), but it might not always be fine(one in 5 chance it would get it wrong), and if there was decoding jitter for the ps3, there may be additional issues). Edit: I think fdecimate() might be something you should look into.

MPC should be able to open all of the TSes you mention, I'm guessing your splitter is not up to date. Update CCCP or Haali's splitter and make sure it's set to decode Transport Streams.

[JediNight]

Sorry I was mixing together my workflow pattern in my head. (I planned to convert to a lossless file from the TS is what I meant. Nicer for me to work from the lossless file) And yeah, my bad on not trying DGindex with the Mpeg2.

I checked CCCP and I have the most recent version from them (which isn't that recent ... their last update was like 6+ months ago I think?), but I didn't download a new version of haali's separately. I'll look into that.

Thanks for the help.

[neothe0ne]

By the way, I've always wondered:

How do you IVTC/decimate w.e a 29.97fps source to its proper 23.976fps in Avisynth? I've tried various settings:
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\TIVTC.dll")
TFM(-1, -1, 0, 6) <-- various numbers from the readme

But I usually end up with periodic stutter that shouldn't be there.

[NicestBoat]

Originally Posted by neothe0ne

By the way, I've always wondered:

How do you IVTC/decimate w.e a 29.97fps source to its proper 23.976fps in Avisynth? I've tried various settings:
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\TIVTC.dll")
TFM(-1, -1, 0, 6) <-- various numbers from the readme

But I usually end up with periodic stutter that shouldn't be there.

Did you forget to decimate by any chance?

[neothe0ne]

Originally Posted by NicestBoat

Did you forget to decimate by any chance?

I know nothing about AviSynth, but when I tried to use VirtualDub to do IVTC it wouldn't give you the option to also choose to decimate, so I assumed it wouldn't be needed. What should the AviSynth code look like to turn a 30fps source into the 24fps source it should be from blurred/duplicate frames?

[D404]

I wanna say: RTFM... rly. Read-up ppls >.>.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by neothe0ne

What should the AviSynth code look like to turn a 30fps source into the 24fps source it should be from blurred/duplicate frames?

somesource("file")
tfm()
tdecimate(mode=1)

This is the most basic IVTC you can do, pretty much; for clean sources this is enough. From here you can make it just as complicated as you want depending on content.
Useful filters include fieldhint, telecidehints and various deinterlacers (tdeint, nnedi, etc); for complicated operations YATTA is probably a good idea.

You may also want to read this.

[Zero1]

A few years ago I used to use a program called Project X. It was Java based and a bit crappy in the interface department, however it was good at what it did. I've only ever used it for boring old UK DVB which is MPEG-2 with layer 2 audio. I'll post some proper info when I get to a computer in case this is of interest. I did write a kind of a guide some time ago on the CCCP forums. The program can "fix" corrupt streams and cut out commercials without encoding.

Edit
-----
You can download Project X from Doom9: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software2.htm
Just search for Project X in the page, or click on the Digital TV section.

And here is the thread/guide thing: http://www.cccp-project.net/forums/i...sg4676#msg4676
I'm amazed the sample is still available. Thanks to movax for uploading it all that time ago.

[lamer_de]

ProjectX will fail due to the Japanese AAC Audio, whis isn't that common in the rest of the world, i.e. ProjectX is only for DVB or ATSC streams. DGIndex is the only easy way (well, avidemux might also work).

[Zero1]

Originally Posted by lamer_de

ProjectX will fail due to the Japanese AAC Audio, whis isn't that common in the rest of the world, i.e. ProjectX is only for DVB or ATSC streams. DGIndex is the only easy way (well, avidemux might also work).

I thought that might be the case, but I wondered if it would just try to extract streams and private streams regardless of what they are. I haven't tried it so I can't comment.