[linux-dvb] Re: Rebuilding index.vdr files

[Carsten Koch <Carsten.Koch@icem.de>]

ma.hoff@bigfoot.com wrote:
> 
> > I have many movies and Star Trek shows that I recorded
> > from analog TV (with an SGI O2) and converted to VCD
> > format (MPEG 1).
> > It appears that your program recognizes them and
> > creates a usable index file for them.
> Does it recognize them directly off the VCD ? Or do you have to read out the *.dat File from the VCD first and strip off some info to get a normal mpg file ?

I still have most of the original *.mpg files 
that I created the VCDs from on hard disk.
I also have *.mpg files that I ripped with GNU vcdrip 
from VCDs. See http://www.hvrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager


> > So now I made a little shell script that links all of
> > them into dummy directories under /vdr and creates an index.
> Could you be so kind to post ist here ?

See below.


> This would be fine, because what I am searching for is a way to easily "export" the recordings from VDR to archivate them, with the possibility of later playback.
> Actually I'm producing SVCDs or (X)SVCDs (without re-encoding - so it's a SVCD with 720x576 resolution at 3-5 Mbit/s bitrate - I call them DVBsVCD, because that's what they are ;-) - but I lack the proper possibility of playing them.
> I guess some standalone DVD Players could, that's why I'm doing (X)SVCD beside the fact that you can store ~800MB of video on a CD-R80 - but at the moment I don't have such a DVD Player, so a way to use VDR for that would be really nice !

I have a Yamakawa DVD player, which supports "non-standard"
MPEG-1 resolutions of up to 480x576 at almost any bit rate.
I use the very nice SGI O2 A/V capture hardware to capture 
the analog material into a 720x576 PAL Quicktime move and
SGIs dmconvert to convert that to 480x576 MPEG-1 at exactly
the bit rate that puts one Star Trek Voyager on one VCD or
one movie on one or two VCDs (movies > 90 minutes look better
if you spread them on two VCDs).
I am extremely happy with the quality I am achieving, even
if I use standard VCD MPEG parameters. I believe the combination
of SGIs capture hardware and SGIs compression software creates
excellent quality, so I had no motivation at all to play with
SVCDs yet - at least not for analog source material.

To turn VDR recordings into (X)SVCDs WITHOUT RE-ENCODING would 
still be VERY interesting. Can you post a HOWTO? 
What DVD player do you have?



> btw. How long does it take to read one VCD, store the mpeg in /video and rebuild the index ?

Reading the VCD depends on the speed of your CD-ROM and the 
speed of the rest of your system. 
Generating an index for a normal movie takes about 3 to 4 minutes 
on my 450 MHz PIII vdr PC. 

I have not yet tried this, but the following might work:

*  mount the VCD.
*  modify my script to use its *.dat files directly as a 
   source for the dummy VDR directory and files it creates.
*  start the index creation.
*  Use vdr to watch the movie - even during the first
   3 minutes vdr should work as long as you do not pass
   the end of the index file.



In the meantime, I have experimented with some more of my
movie files. Unfortunately, not all of them survive a 
fast forward or skip operation under vdr. 


Cheers,

Carsten.


#!/bin/tcsh -f
set source=$1
cd $source
foreach name (*)
   mkdir -p /video/$name/2000-00-00.00:00.00.00.rec
   cd /video/$name/2000-00-00.00:00.00.00.rec
   set num=0
   foreach f ($source/${name}/*.mpg)
      set num = `expr $num + 1`
      ln -s $f 00${num}.vdr
   end
   genindex
   ls -l /video/$name/2000-00-00.00:00.00.00.rec
end


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