anyone into PVR, here?

[nivw]

Hay all, I am new here, and I am in search for ppl with PVR wisdem.
At the last couple of days I learned about how to configure and record tv shows.
The doom9 guide favorites loseless recording to MJPEG even if my 1.8 Pentium 4 can handle stright to xvid compression. so I have vacated a 20 Gb partiition of NTFS. I found virtualVCR hd syncing problems, but iuVCR recoreded fine.

My questions are:
1. how do I setup the PC to automatically convert the recorded tv show to xvid, for storage?
2. is there any program that can automaticly remove commercials?

Niv

 

[DGath]

I don't think there's anything that can be done for either of your questions. It would be tough even for the smartest computers out there to recognize commercials and remove them, it's all just data to it.

I always record stuff to Mpeg2, then use Pinnacle Studio 8 to remove commercials and output back to an Mpeg2 file. That process takes literally 5 minutes because there is no rendering if the input and the output is exactly the same bitrate, format, etc.... At that point, I decide what I want to do with it, keep it as mpeg2 for future editing or burning to DVD, or compress to divx for archiving. If I want to compress to divx, I use dr. divx, which is pretty quick. At that point I just burn it to a DVD.

Just play around with a bunch of different stuff. I got my TV tuner about a year ago, and didn't get into this routine until a few months ago. If you don't' have a DVD burner, pick one up, they're about $100. If you do, Best Buy has a deal for 50 DVDs for $50, that's an insanely good deal. If all you have is a 20gig HDD, buy a huuuuuge one. I have two 120 gb drives, and one of those is dedicated to video & mp3s. But I record a lot of shows and wait till the season is over until I burn them to DVD.

Any other questions, just ask. Hope I was of some help, like I said, the key is just play around with a bunch of different programs and see what suits you best. I'd always record to a large file, then compress later. But if your HDD size limits that, then there isn't much you can do.

 

[dbarton]

I personally just use mpg1 for smallish file size and so I can burn right to regular (cheap) CDs as a VCD.

Not the best for quality, but a few other benefits.

I also have a $90 Mediamvp that reads these files over the network so i can control and play all the files in the living room.

About VHS quality..

 

[SemperFi]

It depends what pvr you are using. I am using a series 2 direct tivo that I found hacks for on another forum. I have a usb network interface hooked to it and download shows through network. I use a program called ty tools that can be used to download the shows, edit them and mux etc. to ready to burn to dvd. Forum can be found here. There is a thread dedicated to ty tools in the video extraction forum.

If you aren't using tivo I doubt ty tools will help you in any way. Just thought I would share the info.

Rates high on the geek factor.