How to Convert DVDs and TiVo MPEG2 Videos to H.264

Previously, I have showed you how to set up software to be able to rip DVDs to your hard drive, and I’ve also shown you how to copy your TiVo videos nightly. I’ve described the method I use to transcode the videos, but haven’t provided the script… Until now. After months of using and tweaking, here’s what I use. I call it VidProc.

(more…)

How to Copy Videos from a Series 3 TiVo to Ubuntu Linux

This guide will show you how to set up a script to copy programs from your Series 3 TiVo on a regular basis, without having to do a thing after it’s set up!

Information you will need:

• Your TiVo’s IP Address (needs to be static)
• Your TiVo’s Media Access Key (MAK) – this can be found on tivo.com after you’ve logged in
• The location where you want your files to be dumped (they are *big* – figure 1 GB per hour for SD, and like 5 GB per hour for HD)
• The location where the files will eventually be stored

(more…)

How to Set Up a TiVo Media Server on Ubuntu Linux

This guide will help you set up a media server to be able to play videos on your Series 3 TiVo, using pyTiVo. (Note: this post was moved from my old blog, but has been updated a bit)

First, install ffmpeg:

$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Then, install git (needed to grab pyTivo):

$ sudo apt-get install git-core

Then, grab the latest version of the pyTivo script (Look at the Current Release page to verify that you have the right version):

$ cd /usr/share
$ sudo git clone git://repo.or.cz/pyTivo/wmcbrine.git
$ sudo mv wmcbrine pyTivo

Edit /usr/share/pyTivo/pyTivo.conf:

$ cd /usr/share/pyTivo
$ sudo cp pyTivo.conf.dist pyTivo.conf
$ sudo vi pyTivo.conf

The only thing that I changed is to comment out the default video share, and add my own:

[Movies]
type=video
path=/data/Video/Movies
[Television]
type=video
path=/data/Video/Television
[Music]
type=music
path=/data/Audio/Music

Run pyTivo:

$ sudo python /usr/share/pyTivo/pyTivo.py

Verify that things are working correctly — on the Tivo, go to “Now Playing List” and look for the shares.  If they appear and you can browse to them, you’re almost done!

One issue I had was with transferring the videos.  When I transferred them to the TiVo, it had a message of “unknown mpeg2 codec” or something to that effect.  Apparently the package for ffmpeg on Intrepid doesn’t have all of the codecs needed.  To install them, run the following:

$ sudo apt-get install libavcodec-unstripped-51

After I did this, videos were able to be transferred just fine.

The last thing to do is to make pyTiVo start automatically on bootup. To do this, simply copy the following script to /etc/init.d:

#!/bin/bash
# chkconfig: 2345 99 05
# description: pyTivo server

### INIT INFO
# Provides: pytivo
# Required-Start: $network
# Required-Stop: $network
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-description: pyTivo server
# Description: Start and stop the pyTivo server.
### END INIT INFO

RETVAL=0

start() {
echo -n "Starting pyTivo: "
pgrep -f pyTivo.py
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo "pyTivo already running: Exiting" && exit 1

# this call actually starts pyTivo.
python /usr/share/pyTivo/pyTivo.py > /dev/null 2>&1 &
RETVAL=$?
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo -n "done"
echo
return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
echo -n "Stopping pyTivo: "
pkill -f pyTivo.py
RETVAL=$?
echo
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo -n "done"
echo
return $RETVAL
}

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
start)
start
;;
stop)
stop
;;
restart|reload)
stop
sleep 1
start
RETVAL=$?
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac
exit $RETVAL

Note: I didn’t write this – I just grabbed it from somewhere when setting it up – let me know if you wrote it so that I can give you credit!

After creating the script, make it executable:

$ sudo chmod u+x /etc/init.d/pytivo

Then create links to /etc/rc3.d and /etc/rc1.d:

$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/pytivo /etc/rc3.d/S99pytivo
$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/pytivo /etc/rc1.d/K99pytivo

This should make it so that pytivo starts automatically upon bootup.

Hopefully you’ve found this guide useful. Next time, I’ll be talking about how to make the videos show up perfectly on the TiVo, with appropriate titles, etc.

Converting TiVo MPEG2 Videos to H.264

Something I’ve been working on a lot lately (and haven’t been posting until I had things the way I wanted them) was to convert my tivo mpeg2 files that I’ve been copying over from my S3 Tivo to something a little smaller, like h.264.  I have a script to do this, which I’ll provide, but I’d like to go through the process, which consists of:

1. Getting the dimensions of the video
2. Cropping letterbox and overscan
3. Encoding the video

I had a *lot* of issues with AV Sync as well as dropped frames using HandBrake (that no one seemed to know why) so I went with mencoder.  I also left the audio as-is instead of transcoding into AAC.  It’s not a “proper” h.264 file with AC-3, but it works for my purposes.

(more…)