While there are a ton of programs out there for compressing DVR-MS files, Crunchie best suits my needs. Crunchie differs from other tools in a couple of ways that will be explained as we go along, and compresses to Xvid.
1. Download and install Crunchie.
2. Run the configuration utility, there's a shortcut placed on your desktop. Below you can see my settings.
The official Crunchie thread has a full explanation of all the functions, so I’m just going to cover the important ones for me.
'MPEG Only' Selecting this will allow Crunchie to process normal MPG files, handy if you use AutoDVRConvert (see my guide) or another MPG program.
'Create Subfolders' and 'Rename DVR-MS Files' If a processed program has this exact name format ‘Doctor Who_Channel 2_23_06_2005_18_00_00.dvr-ms’ then the output file will be renamed to ‘Doctor Who (20050623).avi’ and placed in a folder called ‘Doctor Who’. Handy for keeping track of your compressed recordings, and now achievable with a recent CVS release that lets you rename MP output files (Setup - TV - Recordings - Custom Paths and File Names).
'Include' Funnily enough, only files with the text in here are included for processing. This is great as it uses the file name rather than metadata, which Media Portal includes very little of.
'Only compress files that are more than x days old' This is my favourite feature!
Save yours settings and click exit.
3. Open the main Crunchie application to start conversion, or run the application from Task Scheduler. It takes a while to convert files even on my system (it uses Mencoder), and 30 minutes of PAL TV ends up at about 600mb.
Do more with your TVâ„¢
Record to MPG & stream Live TV (AutoDVRConvert)
Automated Ad Removal (DVRMS Toolbox)
Automated compression after x days (Crunchie)
Manually crop DVR-MS length and remove ads (DVR Edit)
1. Download and install Crunchie.
2. Run the configuration utility, there's a shortcut placed on your desktop. Below you can see my settings.
The official Crunchie thread has a full explanation of all the functions, so I’m just going to cover the important ones for me.
'MPEG Only' Selecting this will allow Crunchie to process normal MPG files, handy if you use AutoDVRConvert (see my guide) or another MPG program.
'Create Subfolders' and 'Rename DVR-MS Files' If a processed program has this exact name format ‘Doctor Who_Channel 2_23_06_2005_18_00_00.dvr-ms’ then the output file will be renamed to ‘Doctor Who (20050623).avi’ and placed in a folder called ‘Doctor Who’. Handy for keeping track of your compressed recordings, and now achievable with a recent CVS release that lets you rename MP output files (Setup - TV - Recordings - Custom Paths and File Names).
'Include' Funnily enough, only files with the text in here are included for processing. This is great as it uses the file name rather than metadata, which Media Portal includes very little of.
'Only compress files that are more than x days old' This is my favourite feature!
Save yours settings and click exit.
3. Open the main Crunchie application to start conversion, or run the application from Task Scheduler. It takes a while to convert files even on my system (it uses Mencoder), and 30 minutes of PAL TV ends up at about 600mb.
Do more with your TVâ„¢
Record to MPG & stream Live TV (AutoDVRConvert)
Automated Ad Removal (DVRMS Toolbox)
Automated compression after x days (Crunchie)
Manually crop DVR-MS length and remove ads (DVR Edit)