iPimp - Issues with New Zealand recordings... (1 Viewer)

[TommySharp]

Has anyone had any success transcoding New Zealand recorded TV shows? I've had mixed success with the process failing on most shows...

 

[cheezey]

Which utility are you using to transcode/ FFMpeg or HandBrake?

Can you use the Handbrake client to manually transcode a recording?

 

[Edwood]

As usual, Mister Cheezey is 'on the money'.

The legend added handbrake support some time ago, and that makes NZ TV (H.264) accessible.

I've only just reinstalled ipimp... Handbrake manual encodes work, so if the ipimp encodes don't work, it will be a simple fix. I'll report back once I've done some tests.


edit: OK, I can't get iPimp to do an encode properly either. My quick tests suggest that maybe HandbrakeCLI doesn't actually terminate corectly (Process eventually drops to 0% CPU, and stays active; amd iPimp reports that the transocde is still going). I'll have to have a play and figure out where the command line is, and compare it to the manual encode and... and... and... but now I'm late for work, so another day!

 

[TommySharp]

Hey Edwood, thanks for looking into this. I am using the lastest version of iPimp with the handbrake setting trying to transcode the files.....

 

[Edwood]

Okey day... I've figured out two core problems, and a solution.


Problem 1: Process doesn't end
The Handbrake process doesn't end correctly, so as far as iPimp is concerned, the encode is still going, the .jpg doesn't get created etc...

Promblem 2: The encode is incorrect / different.
Encode a) Media Portal TV Server standard options - iPhone & iPod Touch preset
Encode b) Handbrake GUI - iPhone & iPod Touch preset

Encode A and Encode B produce quite significantly different results. Long story short, Encode B is much better.


So, my workaround / solution is to simple tell iPimp to use the settings I've extracted from the Encode B log file.
Enter in the following paramaters into the HandBrake Settings Tab, and Problem 1, and Problem 2 wil be gone burger!

-i "{0}" -t 1 -c 1 -o "{1}" -f mp4 -X 480 -e x264 -q 20 -a 1 -E faac -6 dpl2 -R 48 -B 128 -D 0.0 -x cabac=0:ref=2:me=umh:bframes=0:subq=6:8x8dct=0:trellis=0:weightb=0 -v 1

Edit: I'm not yet totally convinved that this fixes the 'Handbrake process' problem 100% of the time. I think I need to do some more testing... I am getting great results in preliminary tests though

 

[cheezey]

There is a bug in the Handbrake setup in iPiMP where it doesn't add a required command line parameter. Try using this in your Handbrake custom command line settings:

-Z "iPhone & iPod Touch" -i "{0}" -o "{1}"

The bug is that when you select the "iPhone & iPod Touch" (or indeed any preset) from the list of available presets, iPiMP omits the -Z parameter when it does a transcode.

This is fixed in the next version.

 

[TommySharp]

-Z "iPhone & iPod Touch" -i "{0}" -o "{1}"

This is fixed in the next version.

Hey Cheezy, updated the system with the commands above and it seems to be at least getting through some shows. PRIME was very "stuttery" for some of the transcoded file but some of it was okay so might record a few more PRIME shows and see what happens....

 

[TommySharp]

Cheezy, not sure if this is on the same topic but some of my transcoded files are still HUGE even though they are the same length as another shows that is half the size. It looks like the bitrate is different for different shows and channels here in NZ. Is there any way I could get iPimp to transcode to a set resolution and bitrate?

 

[cheezey]

Yep. Use the ffmpeg option in the transcode plugin and select the libx264-ipimp preset.

 

[TommySharp]

Hi Cheezey,

My transcodings have been working great guns for a couple of weeks now.... Is there any way to hard code the bitrate to 500 while still using the handbrake option for encoding?

Just trying to get my file sizes a little smaller as some shows are encoding at a bitrate of 1500....