If you are looking for a chapter list for a DVD to use with Handbrake, here are a couple of pointers:

1. The format is [ChapterNumber].[ChapterName] (i.e., “1.Opening Credits”).
2. If you don’t want to manually enter a chapter list, search spout.com for the movie.  Via Google, just enter “site:spout.com <movie name>” (without the quotes).  You can copy and paste the chapter list into a text editor.
3. You can use TextPad (or any other text editor that does regex search and replace) to get rid of the timestamps (i.e., “[1:24]“) using the search criteria ” \[[0-9]*:[0-9][0-9]\]” (again, no quotes).
4. Handbrake adds an extra chapter at the very end.  I just name this chapter “The End”.

So, here are the CSVs I’ve done so far:

• Ice Age
• The Incredibles
• Ratatouille
• Toy Story
• Toy Story 2

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However, I recently tried playing back some of the videos on the SageTV HD-100 extender (doesn’t this thing seem to be at the root of all of my problems?), and it failed.  Miserably.  There was no audio, and the video froze after 5-10 seconds.

I figured there must be something funky going on with the audio codec. Creative’s website, of course, doesn’t tell you what codec is used for the audio.  MediaInfo to the rescue.

It turns out it uses the ADPCM WAV audio codec.  And, of course, the HD-100 doesn’t support WAV (it’s a chipset issue, I believe).

The fix is, theoretically, pretty simple – pull out the audio, convert it to a format that, you know, anyone actually uses anymore, and mux it back in.  However, I want something that will do this all in one step, via the command line.  Luckily, Avidemux can do it.

I created a batch file with the following:
"C:\Program Files\Avidemux 2.4\avidemux2_cli.exe" --force-alt-h264 --load %1 --video-codec COPY --audio-codec MP3 --audio-bitrate 128 --output-format AVI --save "%~1 (remux).avi"
This loads the source file, copies the video stream, converts the audio stream to MP3, puts it all into an AVI container, and saves it to a new file (the –force-alt-h264 is necessary in order to avoid a prompt in the command line output; it has to be before the –load argument).  Every time I put a file on the server, it runs this.  Every now and then I go in and verify that the files converted properly, and then I manually delete the originals.

Postscript: yes, you can use AAC and put it into an MP4 container.  However, it won’t play on anything Apple, because the AVC profile used by the Vado uses CABAC.  I can’t tell you exactly what CABAC is, but I can tell you that Quicktime doesn’t like it.  I think I read that Apple TV doesn’t like it either, but I don’t recall.  iPods don’t like CABAC either, but the resolution is too high, so it’s a non-issue here.

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Luckily, there is a turnkey solution for this – ToNMT (NMT is the “Networked Media Tank”, which is essentially the same hardware as the HD-100/HD-200).  Just make sure you run it on the actual BR disc (or a complete copy of the disc), as opposed to just the Stream folder.

Alternatively, if you are just interested in seeing which stream is the movie stream, you can use BDInfo.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon – I couldn’t get ToNMT to force conversion to AC3.  Since the HD-100 doesn’t support anything else (at least in my configuration), that’s a no go.  Luckily, tsRemux will load a playlist, so I just used BDInfo to find the correct playlist.  I haven’t thought through the workflow yet, but if I come across another seamless branching disc, I’ll put together something.

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1. Turn on hardware caching in sage.properties (enable_hardware_scaling_cache=true)
2. Reduce the User Input Timeout (Settings | Customize | Inactivity Timeout and OSD AutoHide | Configure)
3. Enable album art caching (SageMC | Enhancements | Cache Album Art)

Now it’s smooth as silk.

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Turns out you can access most of Windows Media Player via WSH, so that made it pretty easy to grab all of the metadata once everything was loaded into WMP – you just have to know where to look.  The XML layout for the Sage Webserver is pretty well documented, although the source code to Andy’s excellent MigrateMCtoSage utility made it much easier to figure out the bare minimums.  The hardest part was actually finding the XML writer for WSH.

Note that this should also work for AVIs, which is the other main container format supported by WMP.  However, AVI tagging is pretty abysmal in WMP, mostly because it doesn’t write the tags back to the file.  I have found a couple of apps to do this, but nothing I would wholeheartedly recommend.

Backup you wiz.bin file before proceeding – you need to shut down the Sage service to do this properly.

1. Download and unzip CreateVideoXML.vbs
   Optional: Open in a text editor and edit the output and temp files
2. Import your videos into WMP and clean up the metadata
3. Run CreateVideoXML.vbs
4. Open Sage Webserver and import the resulting XML file (by default: C:\Playlist.xml)
   1. Check the Import TV files box
   2. Check the Overwrite Existing Show Information box
   3. Check the Overwrite Existing Sage TV File Information box
   4. Check the Use imported Airing data to determine startTime option (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT)
   5. Uncheck everything else

After import, your videos will show up under “My TV”.

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After going through this thread and all of its suggestions, I have found that some discs work with no modification, while for others the audio won’t work unless manipulated first.  Generally, if the first audio stream is AC3, it will work. So, I have come up with the following workflow for getting the movies to play on the extender.  Basically, I start with the easiest method first, and work my down through successive steps as necessary:

1. Play the m2ts file as it was ripped from the BR disc.  With many discs, this just works.
2. Delete all streams from the m2ts file except the main video and audio streams.
3. Demux the main video and audio streams from the m2ts file, downmix the DTS-HD stream to AC3, and remux in a MKV container.

In each case, there is no converting of the video stream, so there is no quality loss and the processing time is relatively minimal.  Details after the break.

First, a quick primer on the terms:

• Codec = coding/decoding algorithm used to store either audio or video in a stream
• Stream = audio or video data in a container
• Container = file format used to hold streams, along with other information like meta-data, subtitles, etc.
• Demux = extract an audio or video stream from a container
• Remux = combine audio and/or video streams into a container

Option 1: Play the m2ts file (no processing time)

Just rip the main m2ts file (almost always the largest file on the disc), and then play the file via the extender.  If the first audio stream is AC3, it should play fine.

Option 2: Delete extra streams (20-30 minutes to process)

This is the option to use if there is an AC3 audio stream, but it’s not the first stream.  You delete the other streams to move it to the top.

1. Run tsMuxeR GUI
2. On the Input tab, click the add button next to the Input files: list and select the m2ts file.
3. Make sure the m2ts file is selected, and a list of all streams will show up in the Tracks list.
4. Delete each stream except the main video (usually the 1080p resolution stream) and audio (DTS or AC3) streams using the remove button next to the Tracks list.
5. In the Output section, select m2ts muxing.
6. Enter a new filename.
7. Click the Start muxing button.

Note: You will have to use trial and error to figure out the correct audio stream (e.g., English/French/commentary/etc.).

Option 3: Remux into MKV (1 hour to process)

This is the option to use when there is no AC3 stream on the disc.

1. Use eac3to to identify the stream types and indexes:
   eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts”
2. Use eac3to to extract the main audio stream and convert/downmix from DTS-HD to AC3:
   eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts” 3: outputaudeostream.ac3
   (where “3:” is the number of the main video stream – again, the extension doesn’t matter)
3. Use tsMuxeR GUI to remux the two streams in a m2ts container.
   1. Click the add button to add the original m2ts.
   2. Delete each stream except the main video (usually the 1080p resolution stream).
   3. Click the add button to add the AC3 stream from step 2.
   4. Select the M2TS muxing option.
   5. Select the output file.
   6. Click the Start muxing button

UPDATE: tsMuxeR is able to handle variable frame rates in h264, but mkvmerge is not, so ignore the rest of the post.

Option 3: Remux into MKV (1 hour to process)

This is the option to use when there is no AC3 stream on the disc.

1. Use eac3to to identify the stream types and indexes:
   eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts”
2. Use eac3to to extract the main video stream:
   eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts” 1: outputvideostream.h264
   (where “1:” is the number of the main video stream – note that the extension doesn’t matter)
3. Use eac3to to extract the main audio stream and convert/downmix from DTS-HD to AC3:
   eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts” 3: outputaudeostream.ac3
   (where “3:” is the number of the main video stream – again, the extension doesn’t matter)
4. Use mkvmerge GUI to remux the two streams in a MKV container.
   1. Click the add button to add the two streams from steps 2 and 3.
   2. If the video stream is h.264, you need to specify the framerate.  You can use tsMuxeR or MediaInfo to determine the framerate (I couldn’t get the SourceForge download to work, but the VideoHelp mirror was fine).
   3. Select the output file.
   4. Click Start muxing

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Note that you can combine steps 2 and 3 once you are comfortable with the syntax:

eac3to “<fullpath>\video.m2ts” 1: outputvideostream.h264 3: outputaudiostream.ac3
(where “1:” is the number of the main video stream – note that the extension doesn’t matter)

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I jumped ship from Vista Media Center almost 6 months ago, and one of the biggest reasons was a  persistent bug with an identified cause resulted in many of my recordings having an incorrect duration, which made it difficult (although not impossible) to use the files.  To date, the problem has still not been resolved, because Media Center updates are tied to the OS release schedule, which does not permit quick release patches for non-critical bugs.  If they get it wrong, it’s a whole new cycle before they can send out another patch.

Microsoft already realizes that baking everything into the OS is not always the best idea, because it creates a bloated OS and reduces flexibility and limits the options for the individual apps (see here, here, and here).  Given the much richer experience I have had with SageTV since August, I think that applies to Media Center, as well.

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NOTE: Several of the non-alphanumeric characters do not copy and paste correctly.  If you have any problems (especially with the RunExternal actions), check that the quotes and dashes are correct.  Thanks to Steve for pointing that out in the comments.

Tools Used

• SageTV: records TV shows
• DVRMSToolbox: monitors recording folder and orchestrates conversion
  • SageTV Web Interface: provides metadata to DVRMSToolbox
  • ComSkip or ShowAnalyzer: finds commercials in TV show files for DTb
• mencoder (bundled with mplayer): removes commercials
• Handbrake: converts to h.264/aac in mp4 container
• AtomicParsley: writes metadata to mp4
• MoveOut: puts converted files in the “right” place

My Files

• “Convert to Zune/iPod/iPhone” Profile
• “Add to iTunes” Javascript (NOTE: I have tested this as a standalone script, but it is not incorporated into the workflow below)

Step 1: Installation and SageTV

Obviously, you need to have all of the above tools installed and SageTV configured and running and recording shows.  DVRMSToolbox (DTb) should be running and monitoring the SageTV recorded TV folder(s).

Step 2: Setup the DTb Profile

The problem I experienced with mencoder was due to the stdout mucking up DTb.  Turns out DTb has a RunExternalNoStatus action that ignores the output, thus obviating the problem.  Using this action for AtomicParsley sped up that app’s processing by tenfold (due to the huge amount of output of AP).  So, as a general rule, if you have having trouble getting an external app to run well (or at all) in DTb, try RunExternalNoStatus.

Now, for the meat of the process.  DTb orchestrates the various external applications.  The logical flow is:

1. Scan the TV show file for commercials.
2. Use mencoder to create a new TV show file without the commercials.
3. Use Handbrake to convert the file from MPEG to MP4 (h.264/AAC).
4. Use AtomicParsley to write metadata to the MP4 file (e.g., show, episode, air date, etc.).
5. Use DTb to rename the show to a friendly format (e.g., “Fringe – 2008-12-03 – Safe.mp4″).
6. Use MoveOut to move the shows to the correct folders (if necessary).

As implemented, here are the Actions and parameters:

1. FWThrottle: limit the number of files that are processed simultaneously
   1. UseDefaultSettings: <checked>
   2. ContextFile: InputFile
   3. Throttle: Checked
   4. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
2. CreateTimeout: sets a timeout – trust me, the first time mencoder hangs on “Dora the Explorer” and you don’t have “Lost” waiting for you in the morning like you were expecting, you’ll be glad.
   1. Timeout Minutes: 240
   2. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
3. ChangeContextValue: create a new context to store the location of the commercial file created by ComSkip/SA
   1. SourceContext: InputFile
   2. TargetContext: SageEDLFile
   3. CreateNewContext: <checked>
   4. NewContextName: SageEDLFile
   5. FindRegex: ^((.*\\)(.*)\.(.*))\z
   6. ReplaceRegex: $2$3.edl
   7. ContinueOnFail: <checked> (it’s OK to keep going if we fail for some reason – we just won’t get commercials cut out)
4. ChangeContextValue: update OutputFile context to allow for MP4 extension
   1. SourceContext: OutputFile
   2. TargetContext: OutputFile
   3. CreateNewContext: <unchecked>
   4. FindRegex: ^((.*\\)(.*)\.(.*))\z
   5. ReplaceRegex: $2$3.mp4
   6. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
5. ChangeContextValue: create a new context to specify location of the resulting commercial-free MPEG file
   1. SourceContext: OutputFile
   2. TargetContext: CutMpegFile
   3. CreateNewContext: <checked>
   4. NewContextName: CutMpegFile
   5. FindRegex: ^((.*\\)(.*)\.(.*))\z
   6. ReplaceRegex: $2$3.mpg
   7. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
6. FindCommercials: run ComSkip/SA to find commercials and write to EDL file
   1. UseDefaultSettings: <checked>
   2. ContextFile: InputFile
   3. ContinueOnFail: <checked> (again, worst case is we have commercials in the final MP4 file)
7. RunExternalNoStatus: run mencoder to cut out commercials
   1. ProcessName: <fullpath>\mencoder.exe
   2. ReadError: <unchecked>
   3. ArgumentsContext: “%InputFile%” -edl “%SageEDLFile%” -oac copy -ovc copy -of mpeg -o “%CutMpegFile%.mpg” -mpegopts muxrate=36000 -quiet
   4. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
8. RunExternalNoStatus: run Handbrake to convert to MP4
   1. ProcessName: <fullpath\handbrakeCLI.exe
   2. ReadError: <unchecked>
   3. ArgumentsContext: <experiment with the Handbrake GUI using a sample file to get the settings you want>
   4. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
9. MigrateMetadataToContext: workaround to get a nicely formatted “original air date”
   1. Metadata Pattern: %originalAirDate%
   2. TargetContext: OutputFile
   3. CreateNewContext: <checked>
   4. NewContextName: DateAndEpisode
   5. FindRegex: ((\d+-)+\d+)
   6. ReplaceRegex: $1
   7. ContinueOnFail: <unchecked>
10. RunExternalNoStatus: run AtomicParsley to add basic metadata to MP4
    1. Processname: <fullpath>\AtomicParsley.exe
    2. ReadError: <unchecked>
    3. ArgumentsContext: “%OutputFile%” –genre “TV Shows” –stik “TV Show” –TVNetwork %channelName% –TVShowName “%Title%” –TVEpisode “%episode%” –description “%description%” –category=”%category%”
    4. ContinueOnFail: <checked> (no need to crash just for the metadata)
11. AdvancedFileRename: rename the output file to something meaningful
    1. ContextFile: OutputFile
    2. NamePattern: %Title% – %originalAirDate% – %episode%
    3. WhenFileExists: AppendGuid
12. FileOperation: delete temporary MPEG file
    1. ContextFile: CutMpegFile
    2. DestinationPath: <blank>
    3. WhatOperation: Delete
13. FileOperation: move MP4 to the output directory
    1. ContextFile: OutputFile
    2. DestinationPath: <destination directory>
    3. WhatOperation: Move

Step 3: Move the files

I use MoveOut to then put some files in the kids’ directory, some in the wife’s Zune directory, and some in my directory.  You could do this all with DTb, but I find it easier to use a separate app.

What’s Next?

Zune users are all set – the ZMP automatically monitors folders, so the next time you sync your Zune, it will pick up the new MP4 files.  iPod/iPhone users, however, have to manually import the folder prior to each sync.  There are two options for getting around this.  First, you can add an extra “RunExternal” action that runs a Javascript to import the files into iTunes (available in the linked download, courtesy of Coyote).  Second, you can try to get the iTunes Library Updater to work, although there are mixed results with iTunes 7+.  I don’t have iTunes installed on my SageTV server, so this isn’t really an issue for me.

jelwood is working on an alternate approach using Quicktime chapters instead of actually cutting out the commercials.  Because not every medium I am watching these on supports Quicktime chapters (including SageTV and the Zune), I am sticking with the mencoder route.  However, this is a better option if storage space is not an issue or you have problems with ComSkip/SA getting the commercials “not quite right”.

Also, jelwood has created a patched version of AtomicParsley that allows you to set the sort order to the original air date.  I include the air date in my titles out of preference, so this is not necessary for me, but incorporating this is trivial.

Anything else?

EDIT (2009-03-18): DTb 1.2.1.6 added the MigrateMetadataToContext, which makes it easier to format the original air date to a friendlier format.

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1. It requires a CUDA-enabled Nvidia GPU (TMPGEnc also supports CUDA, but does not require it)
2. It only outputs to H.264 (TMPGEnc outputs to almost anything)
3. No batch mode (TMPGEnc does)

So, if you don’t have a CUDA GPU, you need WMV, or you need batch, skip it.  Otherwise, it’s only $30 v. $100 for TMPGEnc, which, let’s face it, is overkill for most.  I don’t have a CUDA GPU, but I’m considering it since my last video card melted.

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