..pva vs .ts vs .mpg (for Hauppauge Nova-T) single, like, hardware, formats, process

andy

Following kind advice in this thread*, I've just bought a PCI Hauppauge Win Nova-T, and I've just spent a while browsing through threads on the capturing process. Unfortunately I have found a bit of conflicting information, and I could use some directions through the minefield of formats... .

*In case they needed my hardware specs are at the top of this thread.

The main site of course has a great guide, which has plenty to say but sums up like this:use PVA for single audio channel recordings and TS for multiple audio channel recordings

Similarly, from another thread:
Originally Posted by bbPVA has been designed to deal with errors and synch problems during DVB captures, so I'd always prefer to capture to PVA and convert to MPEG-2 PS later, preferably by ProjectX, ds.jar, or PVAstrumento. It is well-known that some of the DVB capture programs available have problems when capturing directly to MPEG-2.

But elsewhere in this thread and in another thread:

Originally Posted by LeoloThe PVA file format was designed for the TMS320AV7110 chip. If your card doesn't have this chip, then DON'T USE PVA!!Originally Posted by HerskeIt is better to capture in .pva if and only if your card is skystar 1 compatible (that is, it has the TMX320AV7111(0) chip; pva is its native format).

Google suggests that my card doesn't have this chip, but I don't know how to tell for sure. I want to select the software and format that maximise my chance of keeping synchronisation and of detecting errors. I plan to capture the CBBC channel from UK Freeview. I was recommended to stay away from the bundled software. I've also seen comments that choice of software can affect synchronisation, so I'm trying to choose something carefully...

Should I go with

-- ProgDVB, .pva
-- ProgDVB, .mpg
-- webscheduler, .ts

...or something else?

Thanks very much,
M.

Congrats, Clouded.  Hope you have lots and lots of disk space .  I suppose the format in which you record should be dictated by the choice of tools available to process those recorded streams. ProjectX will allow you to convert PVA to TS, PS, etc and vice-versa.  This version includes only the necessary JAVA runtimes, eliminating the need for a full JAVA installation.

download/ProjectX0901exe.zip

I know your question wasn't directly answered, but the above app might make your recording format choice a bit less of an issue.

Thanks for the thoughts -- I'll definitely give ProjectX a go... but presumably if the sync information isn't present, it can't reconstruct it?

Disk space isn't a problem... I'm used to capturing 720 x 576 x 25 FPS from VHS losslessly .

There are a handful of tools which will benefit you -

Mpeg2Repair - ~mwilczyn/mpeg2repair/

Command Line Apps - ~balazer/atsc/

avs-vb/showt...amp;amp;#post4615081

And don't forget DGindex...

I've had no problems using a Nova-T to capture to mpg and then process with ProjectX. the resulting stream has a consistent audio delay of 140ms, but since that's consistent it's easy to compensate for.

Well, I've settled on recording the (relevant channel of) the transport stream using DVB WebScheduler. It seems to be a nice, slimline program that makes everything very easy; using the extended program guide with data downloaded from the Radio Times website makes it very easy to schedule a program to record -- two clicks. The downsides are that it's just for recording (you can't even see what you're recording) and that AFAICS it only saves to a subdirectory of the installation directory. Processor usage is very low.

A quick test splitting with ProjectX and burning to DVD seems to be working (fingers crossed). Sync doesn't seem to be perfect, and for one movie the output video bit rate is bizarrely low (2200 kbps) but possibly I have the ProjectX settings incorrect... it bears no resemblance to the version described on the Doom9 site and the related forum is in German. But the nice thing about recording to .ts is that I have time to play with different software and figure this stuff out .

Pookie -- the programs you linked to have proved really helpful, especially ProjectX; thank you very much!

Hi mg262,

I have just purchased  a nova-t pci, and I'm currently in the process of getting my head around capturing/recording freeview mpeg2 streams.  

My experience of digital video to press has been capturing, cutting, cropping, encoding and authoring.  I've never done anything with mpeg2 other than author to DVD. As you've discovered, the the broadcast streams are not the same as those used within a DVD, and a few more steps are required than you'd expect if you want them as a disc to play in any stand alone player.

So far, I've succesfully recorded a 1 hour program from CBBC, and ended up with a DVD which plays perfectly in any player - and has perfect sound sync.  

Here's the but!  I'm also working on a 1 hour recording from the more4 channel, which I simply cannot get right - I'm not saying it is down to the hauppauge card - I'm just saying don't bank on it if you have just one chance to get hold of this rare broadcast.
The recording is a program stream taken using wintv2000 bundled with the card.  It is just over one hour in length, and plays back perfectly in either the hauppauge software or WinDVD.  When I try to demux using projectx, the video file is saved perfectly - exactly the same length as the original file, however the audio is only 4 minutes long - suspiciously the same length of time as the adverts preceeding the recorded programme. Using PVAstrumento results in a total freeze 5% into the demux process.  Other recordings from this particular channel produce the same results - so I'm assuming it's caused by the broadcaster.  I have a perfect signal and never experience any picture break up.  I'm currently experimenting with PVA format.  Not sure how many people on this forum are using freeview - but hopefully we can get our heads around it eventually.

Project-x still has an occasional problem extracting MPEG audio from broken .mpg files.  Try pvastrumento  instead.  As an alternative, install the latest BDA drivers   from technotrend (for older style nova-t) for the card and use webscheduler to record in one of the transport stream formats.  Project-x doesn't seem to have any issues with MPEG audio from transport streams, no matter how many dropped / broken transport stream packets there are.

If you can't re-record the program, you could always have a go at editing the recording with videoredo .

Have you gents have seen this site ?:

wiki/Freeview#The_multiplexes

Quite interesting, that Freeview.  Quite an assortment of bitrates.  MG262, good thing you wrote that nice speedup for LimitedSharpen

This site in particular seems to cover the available Freeview channels and their technical makeup.  Nice documentation:

talk2me2u/mux.html

Finally, here's some Freeview users experiences with using ProjectX:

board/...7amp;page=4amp;pp=25

Should I go with

-- ProgDVB, .pva
-- ProgDVB, .mpg
-- webscheduler, .ts

...or something else?

if you like progdvb, the newer versions have a pidrecorder -gt; .ts

mostly i stream in .pva and demux with pvastrumento, workin like a charm
for ts i'll use dgindex, a must-have-tool anyway

DrP,

I found that webscheduler worked with the default drivers installed with WIN-TV 2000 version 2.1. (BTW, thank you for the pointer to webscheduler -- it's brilliant!) I record in TS -- more precisely, the TS-MUX option that just records a single channel -- and everything seems to be working very well.

Pookie, your link explains a lot! I can't wait to see LimitedSharpen's successor!

I would like to try ProgDVB, but as I said it produced an error message as soon as I started it up.

PD_Hey, I forgot to say quot;welcome to the forumquot;  (and thanks for the warning). I hope you have had some luck trying to extract the audio from that recording? I'm *sure* there will be some way to do it, so don't give up... people here will have plenty of ideas to try on it.

Just a note: I've been playing around with ProgDVB for the past couple of days (mostly because it lets you configure your own decoder filters, so I can get better deinterlacing from Nvidia's rather than the stock Cyberlink ones from Hauppage). So far, it seems that ProjectX chokes on the pva files it produces, though they can be handled in PVAstrumento-gt;Cuttermaran.