pyTivo Discussion Forum

[damojo2003]

I have an odd thing going on here and I do not know exactly what info to give for help.

About a week ago, all of a sudden I could not transfer all my mp4s to my premiere. I can transfer a little 2 min movie fine, but I can not transfer a 30 min long movie. The python shows that it is transferring with out transcoding just fine and python tells me that it complete the transfer but the blue light on my tivo continues to stay on. Then it starts to transfer the same show again, but this time it is a little different. It show that 0 bytes has been transferred. Nothing has changed in my set up. I then reinstall the pytivo and python and I get the same result. It does not matter if it is my laptop (wireless) or desktop (wired). Another odd thing is that I can pull with out a problem.

Help
Mike

[lucasnz]

Sounds like a dodgy mp4. I have a process that remuxes these files which some times fixes this type of issue. Suggest you try a different file.

[damojo2003]

Thank you for the response, but I tried several files from the 2 computers. I restarted my tivo again this morning, hopefully that does it. Is there some variable that ffmpeg must have for proper encoding for tivo? maybe I am getting lucky with the small files

[damojo2003]

Same thing, the 2 min clip transfers correctly and the larger 30 min does not. I tried to transfer 3 different files and they all stopped transferring.

What is the process to fix these files??

[lucasnz]

That depends on the files, some files are not fixable and the fixing process for the "fixable" ones isn't always easy.

If you post the console output when the problem occurs might help.

[damojo2003]

[jcthorne]

Yep, bad file. ffmpeg thinks its 120fps which tivo would not take.

Suggest working with a known good file and transfer that. Make sure pytivo is working. Then work on re-encoding these if you really want them into a tivo compatible file. You could also tell pytivo to transcode them to mpeg2 on the fly but that would be a slow transfer and take up considerable space on the tivo.

[damojo2003]

I got it. What I do not understand is how is it converting it to 120 fps when the original program came from tivo? What is the max fps for tivo and how do I force that when I am encoding to mp4?

[jcthorne]

It likely is not 120fps but ffmpeg and tivo think it is. Its likely the header that is wrong. It is also not a streamable IMSA standard mp4 file. pytivo is attempting to correct that with qt-faststart. WHat did you use to encode the file? Settings are in your encoder. Producing IMSA standard streamable mp4 files will push to tivo every time with no preprocessing by pytivo.

Tivo accepts 720p material at 60fps, 1080i at 30 and 1080p at 24. Others work but not well documented.

[damojo2003]

I used KMTTG to download from the tivo, decode,VRD QS fix, Ad Detect and ad cut (not using video redo) then encode.

FFMPEG -y -i INPUT -threads 0 -vcodec libx264 -crf 23 -fpre "C:\pytivo\KMTTG\ffmpeg\presets\libx264-veryfast.ffpreset" -sameq -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 300 -bufsize 30000k -bug "+autodetect+ms" -acodec copy -ar 4800 -f mp4 OUTPUT

very fast preset
coder=1
flags=+loop
cmp=+chroma
partitions=+parti8x8+parti4x4-partp8x8-partb8x8
me_method=dia
subq=1
me_range=16
g=250
keyint_min=25
sc_threshold=40
i_qfactor=0.71
b_strategy=1
qcomp=0.6
qmin=1
qmax=31
qdiff=4
bf=3
refs=1
directpred=1
trellis=2
flags2=+bpyramid-mixed_refs+wpred+dct8x8+fastpskip-mbtree
wpredp=0



What do I need to change?

[lucasnz]

You could try downloading mp4box and run the following command:
Mp4box -optimize filename

If that didn't help then u can display the file info with:
ffmpeg -i filename

And post the output here...

[damojo2003]

lucasnz
I will give that a try later tonight. What I would like to know is how can I not have this issue in the future? Can I set all my MP4s from to 30fps and call it a day?

[lucasnz]

How did you come about this mp4? You say you got it from the tivo but if you downloaded it off the tivo it would have been encrypted in a .tivo file. What process did you use to extract and decrypt the file? I'm guessing there's something funny in your process. Also files downloaded from the tivo are usually in mpeg-ps format, so even after decrypting it you'd need to convert it to an mp4. I'm guessing that what ever program you are using for the decryption and conversion is not producing a "valid" mp4. If that's the case you'd need to talk to the developer of that app...

[damojo2003]

i recorded the program on my tivo and then began the process with the KMTTG as described above. The original pull from tivo was the .tivo file

[lucasnz]

Ah, missed that post... Can't really help you there. There are quite a few variables; video redo, vmttg, ad removal, ffmpeg. If the mp4box -optimize fixes the issue for you then perhaps you just need to add that to your process.

The other thing you could try is using video redo to create the mp4 rather than ffmpeg.