Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb box

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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby rozel » Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:30 pm

Brilliant!

Thank you for your explanation.

Now what remains is to remove my Thompson's source drive and run +Extract and probably Copy+ too - I have a few spare HDD's about, that way I will know before Monday if I'm going to be successful or not.

I gather that removing the HDD in the Amstrad is a bit of a "pig" so I will proly leave the Thomson in my HTS after refitting the drive until I have figured a way how to remove it - or else find a suitable cable to run from my PC to the Amstrad's drive, after opening the case.

Think I understand all now

Thanks again

roz
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby rozel » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:20 pm

Update...............

New Box came on Thursday, the same day as I contracted Shingles :x

However gave some of it a go today by copying over my recordings from my old Thomson to a spare PATA drive using Copy+

I then fired up +Extract but nothing - had to upgrade to +Extract Plus and then all but the 2 non-FTA recorings showed up.

Selected my 3 precious John Wilson Orchestra recordings - 2xBBC HD + 1xBBC2 and "extracted" - copied - them to an internal HDD and ran the BBC recording (SD), just over 2 Gb in size, through TsReMuxer - success!!!!!

Then tried a HD recording and again success!!!

I just have a few questions if you do not mind: -

1. When I played the remuxed HD file, I noticed it's resolution was 1440x1080. I thought all Sky HD stuff is in 1080i and thus 1920x1080 - my box is always set to 1080i. Is this to do with +Extract Plus or rather TsReMuxer? And have you any thoughts about maximising the output from .str files please?

2. I assume when the time comes to copy over the recordings from my PATA drive to the new Amstrad drive, I will not have to delete the volume first as I did with the PATA drive, given that it has already been formatted by Sky? In other words it will automatically show up in Copy+ ?? And then will I be able to selectively copy over the recordings I want or do I have to copy them all?

Thank you for making this possible, the main reason was to get the HD recordings to my PC, which I've managed to now - I just want to make sure I can maximise the quality of remuxing.

Cheers

roz
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby pcbbc » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:07 am

rozel wrote:New Box came on Thursday, the same day as I contracted Shingles :x
Oops. Sorry to hear that.

1. When I played the remuxed HD file, I noticed it's resolution was 1440x1080. I thought all Sky HD stuff is in 1080i and thus 1920x1080 - my box is always set to 1080i. Is this to do with +Extract Plus or rather TsReMuxer? And have you any thoughts about maximising the output from .str files please?
Nothing to do with +Extract which just copies the raw stream fiel (STR) from Sky disk to your hard drive with no intermediate processing. Must be the remuxing, or some other post processing step.

2. I assume when the time comes to copy over the recordings from my PATA drive to the new Amstrad drive, I will not have to delete the volume first as I did with the PATA drive, given that it has already been formatted by Sky? In other words it will automatically show up in Copy+ ?? And then will I be able to selectively copy over the recordings I want or do I have to copy them all?
Yes - Selecting coping is possible. Read the Copy+ instructions for details.
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby rozel » Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:50 pm

Thanks for your response.

This morning I have been delving a little more deeply...........

Using the .str files from +Extract Plus, I run them through TsRemux and end up with a m2ts file - not sure using this prog whether to output to .ts .m2ts or BluRay - it gives 3 options, so I go for .m2ts. Without playing the resultant file, I know that the resolution is 1440x1080 from it's properties, confirmed when playing through TotalMediaTheatre3.

I am not sure whether asking you on this forum is the best thing, but exactly what resolution does BBC HD transmit in? Unless TsRemux does something with the file, which I am not aware about, then it must be the resolution of the actual tramsmission correct? The SD file run through TsRemux comes out at 720x576 which is what I would expect.

Interestingly running the 1440x1080 .m2ts file from the HD recording through another prog - tsMuxer - which I do to create AVCHD files, which in turn I can play through my PS3 without the need to burn to disk, results in files at 1920x1080 !!!

Playing these AVCHD files through my HTS via my PS3 and into my HD TV is giving quite superb results, hardly distinguishable, if at all, from the original Sky HD recording, which was and has been my aim for well over the past year - so a great big thank you - this has been a revelation.

I would like to know about the resolution of the HD broadcasts though - if you'd, rather I will raise this in another forum, relating to Sky issues but I thought you may know more as you developed the +Extract software.

Any further thoughts would be appreciated

Cheers again

roz
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby rozel » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:42 am

Further update.............

When I used +Extract Plus to "copy over" my old Thomson's recordings, I had 18 titles in all. 2 x encrypted, which I am not bothered about, around 9 x HD recordings, and 7 x SD recordings.

I want to Archive 3 treasured HD recordings and 1 SD recording. Of the 3 HD recordings, 2 were originally broadcast in Dolby Digital, the other in standard stereo.

I have been successful in creating a working AVCHD copy of 1 of the 2 Dolby Digital titles and it plays back superbly in 1920x1080 5.1 DD surround. This was a broadcast in August 2010 and after creating the .str file, I imorted it into TsRemux where it was immediately recognised as having 1980x1080 resolution and 6 channel AC3 sound. The other DD HD recording however is proving more problematic. The .str file imports into TsRemux ok but the video resolution is 1440x1080 and the sound 2 channel AC3 only. When the recording is played via the actual box on which it was originally recorded in July 2009, it plays fine in DD sound. My subsequent conversion through TsRemux, has serious synching problems.

My questions are these, as I have worked tirelessly during the past few days to try and solve this problem or to get a handle on what is wrong or what I am doing wrong: -

1. Could it be that this recording has somehow become corrupted through endless plays on the Thomson and thus so is the .str file, which is basically a copy of what is on the Thomson's HDD ?

2. Any suggestions as to how to sort this out?

3. When I eventually copy over to my new Amstrad box, is it likely I will get the same playback issues - when I do this I will be using Copy+ - this presumably copies the recording sector by sector, right? If so then maybe it will playback the same as it does on my Thomson box ?

4. Last but not least, after reading the forum it seems that I am missing an option to create an .mpeg file when Extracting. This is supposed to be in the drop-down "tools" menu. Has this option vanished ? When I copy over SD files, .str files are once again created but the sound tracks are not recognised by TsRemux - can someone please explain this issue ?

Sorry to keep "labouring" this thread but I am really struggling to sort these issues

TAIA

roz
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby neildo » Tue Jan 25, 2011 11:47 am

rozel wrote:4. Last but not least, after reading the forum it seems that I am missing an option to create an .mpeg file when Extracting. This is supposed to be in the drop-down "tools" menu. Has this option vanished ? When I copy over SD files, .str files are once again created but the sound tracks are not recognised by TsRemux - can someone please explain this issue ?


I added this when I implemented transport stream to program stream conversion and having the right amount of data in the buffer to be able to convert on-the-fly. Sadly my interpretation of the MPEG2 standard didn't cut it as I had numerous complaints about faulty conversions (mainly lip sync)

So I had to revert to the original off-line conversion method of transport stream to reindexed transport stream.

MPEG2 conversion is a huge area and outwith the scope of +Extract's conversion capabilities. HD conversion isn't included in +Extract conversion other than transport stream reindexing (as its format agnostic).

While working in the digital tv business I remember a training lecture whereby the instructor began with the statement that the MPEG2 standard does not define 'how to do encode material, its a means to decode material'. Its upto the implementer how to affect the encoding. That's why companies offer better (paid) solutions for converters because invariably there is time and man hours behind the development of these. I'm just a single guy (professional developer with commericial DVB-T experience), with an interest in this field who began +Extract as a hobby many years ago before our family came along. I simply don't have the time anymore to spend analysing MPEG2 formats and the like.

I can only recommend purchase of a commercial MPEG2/4 conversion suite.

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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby rozel » Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:33 pm

Thanks for replying.

Final update.....................

My SATA extension cable came through my letter box just after I wrote my last post so without further ado, I used Copy+ to transfer 75 Gb of recordings to the New Amstrad's HDD from my PATA drive - it took just over 1 hour :) The recordings included the 3 HD recordings mentioned above.

Set up and plugged in the new box and voila! All the recordings present and correct - magnificent :P :P :P

What is even better, the 2009 HD recording which I have been struggling with plays back perfectly in Dolby Digital - really impressed with that.

And given that previously my old box was 52% full, I am very impressed that the new one is only 6% full and I have a backup of the precious recordings on a PATA drive to boot, for restoration back to a Sky HDD in the future if I need to.

Thanks for your help in making this possible

Tara for now

roz
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Re: Tfr from early Thompson HD box to New Amstrad 1000 Gb bo

Postby pcbbc » Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:08 pm

Fantastic. Glad we could help.
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