How to edito TiVo recordings

[ARK2006]

I have transferred TiVo recorded programs to my computer and would like to be able to edit them. I tried to do in Windows Movie Maker but it says it doesn't support the format. Any suggestions?

[tonyonlinux]

I have transferred TiVo recorded programs to my computer and would like to be able to edit them. I tried to do in Windows Movie Maker but it says it doesn't support the format. Any suggestions?

Here is the steps I use to do it.
1) Download Tivo Desktop and transfer the content to your pc
2) Get a program called Direct Show Dump (do a google for it).. run the tivo file in it
3) Take the mpeg that Direct Show Dump made and then open it up in VideoRedo
**VideoRedo will let you click on ad detection and remove all the commercials**
4) Save the file in VideoRedo takes no time at all.
5) Get Sonic Mydvd If you want to then make a dvd out of your shows.

Hope this helps.

[dwgsp]

Better yet, get the latest version of VideoReDo and edit the .tivo file directly!

[davezatz]

TVharmony might also be worth checking out... no DSD needed, and it's free (compred to VideoReDo). Personally, I'm content with Nero's tools which open most .tivo files natively.

[c monkey]

TVharmony might also be worth checking out... no DSD needed, and it's free (compred to VideoReDo). Personally, I'm content with Nero's tools which open most .tivo files natively.


I have Nero but I use the VR in between as a step before I author and Burn with Nero. What do I do so that Nero can open .tivo files natively therefore eliminating the VR step?

[tonyonlinux]

Better yet, get the latest version of VideoReDo and edit the .tivo file directly!

Oh really the latest version of VideoRedo supports Tivo files made is that just great news. Do you know if owners of the older version are eligible for the upgrade?

[MikeMar]

Wow, directshow dump is sweet :)

Thanks!!!!!

Gotta play around w/ videora now to get it on my ipod

[N2DEEP]

Here is the steps I use to do it.
1) Download Tivo Desktop and transfer the content to your pc
2) Get a program called Direct Show Dump (do a google for it).. run the tivo file in it
3) Take the mpeg that Direct Show Dump made and then open it up in VideoRedo
**VideoRedo will let you click on ad detection and remove all the commercials**
4) Save the file in VideoRedo takes no time at all.
5) Get Sonic Mydvd If you want to then make a dvd out of your shows.

Hope this helps.

VideoRedo now supports .tivo files, so DirectShow dump is no longer needed if your using VideoRedo to edit your file.

[emwoods]

VideoRedo now supports .tivo files, so DirectShow dump is no longer needed if your using VideoRedo to edit your file.


And a whole lot faster, too. Once I have the .TIVO file on my PC, I have an edited .MPEG in less than 5 to 9 minutes depending on the number of commercials and length of the video. I am pretty sure NVE can do a lot of the same stuff, but VideoRedo is very fast creating the MPEG since it was designed to be a native MPEG editor. For the $$$ and the speed at which I can get stuff done VideoRedo is hard to beat.

Flip side is NVE can do a lot more stuff and you will still need it or something like it if you want to create a DVD that will play in your DVD player. Personally, I convert everything to DIVX which cuts the file size by 80 percent. I can fit 4 - 5 movies on a single layer DVD and it takes only 5 minutes to burn the DVD versus a whole lot longer to burn a DVD that will play in your DVD player. Decent DIVX players can be had for under $60. Full disclosure though that converting from MPEG to DIVX is very CPU intensive and takes roughly that same time to go from MPEG to DIVX at the total playing time for the video, so there really is no free lunch in terms of converting to DIVX versus burning a normal DVD with NVE.

[Stu_Bee]

Once I have the .TIVO file on my PC, I have an edited .MPEG in less than 5 to 9 minutes depending on the number of commercials and length of the video.

Or if you are lazy, like me, you can use TVharmony to auto-cut out the commercials during transcoding.

[windracer]

Oh really the latest version of VideoRedo supports Tivo files made is that just great news. Do you know if owners of the older version are eligible for the upgrade?
If you're already a 2.x owner, the upgrade is free. If you have 1.x, it's $20 to upgrade:

http://www.videoredo.com/ProductUpgradePolicy.htm

[windracer]

Or if you are lazy, like me, you can use TVharmony to auto-cut out the commercials during transcoding.
VideoRedo has an Ad-Detective feature that attempts the same thing ... though I have not played with it much.

[Dan203]

Or if you are lazy, like me, you can use TVharmony to auto-cut out the commercials during transcoding.

VideoReDo also has automatic commercial detection.

Edit: Jinx!

I've actually used the automatic commercial detection feature of VideoReDo on a .tivo file and it works perfectly. It runs a scan that takes about 5-8 minutes for an hour program. When it's done all the pure black frames are marked with little flags. You can then jump around to each of those flags and use them to mark the start and end of commercial blocks and cut them. Including the scan, cuts and save the whole process took about 15 minutes. Not bad considering most transcoders will take at least realtime on a moderate PC.

Dan

[c monkey]

VideoReDo also has automatic commercial detection.

Edit: Jinx!

I've actually used the automatic commercial detection feature of VideoReDo on a .tivo file and it works perfectly. It runs a scan that takes about 5-8 minutes for an hour program. When it's done all the pure black frames are marked with little flags. You can then jump around to each of those flags and use them to mark the start and end of commercial blocks and cut them. Including the scan, cuts and save the whole process took about 15 minutes. Not bad considering most transcoders will take at least realtime on a moderate PC.

Dan

You can make it even faster. Go to the ad detective tab on VR and set it to automatically cut out commercials detected. You won't have to jump back and forth manually cutting them. The VR does it automatically. Its a great thing really.

[greg_burns]

You can make it even faster. Go to the ad detective tab on VR and set it to automatically cut out commercials detected. You won't have to jump back and forth manually cutting them. The VR does it automatically. Its a great thing really.

Can you describe where that setting is a little bit more. I cannot find it. :(

When you say ad detective tab, do you mean ad detective menu at the top? And if so, then where? :)

After months of referring this program, I finally put my money where my mouth is. :up:

[c monkey]

Can you describe where that setting is a little bit more. I cannot find it. :(

When you say ad detective tab, do you mean ad detective menu at the top? And if so, then where? :)

After months of referring this program, I finally put my money where my mouth is. :up:


I am not at home right now and I don't remember off of the top of my head, so I will post it when I get home tonight. But you can find it under that menu by browsing through some of the options and then "checking" the box next to the "automatically delete commercials".

[windracer]

Ad Detective menu, set Ad Detective Parameters item. Then go to the Common Parameters tab and turn on "Automatically Cut Detected Scenes."

My own personal experience with Ad Detective is hit-and-miss, mostly miss. I find it faster to scroll through and put in my own manual cuts rather than waiting for Ad Detective to scan the file and add its markers, then review the markers to make sure it's actually a commercial, etc.

[greg_burns]

Ad Detective menu, set Ad Detective Parameters item. Then go to the Common Parameters tab and turn on "Automatically Cut Detected Scenes."

My own personal experience with Ad Detective is hit-and-miss, mostly miss. I find it faster to scroll through and put in my own manual cuts rather than waiting for Ad Detective to scan the file and add its markers, then review the markers to make sure it's actually a commercial, etc.

Thanks. Ad Detective is definately not fool proof. But I like to let it run then I can quickly jump to the markers it sets using F5 & F6 and mousewheel to scroll into the video to see if it is a commercial or not.

Just tried the automatically cut detected scenes... didn't work out so well for me. I think it takes the human touch to determine what are ads and what aren't.

[emwoods]

Thanks. Ad Detective is definately not fool proof. But I like to let it run then I can quickly jump to the markers it sets using F5 & F6 and mousewheel to scroll into the video to see if it is a commercial or not.

Just tried the automatically cut detected scenes... didn't work out so well for me. I think it takes the human touch to determine what are ads and what aren't.

Ditto that for my experience. I edit and delete manually. Takes only a few minutes for an hour show and faster than letting Ad Detective do it automatically. Moreover, a lot of shows tend to have the commecial breaks around the same place in the hour.

I usually just edit a bunch of programs, create Project files, and then batch them all up using the batch processor. Walk away and come back in half an hour and you have 6 - 8 one hour programs converted to MPEG video with no commercials. Of course your mileage will vary depending on the speed of your computer.

[c monkey]

Hmm... I've found the automatic detection to be right on. I still go back and check but have never found a commercial that wasn't deleted.

[ccagle]

my steps:
http://clint.gotdns.com/articles/2006/01/10/tivo-dvd-in-5-steps-using-free-software

[greg_burns]

Hmm... I've found the automatic detection to be right on. I still go back and check but have never found a commercial that wasn't deleted.

I will play some more, but when I did it, it had everything reversed (from what little I checked). Commercials were selected and the show wasn't. Of course, I also change my default to scene(?) mode when I install. Maybe that has something to do with it. (There probably is an invert button also, will look closer tonight)

Either way, it is fast once Ad Detective places the markers.

[sljack63]

Okay - before I go downloading more software (VR) I need to ask if it will help with what I want to do.

I tried to record the Rose Bowl for my dh. I missed the last few minutes of the game because I didn't pad the recording long enough :o So, then I recorded the game on ESPN Classic. However, ESPN does not include the B-1 flyover before the game, nor does it have the half-time show.

So I want to trim the ESPN recording to include just the last few minutes of the game that I missed recording originally and tack it on to the end of the original recording. Can I do this using VR, or does let you create projects like this? If not, can I convert the two different recordings using VR to MPEGS and then import those MPEGS into Pinnacle 10 to create a project/video? Or if not Pinnacle, does the trial version of Sonic MyDVD for Tivo users support this?

TIA

[greg_burns]

Don't have it in front of me, but I remeber you asking about this before. And I did notice last night something called "joiner" on the menu. I assume that is what it is for. There is a trial. I would go for it. Great program. :up:

Edit: I take that back. Joiner has nothing to do with joining mpg files (or at least so this description makes it sound)

http://www.videoredo.com/FAQs/SupportFAQDVDEdiitingAuthoring.htm#JoinMultipleVOBs

[windracer]

I'm pretty sure you can use the Joiner to join MPEG files. VOBs are just MPEG files after all ...

[Bai Shen]

VideoReDo also has automatic commercial detection.

Edit: Jinx!

I've actually used the automatic commercial detection feature of VideoReDo on a .tivo file and it works perfectly. It runs a scan that takes about 5-8 minutes for an hour program. When it's done all the pure black frames are marked with little flags. You can then jump around to each of those flags and use them to mark the start and end of commercial blocks and cut them. Including the scan, cuts and save the whole process took about 15 minutes. Not bad considering most transcoders will take at least realtime on a moderate PC.

Dan

From what I've seen of TVHarmony, it actually looks for more than just the black frames. Not sure of the full logic behind it, but it works remarkably well.

[2004raptor]

Just pulled this thread up and have a question. I transferred a 1.6GB file over to my pc from the tivo. I will try one of the above programs to get rid of commercials. Let's say after I edit it I have a 1.2GB file. What is the best program to reduce the file size but yet retain some decent video quality? And what would a good guesstimate be on the file size after it's reduced? Maybe 75%, 50%, etc?

[tonyonlinux]

If you find the answer to this let me know. I'm assuming xvid would be the way to go but a really good program would be good. I know on the linux side you can use transcode with mplayer and use some bash scripts to reduce the file size and keep good quality. But I would like to know of a windows program that does this easily as well. VirtualDub I'm sure will but a easy gui of mpeg2 to xvid would be sweet.

[bonnie_raitt]

If you find the answer to this let me know. I'm assuming xvid would be the way to go but a really good program would be good. I know on the linux side you can use transcode with mplayer and use some bash scripts to reduce the file size and keep good quality. But I would like to know of a windows program that does this easily as well. VirtualDub I'm sure will but a easy gui of mpeg2 to xvid would be sweet.

I like Dr. Divx. It has a simple interface and allows you to batch several programs consecutively. Does take a while though

[emwoods]

Okay - before I go downloading more software (VR) I need to ask if it will help with what I want to do.

I tried to record the Rose Bowl for my dh. I missed the last few minutes of the game because I didn't pad the recording long enough :o So, then I recorded the game on ESPN Classic. However, ESPN does not include the B-1 flyover before the game, nor does it have the half-time show.

So I want to trim the ESPN recording to include just the last few minutes of the game that I missed recording originally and tack it on to the end of the original recording. Can I do this using VR, or does let you create projects like this? If not, can I convert the two different recordings using VR to MPEGS and then import those MPEGS into Pinnacle 10 to create a project/video? Or if not Pinnacle, does the trial version of Sonic MyDVD for Tivo users support this?

TIA
Yes, the joiner feature in VR will allow you to do this. I use it when I have a show that spans more than a single DVD (I have a Humax burner, too) and I want to create a single video file from multiple DVDs. You may windup dropping a few frames, but most people will probably not even notice it.

[emwoods]

If you find the answer to this let me know. I'm assuming xvid would be the way to go but a really good program would be good. I know on the linux side you can use transcode with mplayer and use some bash scripts to reduce the file size and keep good quality. But I would like to know of a windows program that does this easily as well. VirtualDub I'm sure will but a easy gui of mpeg2 to xvid would be sweet.


I use DivxPro which will allow you shrink a MPEG2 video file to roughly 20 percent of it's original size. As mentioned in another post, it does take a while to compress the file. Count on roughly 1 minute of time for compression for each minute of video. However, the files are much smaller and I doubt most people will notice any difference. Note that most DVD players will not play Divx files although a lot of PC video players will. However, you can buy a DVD player that will play Divx files for less than $60 and it takes only five minutes to burn a disk since you don't have to transcode when burning the DVD. In fact, you can fit 4 - 8 programs on a single layer DVD depending on the length. In may cases I can fit an entire season of an hour long program on a single layer DVD.

[greg_burns]

Just pulled this thread up and have a question. I transferred a 1.6GB file over to my pc from the tivo. I will try one of the above programs to get rid of commercials. Let's say after I edit it I have a 1.2GB file. What is the best program to reduce the file size but yet retain some decent video quality? And what would a good guesstimate be on the file size after it's reduced? Maybe 75%, 50%, etc?

I like using DivX also. I'm glad they are working on Dr. Divx2 for a little more control. But using DivX Creator is stupid easy and does what I want. :)

http://www.divx.com/divx/create/divxpro/

DivX technology can compress digital videos 5 to 10 times more than the MPEG-2/DVD format

Grab yourself the latest Converter 6.1 beta 2 version from here

http://labs.divx.com/Other

[sljack63]

Okay, I've downloaded VDR. Now I'm so completely lost :confused: :mad: I am so new to all of this and it is frustrating trying to figure it all out.

I opened the tivo recording in VDR. Used the automatic add detection thingy. Now wtf? How do I tell the program to automatically cut out the commercials? Do I have to do it manually? I'd tried help, but it was useless. The VDR forum doesn't move as fast as this one, so please forgive me for posting this question here, but I'm so frustrated I couldn't wait for an answer. I've already wasted 2 hours of my life trying to figure the stupid thing out. Is it really that hard?

[tonyonlinux]

Okay, I've downloaded VDR. Now I'm so completely lost :confused: :mad: I am so new to all of this and it is frustrating trying to figure it all out.

I opened the tivo recording in VDR. Used the automatic add detection thingy. Now wtf? How do I tell the program to automatically cut out the commercials? Do I have to do it manually? I'd tried help, but it was useless. The VDR forum doesn't move as fast as this one, so please forgive me for posting this question here, but I'm so frustrated I couldn't wait for an answer. I've already wasted 2 hours of my life trying to figure the stupid thing out. Is it really that hard?

It took me a little while to figure it out myself but what what it does is mark the commercial points with flags. You start at the first of the film then use the red arrows at the bottom to go to the next flag. if its a commercial hit pause and go backk to the start of that flag point and hit set start. then go to the end of the commercial block using the red arrows and set the end. then hit cut selection do this for all the commercial blocks then hit save thats it. HOpe this helps.

[peggylenox]

I downloaded TVHarmony to my laptop -- then they asked for the IP address and then they asked for the Media Access Key. When I went in to TIVO to find it, here were all thse warnings not to give it out. What about that? Will lightning strike me if I do it? Thanks, peggy

[greg_burns]

Okay, I've downloaded VDR. Now I'm so completely lost :confused: :mad: I am so new to all of this and it is frustrating trying to figure it all out.

I opened the tivo recording in VDR. Used the automatic add detection thingy. Now wtf? How do I tell the program to automatically cut out the commercials? Do I have to do it manually? I'd tried help, but it was useless. The VDR forum doesn't move as fast as this one, so please forgive me for posting this question here, but I'm so frustrated I couldn't wait for an answer. I've already wasted 2 hours of my life trying to figure the stupid thing out. Is it really that hard?

I like to use the F5 & F6 to jump to the different markers that Ad Detection places. Quick scroll on the mouse wheel to see if it is the show. If it is, F5 to move back the marker and then click Sel. Start. F6 to jump to end marker. Click Sel. End. Then click Add Selection.

Note: I have my setup in the reverse of default; "scene editing mode". Tools->Options->General Parameters->Editing Mode dropdown. Seems more natural this way.

Once you have all the scenes highlighted you wanna keep. Click Save As...

Pretty simple and very fast once you know what to do.

[windracer]

I opened the tivo recording in VDR. Used the automatic add detection thingy. Now wtf? How do I tell the program to automatically cut out the commercials?
See also my post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3669637&&#post3669637) earlier in this thread for how to turn on the automatic cutting in Ad Detective.

[Stu_Bee]

I downloaded TVHarmony to my laptop -- then they asked for the IP address and then they asked for the Media Access Key. When I went in to TIVO to find it, here were all thse warnings not to give it out. What about that? Will lightning strike me if I do it? Thanks, peggy

It's really not "they" asking for that info. It's the TVHarmony program running on your PC that needs it to communicate with your Tivo. It's fine to provide that info to the application.

[sljack63]

Okay, I after a full day of it, I finally figured out how to cut commercials and to concatenate two different film clips into one video. VDR is a pretty awesome little program.

The video I made is of the Rose Bowl. Now I am attempting to open my file in Pinnacle so that I can add some chapters and menus and burn my file to disk. Here is where I think I'm going to run into a huge problem. By the time VDR got done making one continuous video file for me, I ended up with a 10G file!!!! :eek: Pinnacle is still trying to open the damn thing. I have no idea if Pinnacle can get this monster off onto one DVD. I'm thinking not? If Pinnacle can NOT compress the file down onto a dvd, what do I do now? There has to be a way to put the Rose Bowl on a dvd for pete's sake?!! Gosh, maybe it would be easier to just go on ebay and buy a dvd copy of the game :mad:
Edit: Rose Bowl DVD (http://texas.rivals.com/stoItem.asp?Entity=182&Product=18215)

[greg_burns]

With a single layer DVD, I can never even fit 2 hours of video without it wanting to compress it. Compression can make it look pretty bad. :down:

I find this whole process great for fitting two 1-hour television shows (sans commercials) onto a DVD. In your situation, I would plan on making two discs or just buying it (which will undoubtedly be a dual-layer disc). :rolleyes:

[sljack63]

Update: I divided the video b/t 2 disks: one disk has the first half and the half-time show, the 2nd has the last half and post game awards/wrap-up. So far, I've manage to burn the first disk and it looks great. I'm very pleased so far. Thank you all for your help here. VDR is a nice little program that I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy. :)

[sac66808]

When you guys are trying to fit all this video onto a DVD, what quality are you using when you pull it off of Tivo? Are you recording at Best, Good, etc?

[baggs32]

So I'm gathering that the only two options for cutting commercials out of a transferred show are TVHarmony and VideoReDo?

I'm trying to edit commercials out of some kid's shows so my son doesn't have to sit through them, and I don't have to FF through them for him, all the time. I have Roxio EMC 8 but it doesn't seem to allow me to cut parts of the video out. Is there an easy inexpensive (preferrably free) application out there that will let me do this? Would it be easier to convert the .TiVo file to an MPEG, AVI, or something else first and do the cuts in another app? If so, what's the best way to do that?

I'm new to the video editing game so I need all the help I can get if you haven't figured that out yet. :)

[EwanG]

So, are there any of these tools that either have a Linux version, or that will run under WINE on Linux?

Inquiring minds and all that...

[greg_burns]

So I'm gathering that the only two options for cutting commercials out of a transferred show are TVHarmony and VideoReDo?

I'm trying to edit commercials out of some kid's shows so my son doesn't have to sit through them, and I don't have to FF through them for him, all the time. I have Roxio EMC 8 but it doesn't seem to allow me to cut parts of the video out. Is there an easy inexpensive (preferrably free) application out there that will let me do this? Would it be easier to convert the .TiVo file to an MPEG, AVI, or something else first and do the cuts in another app? If so, what's the best way to do that?

I'm new to the video editing game so I need all the help I can get if you haven't figured that out yet. :)

Those two are definately the best IMO. Nero Vision Express will also do it, and I assume also Sonic (aka Roxio). But they suck at it in general. They are free considering you have to have one of them to burn a DVD anyways, but time is money. :p

Used to be, you had to "free" your .tivo file before using it in VideoRedo. Now VideoRedo works with raw .tivo files. You could probably still use a tool like DirectShow Dump to free your .tivo file to .mpeg and then use whatever video editing tool you like to remove commercials. It just seems to be me that you would be hard pressed to find a simpler tool then VR. The other higher end tools can probably do a lot more, but I sure don't need it.

[baggs32]

Those two are definately the best IMO. Nero Vision Express will also do it, and I assume also Sonic (aka Roxio). But they suck at it in general. They are free considering you have to have one of them to burn a DVD anyways, but time is money. :p

Used to be, you had to "free" your .tivo file before using it in VideoRedo. Now VideoRedo works with raw .tivo files. You could probably still use a tool like DirectShow Dump to free your .tivo file to .mpeg and then use whatever video editing tool you like to remove commercials. It just seems to be me that you would be hard pressed to find a simpler tool then VR. The other higher end tools can probably do a lot more, but I sure don't need it.

So I can mark a section of video between two points and cut it out with NVE? Sonic MyDVD which is part of Roxio EMC 8 does not allow me to do that and I'm really ticked off that it doesn't.

[greg_burns]

So I can mark a section of video between two points and cut it out with NVE? Sonic MyDVD which is part of Roxio EMC 8 does not allow me to do that and I'm really ticked off that it doesn't.

AFAIR, yes. I used to do it, so it must. :) But the interface takes awhile to get the hang of.

Also that editing using NVE 3 comes with a big caveat. For me at least, if I was working with a .tivo file it was incredibly SLOW to move the around the video to find starts and ends of commericials. If I ran the same file though, DirectShow Dump to extract the .mpeg then used NVE editing was acceptable speed. Why? I dunno. But NVE is very flaky when using raw .tivo files (I call it the screechy audio & garbled video bug). Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Definately free your .tivo before attempting this at home. :)

But trust me, once you compare VideoRedo to Nero's editing you won't go back. Just the ad detection feature of VR makes it worth the $50. Plus, saving after the edits takes just a minute or so. NVE saves after edits seemed to take forever AFAIR. Plus, VR has 15 day trial so see for yourself.

[lunarhamster]

Hi Folks, I'm totally new to this forum and just found this thread. I've used Direct Show Dump to convert .tivo to mpeg2 and DivX Pro (trial version) to convert to DivX. I was very sad to see that ALL the sound is off on every converted file. :( Has anyone else run into this? Do you have any suggestions? I just used the drag & drop "DivX Converter" verson 6.2.1.25. I certainly don't want to buy it now since all the files it produces are trash. (The do look good, though!). I'm open to other divx converting programs--I'd love to hear what works for you.

Thanks!

[greg_burns]

Hi Folks, I'm totally new to this forum and just found this thread. I've used Direct Show Dump to convert .tivo to mpeg2 and DivX Pro (trial version) to convert to DivX. I was very sad to see that ALL the sound is off on every converted file. :( Has anyone else run into this? Do you have any suggestions? I just used the drag & drop "DivX Converter" verson 6.2.1.25. I certainly don't want to buy it now since all the files it produces are trash. (The do look good, though!). I'm open to other divx converting programs--I'd love to hear what works for you.

Thanks!

I've done the same thing many times before (DSD->DivX Converter) w/o any audio problems. Not sure why you are having them.

I've read that exporting from VideoRedo as .vob (instead of .mpg) inserts NAV packets that helps with audio synch problems. (I have no idea if those NAV packets would help in making a DivX file though.)

May want to give it a try using VR instead of DSD. Cost $50 but it will also let you quickly strip out the commercials as well.

[Robertjm]

I had a similar situation, albeit with a different application. A friend suggested that there are video codecs AND audio codecs. Once I loaded the correct codec (file dependant) that fixed the problem.

Good luck!!

Robert

[dlfl]

Yes, the joiner feature in VR will allow you to do this. I use it when I have a show that spans more than a single DVD (I have a Humax burner, too) and I want to create a single video file from multiple DVDs. You may windup dropping a few frames, but most people will probably not even notice it.
VideoReDo is great! You can try it uncrippled for 15 days and I bet you will fork out the $50 to buy it :cool: And it is fast! :up: And it is easy to learn and use! :up:

One restriction (I'm pretty sure) on the joiner is the files to be joined have to be the same format (same resolution and/or same TiVo quality).

The AdDetective works very well on many files with its default settings, although I always manually review the results. However, you can customize its parameters and also "train" it on a selected clip. I've never done this and it probably is only worth doing if you process numerous files having the same commercial-break characteristics. However it doesn't look complicated to do, and there is good help describing how the detective works, etc.

Support is up close and personal too. :up:

[dlfl]

When you guys are trying to fit all this video onto a DVD, what quality are you using when you pull it off of Tivo? Are you recording at Best, Good, etc?
I use medium quality (352x480 = one of the official DVD-compliant resolutions). This is adequate for non-HD TV's up to 27" IMO. Haven't viewed it on anything larger or better so ???

You can put about 3 hrs of this on a single layer DVD provided you can prevent your DVD authoring process from re-encoding the video to a higher bit rate and/or resolution.

[Dan203]

Hi Folks, I'm totally new to this forum and just found this thread. I've used Direct Show Dump to convert .tivo to mpeg2 and DivX Pro (trial version) to convert to DivX. I was very sad to see that ALL the sound is off on every converted file. :( Has anyone else run into this? Do you have any suggestions? I just used the drag & drop "DivX Converter" verson 6.2.1.25. I certainly don't want to buy it now since all the files it produces are trash. (The do look good, though!). I'm open to other divx converting programs--I'd love to hear what works for you.

The DivX encoder uses DirectShow to decode audio and video before converting it to DivX. Do you have the same sync issue if you simply play back the MPEG file before it's converted to DivX? If so then it's an issue with your MPEG or MP2 audio codecs. If not then it's either a problem with your DivX/MP3 playback codecs or a problem with the DivX encoder itself.

Dan