.tivo file playback issue: white bar at the top of screen

[dasanidrinkertiv]

When I play back a .tivo file on my PC (in windows media player), there is this moving thin white horizontal line at the very top of the screen - it makes it look like a vcr recording and is pretty annoying (and totally kills any benefit from recording in best quality). Any way to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I forgot to mention that the quality of the playback file just generally sucks, although I think this is just a flaw of the tivotogo system (the video playback isn't always smooth, though audio is, and you can sometimes see interlacing in the video)... sigh, this looks like a poor implementation of a good idea...

Edit2: it appears the video plays back slightly better when viewed in a smaller window as opposed to full-screen, but the white bar is still there :(

[windracer]

From what I understand that white line is the closed-captioning information and other data encoded in the video stream. When viewed on your TV, that line is hidden by the overscan (i.e., it's in the portion of the video off the screen). Since the file on your PC doesn't have overscan, you see the full frame and thus the white line.

[dasanidrinkertiv]

From what I understand that white line is the closed-captioning information and other data encoded in the video stream. When viewed on your TV, that line is hidden by the overscan (i.e., it's in the portion of the video off the screen). Since the file on your PC doesn't have overscan, you see the full frame and thus the white line.


oh for the love of....

is there anyway to get rid of this? I can't imagine any service that comes without closed captioning so does everyone using tivotogo get these white bars? ghetto! (thanks for your answer)

[windracer]

You'd probably have to use some sort of editing tool to crop it out.

[dasanidrinkertiv]

You'd probably have to use some sort of editing tool to crop it out.

ah, so you get this in your tivotogo recordings too? I'm just trying to a handle on whether this is just me experiencing it or everyone (in either case, poor execution by tivo).

also, are there any other insights on the general quality of the file? I have a powerful computer, so I doubt that's the issue, and I'm using wired ethernet for the transfer

[Dan203]

Everyone gets this. Some channels use more lines for VBI then others, so it's more obvious on some recordings then others.

The only easy way to fix it is to upgrade to TiVo Desktop Plus. It includes a croping filter which automatically crops off the top 4 pixels of every TiVo recording during playback. It's very handy.

Dan

[windracer]

VBI ... thanks Dan, I knew there was some acronym for it. :)

dasanidrinkertiv, yes, everyone gets this. I rarely watch downloaded videos on my PC as I'm usually transferring them to my iPod via TiVoDesktop Plus, which as Dan says crops the video for me.

As for the quality on your PC ... keep in mind the video file has a much lower resolution than your PC monitor (i.e., something like 480x320 for medium quality ... Dan can chime in here). If you're expanding out to full screen at 1280x1024, it's not going to look as clear.

[rambler]

Hey, I had the white line issue too when using Windows Media Player, but if I play the .tivo files using a free player called KMPlayer the lines aren't there. The videohelp.com site has info and download info on the KMPlayer.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=KMPlayer