'Video Jukebox' Question(s)

[csell]

Question for you all -

I have a pretty extensive collection of movies on my computer. They are all in AVI format and I intend on creating a 'video jukebox' using my Tivo. I've seen other people mention the same idea and have some questions I hope someone can help me with... I am basically trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that all of the videos are in AVI format which is not supported by Tivo and I've come up with 3 solutions:

1) Convert them to MPEG-2 using one of many applications out there. This is certainly the most straight forward solution, but will be very time consuming and also will take up the most space. But I will certainly do it if its the best choice.

2) Convert them to MPEG-4. Its my understanding the Tivo HD handles this (is that correct?). This will certainly help with the file size issue (I think), but will still be very time consuming.

3) Use pyTivo. I've never used it before, but its my understanding that it is compatible with AVI. But it's also my understanding that what it actually does is converts it before it transfer it. Is this correct? If so, how long does this conversion take? If you want to watch a 2 hour movie, how long will it take to convert and ultimately tranfer? Are we looking at an hour or so before its ready? Don't like that idea!

Anyone have any other suggestions or comments?

Thanks!

[lafos]

I use a Windows Home Server to store videos. There's a free add-on that serves as a TiVo server. I have used it for AVI files from ripped movies. I ripped and converted to ~1 GB/hr. If I start the transfer 15-20 minutes ahead for a 2-hour movie, I can watch it without it pausing. pyTiVo is supposed to have good transfer performance, but I've never tried it.

[dylanemcgregor]

Question, are you planning on having the primary storage place be the Tivo or the computer?

I use pyTiVo to transfer avi files pretty regularly, and find I usually only have to give it a 2-3 minute head start. I usually start the transfer, go and watch a music video from music choice or something like that, and then start watching the show. I only occasionally have run into issues where I've had to pause and wait for more show to transfer. I find that pyTiVo transfers shows even faster than TiVoDesktop did when I used to preconvert the file. I'm just on a wireless G network btw...

[wmcbrine]

2) Convert them to MPEG-4. Its my understanding the Tivo HD handles this (is that correct?).Sort of. If you use a specific variant of MPEG-4 (h.264, with some restrictions), you can stream it via the HME apps HME/VLC or tivostreamer. See their respective threads for more info. You can't transfer it to the Now Playing list -- that still only supports MPEG-2.

3) Use pyTivo. I've never used it before, but its my understanding that it is compatible with AVI. But it's also my understanding that what it actually does is converts it before it transfer it. Is this correct?Not quite. It converts as it transfers. With an SD source, you can easily watch in real time.

[Aflat]

I would go with 3. The speed does depend on the machine a bit, but any machine built within the last 4 years can transfer SD in real time. I had a P4 3GHZ single core machine, and it could transfer divx/xvid movies in realtime, or it may have needed a 30 second pause sometimes. I now have a CoreDuo 7200(fairly low powered) and the only thing I need to pause for are Blu-ray rips. I have to pause for about 5 minutes, then I can watch the movie straight through.

These rips are 10gig mkv rips, so a 5 minute pause is really nothing. I think its still faster then having to wait for a blu-ray machine to boot up, select the movie, wait for it to play all those unskippable warnings, and finally get to the movie. It's just much nicer all around.

[csell]

Based on what everyone has said so far (and thanks for all of the replies), I'm thinking #3 (pyTivo) is sounding the best so far as it does not require me to convert all of my AVI's to MPEG-2 and the start delay sounds very insignificant. A follow up question regarding this:

I know very little about pyTivo (I'm going to start looking at it now and downloading it) but I am assuming it runs in the background as a windows service just like the Tivo Server (TivoDesktop). Do you still use Tivo Server / Desktop and essentially have both running on your system? Or does pyTivo eliminate the need for TivoDesktop?

[ZeoTiVo]

I know very little about pyTivo (I'm going to start looking at it now and downloading it) but I am assuming it runs in the background as a windows service just like the Tivo Server (TivoDesktop). Do you still use Tivo Server / Desktop and essentially have both running on your system? Or does pyTivo eliminate the need for TivoDesktop?
I have both running, though I only use desktop for getting shows off TiVo now. PyTiVo runs in the background as a service that survives reboots just fine. I largely forget about PyTiVo and just manage the media files in the designated set of folders.

the delay is no big deal for me with mpeg2 video redo files. I start the transfer - it comes up and pauses and I hit 8 sec skip back and it plays from there without pause and much faster than real time on my wired network. I have thought about going with smaller mpeg4 files but I am not an archiver and delete the files after the family has watched them.
And that is the real test of things like this to me. before I condintioned the files with video-redo I had issues with bad time signatures and dropped transfers, etc. Since I added video-redo to the process and gave TiVo a clean file the whole family now looks in the MyVideos folder at the bottom on now playing list for our Netflix queue.

Thanks to PyTiVo developers! great work :up: