New to TiVo Desktop Plus

[JaimeMuleMas]

I just downloaded the Plus version today and I'm curious -- is it normal for it to take hours to convert a show to a new format?

Thanks.

[wmcbrine]

Yes.

[JoeTaxpayer]

is it normal for it to take hours to convert a show to a new format?


Variables - Length of show, speed of processor(s), format to which you convert.

On an older Mac, it could take up to 5hrs per hour of video to convert. On my 2010 Mac, it's less than 30 min per hour of video. But it depends on many factors, as I list.

Best plan is to start the process before you go to sleep.

[JaimeMuleMas]

So far, with my laptop (i3, 4G ram) it seems to take around 3 hours for a one hour show. That seems a bit excessive to me.:mad:

[lrhorer]

Again, it depends on what you are converting from and to. Going from a .ts or .TiVo file to a .mpg file (i.e. transcoding) should be fairly fast, even with a modest CPU. Doing a full recode on a one hour video from .mpg to h.264 takes more than a couple of hours, even on a 3 GHz, six core CPU with 8G of memory, using VideoRedo TV Suite.

[JoeTaxpayer]

So far, with my laptop (i3, 4G ram) it seems to take around 3 hours for a one hour show.

You're encoding show pulled from TiVo to what final format? You have my curiosity.

[jcthorne]

720p mpg files should be able to convert to h.264 in close to real time rates on a decent processor. My laptop i7 with nvidia graphics engine running XP manages 40 or so frames per sec at 720, 22 fps at 1080. High end desktop processors running a 64bit OS should fair better. Just a data point for comparison.

If you are going to convert video to h.264, you will need processor power.

[JaimeMuleMas]

Honestly, I wasn't sure what format to use so I picked VGA. I'm taking the files and using Serif MoviePlus to create a DVD. I was doing this with some episodes of Sesame Street. If there's a better way to create DVD, I'm happy to try that.

[steve614]

Honestly, I wasn't sure what format to use so I picked VGA. I'm taking the files and using Serif MoviePlus to create a DVD. I was doing this with some episodes of Sesame Street. If there's a better way to create DVD, I'm happy to try that.

Tivo Desktop Plus is geared towards converting files for portable devices and as such will convert the file to a resolution much lower than the DVD standard.

IMHO if you want quality DVDs, I think you'd be better off using PyTivo or kmttg (search this forum) to download files and automatically remove the .tivo wrapper. End result is you have an .mpg file that will work with your DVD creation software with better results.