UGH! Pls walk me thru playing .avi on S2 using winavi...

1176 Views 13 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Stylin, Sep 22, 2007

Stylin

Discussion Starter · Sep 19, 2007

Gosh! I thought I was getting savier the more I used tivo, but unfortunately this is not the case. I rarely use Tivo desktop, but would now like to watch some of my .avi (divx) files on tv. I read some posts in this forum and ended up going with winavi (tried pytivo- didnt understand what I was doing).
Ok, so I take my .avi and convert it to mpeg2 via winavi. In winavi, I unchecked "keep original size", made screen 720/480.
Unfortunately, when I try to playback on tivo I get a jumping picture with white lines going through it.
The one thing I noticed is that the "Tivo Recordings" folder in my pc shows the files as "Nero media player files". Is there any way to disable/remove this?
Also, are there any other settings I should tweak in winavi? I'm using TD 2.5 and WinXp.
All help is much appreciated - Thanks much!

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1 - 14 of 14 Posts

jkalnin

· #2 · Sep 19, 2007

Might I suggest Videora. My favorite converter by far! (And it's free)

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rambler

· #3 · Sep 20, 2007

Ditto.

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Stylin

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 20, 2007

The reason I was hesitant to go with Videora was due to conversion speed. I figured winavi would be faster.

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mitch2k2

· #5 · Sep 20, 2007

Make that 3 for Videora. If that's the route you want to go. If your computer can handle the on-the-fly conversion (or if you're willing to transfer a show/movie a couple of hours in advance of watching it), I'd say check out Tivo.Net.

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jkalnin

· #6 · Sep 20, 2007

Well, you could also upgrade to TD 2.5 Plus, which allows on the fly conversion of divx and xvid files. Videora converts movies for me faster then a 1:1 ratio, so a two hour movie usually converts in about an hour to an hour and a half.

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Stylin

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 21, 2007

Ok, well I installed Videora and converted all of my files. You uys were correct it was very easy.
Now I have a 2nd problem: The entire file is not xfering. I've successfully xfered 1 file to the tivo and it shows up in NPL, but when I go to do a 2nd file it only downloads about 2 secs. I have lots of hd space so wanted to keep the files to watch later.

Edited for additional questions:
Now I get the msg "added to TD list will start xfer after previou xfer completes" , but there is no previous xfer.
- can xfers take place when a show is being recorded from tv?
- if I'd like to xfer like 6 videos, is there a way to queue them to auto xfer 1 after th other?
- does the desktop program have to be running for a xfer to complete or is the server enough?

Thanks

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jkalnin

· #8 · Sep 21, 2007

I've had some minor issues with transferring files. Sometimes you have to restart tivo to get them working again.

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Stylin

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 21, 2007

You mean power it off from the back etc?

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jkalnin

· #10 · Sep 21, 2007

Stylin said:
You mean power it off from the back etc?

No, go into the menu and select restart tivo.
Messages and Settings -> Restart or Reset Tivo -> Restart The Tivo DVR

You have to hit Thumbs up 3 times then enter. You have to wait like 5 mins for it to totally happen, and you lose 30 second skip (if enabled). My Tivo always seems much faster after a restart.

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jkalnin

· #11 · Sep 21, 2007

I notice these transferring problems if you try to transfer a program before it is fully transcoded, or if you delete a file while it is being transferred over. I think network errors can also screw it up. It has happened to me all of two times, and I've done it hundreds of times so it is rare.

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Stylin

Discussion Starter · #12 · Sep 22, 2007

Thanks for sticking this out with me. I did restart from th menu, and still no luck. The movies were/are definitely all transcoded via Videora, but still it is only xfering 1 sec of the movie. The 1st one went throughno issues, but the remaining 6 are all having the same prolbem! I am so frustrated! I'm tempted to just burn the files to dvd, but I'd really like to learn how to fi this as it's a feature I'd like to use heavily in the future.

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jkalnin

· #13 · Sep 22, 2007

Hmmmmm - I am not sure what is going on. Have you tried using Galleon instead of TD? I know that is not a real solution, but at least you might get it working better then tivo desktop.

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Stylin

Discussion Starter · #14 · Sep 22, 2007

I have galleon installed, but of course I'm now having config issues- gosh! I just want the dang stuff to xfer. Maybe I'll try tivodotnet or post this as a seperate issue.

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