pyTivo Discussion Forum

rdian06 · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 463

Got a link to the method you're using to convert the mkv to mp4? Just curious if it's cooking the audio.

KyleR96 · Joined: 13 Jun 2008 Posts: 3 Location: Lewisville, TX

Tennesotans · Joined: 08 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

If I understand this thread, y'all have found a way of playing h264 on your Tivo with a custom script/HME. What resolution h264 can the Tivo HD decode? 720p? 1080p? Does this play with pause, 30 sec skip, ff, rw...??

I'd MUCH rather use my Tivo HD than buy a blu-ray player Wink

wmcbrine · Joined: 04 Jan 2008 Posts: 514

I've played a 1280x720p 24fps h264 file with no trouble. I'll try 1080i/p when I find them... I'd be surprised if they didn't work.

Trick play works if you program it. Currently I have it doing pause/play/ff/rw, but not skip/replay yet. (This requires a slightly more complex app than the one I posted here. I'll post it on TCF in the "Video Streaming in HME" thread later. Meanwhile, you can get some additional functionality from Allanon's version, if you can't write it yourself.)

rdian06 · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 463

wmcbrine · Joined: 04 Jan 2008 Posts: 514

I myself have only stereo equipment, sorry.

Tennesotans · Joined: 08 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

Sounds promising... I will see if I set this up... I will report back Smile

MasterCephus · Joined: 04 Jan 2008 Posts: 173 Location: Hueytown, AL

So to summarize, wmcbrine, you can successfully send a h.264 file to the Tivo and it will play without it having to be transcoded using the HME stuff you speced out?

wmcbrine · Joined: 04 Jan 2008 Posts: 514

Yes. But, only in that way. After some failed experiments, I've decided that I'm not going to spend any more time trying to do it through pyTivo until we know that it can be done at all via HMO (rather than HME) -- presumably when TiVo Desktop 2.7 comes out.

rdian06 · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 463

Don't mean to get anyones' hopes up prematurely. Just wanted to add a few links to relevant information for if/when we start pursuing the h264 HMO route again.

1) h264 + AC3 5.1 audio in an mp4 container will work with HME streaming currently. See:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6680769#post6680769

2) ffmpeg as of SVN 15184 (tweaked again in SVN 15197) has AC3 muxing support for mov/mp4/m4v. Meaning my recent SVN 15216 build should be able to turn an h264 + AC3 mkv into an h264 + AC3 mp4 file by just simple remuxing or do just audio transcoding and remuxing for h264 + AC3 high bit rate/DTS/AAC to h264 + AC3 mp4.

3) Streaming/transferring an mp4 container out of ffmpeg on the fly will be problematic because mp4 streaming requires transplanting the moov atom from the end of the file to the beginning of the file using a utility called qt-faststart that is part of the ffmpeg utils suite.

See http://multimedia.cx/eggs/improving-qt-faststart/

A pure Python version of qt-faststart.py exists here:

http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2008-September/052952.html

Basic research on qt-faststart and ffmpeg indicates that the moov atom is normally moved as part of a second pass and that the whole of original file where mdat atom appears before moov atom must be available for the second pass to begin.

My conjecture at this time is that we either have to figure out if ffmpeg can be modified to somehow determine the moov atom by scanning the input file and then generating the moov before the streaming begins (so that it can send the moov atom before mdat atom) OR hope that Tivo will be made to accept an EVO or MPEG2-TS container for HMO in the future.

jcthorne · Joined: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 27 Location: Houston, TX

Heck I'd be happy with a two step process.

Convert the mkv to an MP4 and then let pytivo/ffmpeg stream it to Tivo.

Got my hopes up you did! Smile

PaulS · Joined: 04 Jan 2008 Posts: 148

Absolutely. Dealing with these MKV files is more trouble that it's worth.

rdian06 · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 463

jcthorne · Joined: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 27 Location: Houston, TX

Sorry, I should not have said streaming. What I am looking for is HMO I suppose. I don't mind the two step process, heck most of the mkv files have to be preprocessed before pytivo gets them now. But I would like to store h.264 video on the tivo rather than mpeg2 for the significant space savings.

I do not and will not stream from a file server to tivo. Streaming in real time for HD video is a loosing proposition with Tivo due to its overhead for network operations. And I do not want a file server independent of the Tivo running 24/7 for cost of operation reasons. Tivo is pretty energy efficient, even with large drives attached. PC file servers are not.

Really look forward to this h264 being a part of pytivo storing the video on the Tivo. Heck, I'd really like to find a way to move our music and photo data to tivo or a very efficient NAS device.