h.265 wtv files? mkv? stick with mp4?

[kansanian]

Maybe not best place but I haven't been here in a long time.
What's the best way to compress WTV recordings while keeping metadata and allowing other devices to maybe play the files someday. Subtitles would also be nice to keep playable in WMC.

Looking at mcebuddy, their latest does h.265. Would it do that into a WTV container? If so, would those files still have the right metadata for Recorded TV HD to see? Would the files still play on other software, such as Emby?

Want to save some space but keep files that can be played by other things. If mkv is best with other metadata, or some other renaming convention, just want to know what others think.

Not sure I care about commercial removal as long as the skip forward/back still works.

[jachin99]

It depends on what you use to read metadata. If your use the built in libraries in WMC then your best bet is to stick with a smaller WTV file. Most media servers can transcode your files anyway provided your PC is strong enough so that might let you play these files in other programs should you choose to leave WMC. I doubt h.265 will fit into a WTV file but you can try and find it. If that works its a complete accident though. Do you use any plugins with WMC to view these files or is it strictly the built in library?

[kansanian]

Recorded TV HD. Recently decided to try it.

May just have to buy mcebuddy and try some things with it I guess

[jachin99]

I haven't tried it lately but I have read that with RTVHD you have to rename your files a certain way so that when RTVHD looks up metadata the naming conventions match. If you convert them to something other than wtv then wmc menus won't read the metadata. Also be careful when your converting if you want anything better than stereo for the audio

[choliscott]

It looks like only MP4 or MKV have H265 and not WTV profiles in MceBuddy. If you were to use the WTV to WTV conversion, the metadata should convert over. Remember that WTV files allow you to FF/Rew in WMC.

If you were to convert to MKV or MP4, you should still have the ability to Skip ("30 second"). In order to have RTVHD show MKV or MP4, the file name would need to be something like this (which also works for Emby):

Show Name - S##E##.mp4
Show Name - S#E#.mp4
Show Name - S##E## - Episode Title.mp4
Show Name - S#E# - Episode Title.mp4
TVDB ID # - S##E##.mp4

Unless you changed WMC file naming format, I'm not sure if MceBuddy has the option to help rename the files in the format listed above using the metadata that is part of the WTV file. If you use EPG123, you can setup the file naming format so the created recording file is in the format, I mentioned above.

Another program that helps with renaming is called Filebot. It looks like the latest version costs money, but unless something changed earlier versions worked with no issues.

Since I like to remove the commercials from the shows I want to keep, I've been using Videoredo. It can edit, shrink, and convert into different formats including WTV. It doesn't have H265 capacity and the program isn't exactly cheap ($100)

[kansanian]

Thanks for the info! I kind of expected WTV not to support h.265. Good to know ahead of time.

I think as long as I can tinker with automatic naming conventions that work with mcebuddy it might work out.

h.265 would be nice to save some space, so I might spring for buying it if I can sort out naming convention working with metadata.
Does the paid version support .wtv files that are actually converted to h.264 while keeping the WMC metadata intact? Basically, keeping things "the same" but with smaller files? That would be slick.

It would be "nicer" to just keep it all in the regular "recorded TV" area, but space savings might be worth h.265 in mkv. Skipping is fine, we never really use regular ff/rw.

[jachin99]

I don't know if WMC will even play a h.265 file. I would look around some, and test things out before purchasing anything. I personally just expand storage as needed. I have found that this is the best way to maintain things like metadata, and file quality. Will you be trying to stream these out of your house or watch any of them on a smaller screen? If you have say a 55" TV but you sit ten or twelve feet away then you might not notice the difference between 1080 and 720. I found a thread on the Video Redo forums about reducing wtv file sizes here https://videoredo.net/msgBoard/index.ph ... les.30838/ I have video redo as well but I mostly record premiums so I don't use it much anymore.

[kansanian]

Yes, it's played test files in the past just fine. 720 would be mostly OK for most of the things I'm looking to archive.
It's more of an experiment than a serious need at this stage. Got a lot of things that would be somewhat interesting to keep, and a lot that maybe isn't needed. Not seriously in need of space, and have "enough" with one large drive at the moment.

As for streaming elsewhere, not really. On really random occasions, maybe, but not a concern. If it was, it would probably be something where I'd use Emby anyway and let it transcode. Haven't played around much with streaming outside the house in a long time.

Mostly, I wondered if anyone else had experimented with h.265 and if it was worth it. To me, the idea that file sizes are so much smaller is cool. Why not go for 1/4 the size vs. 1/2 of MPEG2 (.wtv native)? The other concern is metadata. Since I hadn't touched mcebuddy in ages, or ever much, I didn't know if it could do .wtv files as h.264 and keep metadata, or what the options really were.

For now it seems like the paid one can do .wtv files as h.264 and keep metadata? That would mean no need for add ons, and keeping regular recorded TV which is cool. If some other thing like "recorded tv hd" does metadata as long as I name the files right, that's probably OK honestly. That's where I'm interested in h.265 in any container if it works.

[DavidinCT]

I don't know if WMC will even play a h.265 file. I would look around some, and test things out before purchasing anything. I personally just expand storage as needed. I have found that this is the best way to maintain things like metadata, and file quality. Will you be trying to stream these out of your house or watch any of them on a smaller screen? If you have say a 55" TV but you sit ten or twelve feet away then you might not notice the difference between 1080 and 720. I found a thread on the Video Redo forums about reducing wtv file sizes here https://videoredo.net/msgBoard/index.ph ... les.30838/ I have video redo as well but I mostly record premiums so I don't use it much anymore.

WMC will play a h265 file fine as long as you have everything to support it. Namely a video card with a HEVC decoder on it (or most h.265 higher bit videos will be a slideshow) GTX960+ have them, it's on pretty much all cards in the last 2-3 years. And correct codecs for it.

H265/HEVC is the man compression for 4K videos... It's impressive on the space for quality

[SoNic67]

My problem is that even if my video card decoded hardware any kind of h264/h265 files (nvidia GT1030), it affects the WMC usability as DVR.
Skip, seek inside of a highly compressed file takes way too long compared to the original MPEG2 files. I could not find encoding settings for h264 or h265 that will eliminate that issue - using ffmpeg or handbrake directly or via MCEBuddy).