Convert WTV

[hipsterdoofus]

I was hoping to convert some shows my wife would like to keep more "long term" to another format. I think I tried this with MCEBuddy or something awhile back and she wasn't real pleased with the results. I don't think either one of us is super crazy about quality, but it seems like the conversions I did resulted in a bunch of artifacts on the screen. Mostly, on her long term stuff, I just want to reduce the space its using so it isn't the typical full HD. I'd love any suggestions for settings to try and even programs to use to try it. Thanks

[choliscott]

Another program you can try (I believe it has a 2 week trial) is called VideoRedo. The total cost is around $100, & I've been using it to convert my videos & been pretty happy with the results. It even allows you to compress the file & still keep the native .WTV format.

I was hoping to convert some shows my wife would like to keep more "long term" to another format. I think I tried this with MCEBuddy or something awhile back and she wasn't real pleased with the results. I don't think either one of us is super crazy about quality, but it seems like the conversions I did resulted in a bunch of artifacts on the screen. Mostly, on her long term stuff, I just want to reduce the space its using so it isn't the typical full HD. I'd love any suggestions for settings to try and even programs to use to try it. Thanks

[adam1991]

I've never had an ounce of trouble with MCEBuddy. Rock solid conversions every time.

[hipsterdoofus]

I've never had an ounce of trouble with MCEBuddy. Rock solid conversions every time.

Maybe it was a settings issue? What do you convert yours to and what kind of sizes are you seeing post-conversion?

[adam1991]

I have it double-convert to mp4; seems to me that an hour gets down to 600-900MB.

I don't do it often, but it's never failed me.

[hipsterdoofus]

I have it double-convert to mp4; seems to me that an hour gets down to 600-900MB.

I don't do it often, but it's never failed me.

Thanks, I'll take a look at that again.

[hipsterdoofus]

Also, do you do any commercial skips? I tried that at one point but I'm always nervous it will cut out some stuff.

[adam1991]

I do commercial skips, but I'll uncheck that when I use MCEBuddy.

[hipsterdoofus]

I do commercial skips, but I'll uncheck that when I use MCEBuddy.

So you don't use the built in functionality to remove commercials? I think MCE buddy has 2 options now to do it, was just wondering if you had used either successfully

[hipsterdoofus]

Yeah I set a conversion process to mp4 high quality which is a 2 pass - this was on a 1 hour HD show, it looked good in smaller resolution but when I tried to view it on my HTPC, while the overall video quality was good, it had pretty constant artifacts popping up on it. Any other suggestions?

[JazJon]

The new MCEBuddy 2.3 Beta 15 supports true WTV Unproccessed profile & Skip Remux Skip Copying. (doesn't work in pre beta 15 builds)
https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/437842

Commercials are cut out lightening fast now.

I know some people want to convert WTV to MP4 etc, but XBMC PVR ServerWMC works great with native WTV files since it uses Media Center as the full backend.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=ServerWMC

[blueiedgod]

The FREE Windows Movie Maker can be used to convert and edit WTV files, as well. It is not automated, like MCE buddy, but works.

[hipsterdoofus]

The new MCEBuddy 2.3 Beta 15 supports true WTV Unproccessed profile & Skip Remux Skip Copying. (doesn't work in pre beta 15 builds)
https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/437842

Commercials are cut out lightening fast now.

I know some people want to convert WTV to MP4 etc, but XBMC PVR ServerWMC works great with native WTV files since it uses Media Center as the full backend.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=ServerWMC

Thanks, I received some of the same info from the MCEbuddy forums, I guess if you want 2.3 beta 15 though, it isn't free, so something I would need to consider. Interesting info on ServerWMC hadn't heard of that.

[jasonmcroy]

I started using MC-TV Converter tonight. Seems to work pretty well for me. I always convert my files to MKV and then I use Avidemux to manually cut out the commercials.

I think you can use comskip in MC-TV Converter but I haven't really looked into it.

[hipsterdoofus]

I started using MC-TV Converter tonight. Seems to work pretty well for me. I always convert my files to MKV and then I use Avidemux to manually cut out the commercials.

I think you can use comskip in MC-TV Converter but I haven't really looked into it.

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

[hipsterdoofus]

I tried MC-TV converter last night. I went with the mp4 HQ setting. The file that came out was large compared to what was put out by mcebuddy... it also wouldn't play even though it said it was an mp4 file. Not sure what went wrong. The whole process also was a lot longer than MCE buddy. Its possible I did something wrong but I will say I'm not as impressed so far.

Any reason you did MKV over mp4? I seemed to have problems playing MKV from media browser.

[jasonmcroy]

I have just always used MKV. I don't have any particular reason really.

I am not sure what is happening with your experience using the program. You could check out the forum for it linked off of the website.

[hipsterdoofus]

Yeah, I didn't have my Java path put in for one thing, so I'm trying another run. The feedback on the forums is good so I must be doing something wrong.

[jasonmcroy]

Oh yeah, not sure about MP4 format but it wouldn't even let me convert to MKV until I added the Java path.

[hipsterdoofus]

Oh yeah, not sure about MP4 format but it wouldn't even let me convert to MKV until I added the Java path.

Yeah it was weird - it ran it but didn't come up with usable output. I ran it again today with the java path in and it completed. I'm very happy with the quality of the output. I used avidemux to cut commercials. The only thing is I wish the file size was a little smaller - using mce-buddy the file size was pretty small. I assume there are settings to tweak if you wanted to make the file size smaller. Other than that I like it.