Devices I’ve used at length:

• HTPC running Windows Media Center
• Western Digital TV Live!

Both of those devices were OK, but I felt that both had their limitations. Either lacking in features or usability. Both required use of their own inputs on my home theater and thus, were not very well integrated into the whole experience. Issues such as occasionally having to plug in a keyboard to the HTPC to address an issue, or the Western Digital TV Live not having certain features, like a web browser or Netflix (which I believe the newer models have).

My only expectation for a HTPC/Meida player really are:

1. Ease of Use
2. Integration into Home Theater
3. Ability to stream many media formats (up to 1080p) and play back smoothly
4. Ability to stream online content (specifically, Netflix)
5. Web Browser

I recently was in San Diego visiting friends and one of them had the new Logitech Revue Google TV based device hooked up! I was intrigued because I’m a bit of a gadget guy and anything home theater related immediately catches my eye. After poking around with it for a half hour or so, I decided once the funds became available that I would purchase one myself and give it a whirl.

What really set the Google TV apart for me is that it’s not just another home theater component, but more an extension of your current DVR/STB by living “in-line” between your STB and your Television. In my eyes, this is what makes it a more valuable addition to any home theater.

So let’s dive into my expectations and how they were met:

1. Ease Of Use / 2. Integration into Home Theater

The Logitech Revue itself was fairly simple to setup. It has two HDMI ports on the back (in from your STB and out to your Receiver/TV), an optional optical out port if you use an external device for sound processing and an optional IR blaster port (and IR blaster) if the IR ports on the box are unable to reach your device. My setup has the Google TV living directly between my DirecTV DVR and my Denon AVR-2308CI Receiver, and the IR ports were able to control both devices without a problem.

Once it was all hooked up, the Logitech Revue automatically detected and set my resolution to 1080p when starting the setup. The setup itself is fairly easy and goes even faster if you have a “Google Account” before you start the process. All my devices and their IR codes were supported and was a snap to setup.

Once everything is booted up, I was fairly impressed. The UI itself looks like a next generation TiVo and is fairly simple to navigate. I think the easiest way to get around on Google TV is to use their “spotlight-like” search which lets you jump anywhere from Web Browsing, tuning in a channel on your DVR or going into an Application.

Features like PIP while web browsing and continuing playing the background make it super easy to use and a great user experience.

3. Ability to stream media from network resources

The main reason I use a HTPC/Media player is to play back 1080p MKV content from my Network Storage Device. The biggest question to me was, “Could the Logitech Revue, with it’s 1.2Ghz Intel Atom processing ability, be able to play 1080p MKV files over the network without any skipping or frame drops?”

The answer is, IT CAN! The Logitech Revue can play 1080p MKV files no problem! This is accomplished using the Logitech Media Player application that comes installed by default on the Logitech Revue. The only downside is that the Logitech Media Player does not support SMB shares (yet, hopefully), so you’ll need a DLNA server on your network to serve up the content. The Logitech Media Player was able to see my Twonky based DLNA server without issue and stream all the media containers and formats I had available (DivX/h264/AVC/MPEG/AVI/MKV/MPG).

The only technical shortfall I found was the lack of support for playing back DTS streams. AC3/Dolby were supported without issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.

4. Ability stream online content

This is a mixed bag and I’ll touch more on it in my final thoughts, but overall I was pleased with the offerings so far. The Netflix and Pandora apps built into Google TV worked great and I was able to use both without a single issue. Netflix is integrated directly into the Main Menu, so you can see your recommendations right off the bat.

The Web Browser (Chrome) is fully enabled with Flash and is able to play most online content from major providers, such as YouTube, Comedy Central, NBC and so on. There are some licensing issues, so sites like Hulu are blocked.

5. Web Browser

This is one of those areas where I’ve never REALLY used the functionality on previous boxes. I never invested in or wanted a full size keyboard laying around my living room to support my HTPC, and other devices such as the Western Digital TV Live! simply didn’t have a browser installed. So this was new ground for me and I was curious how it would work out using my TV for regular browsing.

Oddly enough, it seemed weird at first but then the other day my Macbook’s battery went dead and I decided to sit and browse through Google TV. I found the experience very fluid and natural. The ability to zoom in and still have a touch pad mouse made it all feel very familiar. I missed some things, such as tabs and small things like that, but overall I didn’t run into any issues using the browser for casual browsing.

The only drawback I had was that I found the experience in the browser to be much slower and less responsive than the rest of the system. Once your video was up and playing, you can enable full screen playback without a hiccup. So I’m not entirely sure on the reasons for that, but I imagine it can be addressed in coming releases.

Overall, I’ve been really pleased with the purchase of the Google TV powered Logitech Revue. I think your experience and reception of the device will depend upon your expectations. A replacement for your STB television provider it is not, at least, not yet. What is is (currently) is a power enhancement to your current Home Theater giving you greater ability and features without having to switch from Input to Input and utilize different devices to accomplish a quick task.

Watching a movie and want to look up who a certain actor is? Now that information is available on screen.

Just missed the end of your show and want to know when it’ll be on again? I bet you $20 that the Google TV software can find the next showtime faster using the “Spotlight-like” search than your STB can.

You want to read about the news while watching it? Now you can.

I think if the above reasons are high on your list of desires for a Home Theater component, I think you should give the Google TV powered Logitech Revue a try.

Cheers!

New AppleTV

I’m not an Apple insider nor have I actually used the new AppleTV which was revealed today by Steve Jobs. What I am though is an avid user of multimedia devices on my Home Theater. My current toy of choice is the spectacular Western Digital TV Live!, which literally plays everything*.

So I was a bit excited today to hear that Apple was rolling out a new model of their somewhat lame duck that is AppleTV. What they delivered was a big, fat, floppy turd on the chest of everyone at the conference. I was let down during the demonstration and even more let down after actually reading the technical specifications posted to Apple’s site.

And on that note, I present my Six Reasons why the new AppleTV is a Floppy Turd.

6. Apple has apparently missed the 1080p Wagon

Since the release of Quicktime 7 Apple has really been focusing it’s media efforts on HD content. Even Trailers posted to Apple’s site occasionally come in HD formats (470/720/1080p) and they look FANTASTIC! Anyone with a 1080p capable display can attest to this.  Then why, OH WHY has Apple decided that for an set top box which is supposed to deliver the “HD content people want”, would Apple limit the output to 720p @ 30fps?! In the age of 1080p Blu-Ray content and 3D television, Apple has apparently taken the path of “good enough” for it’s hobby device.

5. Only supports up to H.264 Level 3.1

This one really blows me away and also plays into my previous point. The standard accepted H.264 level for consoles is 4.0 (if not 4.1), which supports the Blu-Ray standard of 1080p @ 24fps in a decent bit-rate. Devices such as Western Digital TV Live! cost $99 as well, but support these advanced H.264 profiles. Why Apple?

4. Apple still has a hard-on for MP4 container

I’d expect in a device released in the year 2010 to support more container formats than just MP4, but alas, we’re dealing with Apple. And honestly, we’re dealing with a two headed monster. First, the Mp4 format is standard so most every console supports it. Even Microsoft has it’s weight behind the MP4 container due to it’s formalized standards, despite it’s technical shortcomings. The second is that other superior container formats, such as Matroska (MKV) aren’t exactly “standardized”, so major hardware manufacturers are hesitant to adopt it as a supported format. Not to say it HASN’T been adopted by anyone, there’s a good number of devices and set top boxes that DO support Matroska in glorious fashion.

3. Apple just used parts it already had

From a cost perspective, I can understand this choice… but it’s still a complete disappointment. From the looks of it, the new AppleTV is no more than an iPod Touch with an HDMI output adapter. It uses the same A4 Processor that is now in almost all Apple devices and I’m fairly sure will share the same PCB as the iPod Touch or possibly even the new iPod Nano. What grinds my gears on this is that even the HTC EVO 4G supports 1080p output of video (using the HDMI adapter), so how on earth does Apple reconcile that it’s new AppleTV, a media-playback-centric box, has less media capability than a mobile device?

2. You can stream to it, right?!

I guess. One of the features touted at the conference was that you’d be able to play movies from your iPad and watch them on your TV. But does it have to be YOUR iPad (tied to your account), or can your buddy bring over HIS iPad and watch one of HIS movies on YOUR AppleTV? I’m guessing no. Apple isn’t huge on content sharing.

My guess is the only time this will come in handy is when your wife leaves for work, you can finish watching the porn on your TV.

1. So then what is it good for?

It’s good for Apple to make money. It pumps up the sales volume and market penetration of their A4 platform which would otherwise only be moving out of their warehouses via mobile devices. It also acts as a point of sale for additional sales through iTunes. Sure, it’s only 99 Cents per show, but the only networks that are signed on are available in HD Over-The-Air (OTA) for free. So sure, you can say that AppleTV might save you money by using it versus having Cable, but as it stands right now, just watching the same shows OTA for free would be the cheapest solution.

I find it disappointing that Apple didn’t take this opportunity to strike into the HTPC market that they struck out on during the first release of AppleTV. Windows Media Center Edition is such a great platform for media playback and is being installed on smaller and smaller devices powered by Intel’s Atom platform.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m far from an Apple hater. I enjoy my iPhone4 and MacBook Pro as much as the next Apple Fanboi… I can just smell shit when I see it

*Does not, in fact, play everything… but supports a heck of a lot more than AppleTV!

The available alternatives out there didn’t seem technically feasible as most D-Link and Linksys offerings are merely Windows Media Center Extenders with “support for MPEG-4/ASP” (read: DivX) but no support for MPEG-4/AVC or MPEG-4/VC1. The option of setting up another HTPC for my home theater wouldn’t be financially viable because at a base price of about $399 I might as well invest in a Blu-Ray burner to watch my backups.

Enter the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player…

Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player

While scouring the internets looking for solutions to my problem, I stumbled upon the recently released Western Digital Live HD Media Player. The specs fit the bill (and them some) for my technical expectations:

• VIDEO – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
• AUDIO – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS

Throw in the fact that it supports 1080p over HDMI and is only, it seemed like a no brainer!

The device itself is small. Hilariously small actually. Imagine a small box of 3.5″ floppy disks (if anyone actually remembers those)

Now, my home network setup is unique to my situation. I have two Apple Airport Extreme base stations extending the same network. My NAS is attached to one base station in my office. The Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player is attached to another Apple Airport Extreme base station on my home theater. I knew going into this situation that bandwidth would be an issue as playback of h.264/MKV video is bandwidth intensive and can sometimes require upwards of 50mbps depending on the quality.

My initial testing after hooking up the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player showed that I was in fact having issues with wireless bandwidth from my Intel SS4200-E NAS to my home theater. The MKV playback of a 1080p MPEG-4/AVC video began stuttering and losing audio/video sync. I started to get disheartened because I thought my Apple Airport Extremes must have been connecting to each other at the highest possible speeds, right? Wrong.

Turns out I had room for improvement in my Wifi setup. I stumbled upon this blog post over on Engadget which talked about the speed differences between Apple’s 2.5Ghz “compatible” N and their 5Ghz modes. I checked my Apple Airport Extremes to see what my network was set at. You can do this by opening up the Airport Utility and selecting your primary base station. Under the wireless tab, you should be able to select your wireless mode.

Setting Apple Airport Extreme Radio Mode

After fiddling around with all the settings, I found that explicitly setting 802.11n with a 5Ghz radio frequency gave me much higher wifi throughput as I had previously running 802.11n in “b/g compatible” mode. The downside of this is not only 802.11n devices that support the 5ghz frequency are able to join my home network, meaning our iPhones are stuck to non-wifi mode while around the house.

Apple Airport Wirelss Setup for Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player

That aside, the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player was able to play back all of my 1080p HD content without slowdown or playback issues. It would seem from other reviews on forums and across the internet might be having networking issues if they’re having trouble during playback. Granted, I can’t speak for every method of encoding h.264 (between different profiles & containers, it’d be hard to do a comprehensive test), but I can say that my files which I encoded with x264 and saved in an MKV container playback perfectly!

I couldn’t be happier with the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player and I haven’t had a single issue yet. It’s able to connect to my Intel SS4200-E NAS (both UPNP Media Server and SMB) and browsing files is a sinch. Part of me wishes the interface allowed for more interactive content, such as Media Browser does for Windows Media Center by automatically loading movie information and covers based on the file name. I suppose these features might come at a future time, as Western Digital has just released the first firmware update for the TV Live HD Media Player and they seem to be on track for the next release shortly.

The only drawback I’ve run into thus far is the inability to play WMV files, which I suspect might be a licensing issue… but who knows. It might be coming in a future firmware update as well!

Hope this helps someone out there in the same situation I was in! Please leave any questions you might have and I’ll be more than happy to answer!

Cheers!

The case I’ve been using is a Morex 3677B case, which is fairly small but still allows enough room for a 2.5″ Hard Drive and a Slim Laptop CD/DVD drive.

A couple gotchas I ran into while upgrading from the VIA board to the new Intel Atom based board:

1. The Zotac IONITX board has only SATA connectors, no PATA connectors to be found! This was a road block as both my previous hard drive and slim CD/DVD drive were both PATA so I was forced to upgrade them as well. Luckily I was able to score a 320GB Seagate drive for only $79!
2. Zotac provides a small 50mm fan to use on the heatsink because the Dual Core N330 CPU as well as the nVidia northbridge require active cooling. Luckily the Morex case has a 50mm exhaust fan that sits close to the heatsink. I was able to flip it around and use it to blow onto the CPU.
3. Speaking of the heatsink, it’s about 1.5″ high and ALMOST comes too close to not fitting into the case. So it’s something to keep in mind when you’re working on your setup!

I’ve got everything hooked up and it was very easy to get the driver package installed. Because the Zotac IONITX came out so recently, the CD it came with had the latest drivers and the motherboard had the latest BIOS installed.

The ONE issue I’m having and still searching for a solution for is that using HDMI as the audio output, I’m getting audio distortion. I’ve tried different source materials and even tweaking the audio settings, but it’s still happening. Other than that, I’ve been super pleased with it’s performance! I mean, seriously, a computer the size of a shoe box showing four CPU’s (2 physical + hyper threading) and an nVidia graphics adapter!

Hope this helps someone out there in the market for upgrading their own HTPC as well!

Cheers!

So I built an HTPC. I built a GREAT HTPC. It was small, fanless and had everything I’d ever need. But I was disappointed though, only because the quality of the video combined with what I was ACTUALLY able to do with it let me down. I suppose it was my own fault because I had let my desire for the system to be completely silent and fanless impact its performance.

Fast forward a couple years later and I have this shoe box sized PC sitting below my computer desk at home. What should I do with it?

In moving forward with reviving my HTPC from its unused ranking among my home hardware, I decided to set forth a couple of goals for the upgrade so I could be pointed in what I was shopping for (and so I could have a valid excuse to tell my wife why I was spending more money on something I never used in the first place )

1. More CPU Horsepower – This is obviously the most important aspect of this upgrade. Currently my HTPC uses a VIA EPIA-M 600mhz fanless Mini-ITX motherboard with built in CPU/Video. Originally this seemed like enough to play NES ROMS but it became obvious that OS overhead and lack of video acceleration were deal breakers when it came time to play DivX/XviD movies. So this next version had to have considerably more CPU power.
2. HDMI/HD Video Support – In the last few years I’ve upgraded my Home Theater to use HDMI exclusively. It was mostly to clean up the serpent lair that was the are behind my AV rack (which I’m sure the EMF was giving me cancer). Here’s a picture (seriously, no joke!) So, in honor of my new found love affair with HDMI, this new HTPC must support HDMI in a Mini-ITX form factor up to a resolution of at LEAST 720p.
3. 5.1/7.1/Surround Sound Support – Sorta the same as above, but the HTPC needs to support surround sound. As I’ve mentioned in my previous article, when I backup my DVD’s to XviD, I preserve the Dolby AC3 soundtrack so I would like to still enjoy the surround sound when replaying these files on my HTPC.
4. Wireless Ethernet – You see a theme here? Basically I want the power cable and the HDMI cable being the only wires coming out of the back of this device. Wireless Ethernet is pretty standard on most motherboards now, so this shouldn’t be a tall order.
5. Price – I understand that to make this upgrade even worth it, things have to be cost effective. I want to upgrade the Mini-ITX motherboard in my HTPC for under $200 out the door.

I began my search at my favorite peddler of Mini-ITX and mini-system wares, LogicSuppy.com. I immediately take note of the new Intel Atom based solutions from both Intel and Jetway, but I also note that Intel has decided to “nerf” their Atom offerings as to not undercut their desktop motherboard market. Their Atom Mini-ITX boards, albeit cheap (sub $100), lack sever of my requirements. The Jetway Atom boards at LEAST offer DVI (so I could do a ghetto fabulous DVI -> HDMI conversion), but that would require more cables than it’s worth and the Jetway boards cost upwards of $250! Yikes!

The time came to conjure up my Google-Fu skills to see what I could come up with. Newegg has some descent offering from VIA but all the EPIA boards are under powered in comparison to the latest Intel offerings. A 1.8Ghz VIA C7 board would seem to have the horsepower, but it fell short of the requirements and also crept up to almost $300!

I keep going back to the Atom platforms but none of them seem to fill my requirements. That is, until I come across the NVIDIA ION platform offering from Zotac! I remember reading about NVIDIA ION but never gave any serious thought to it as a desktop platform. I decided to check out the features of the Zotac IONITX-A Atom N330 Offering:

1. Horse Power: Dual Core Atom N330 1.6Ghz CPU — CHECK!
2. HD/HDMI: 1080p over HDMI — CHECK!
3. Surround Support: 7.1 over HDMI — CHECK!
4. Wireless Ethernet: Build In — CHECK!
5. Price: Amazon lists it at $189 when it’s released  – CHECK!

It seems we have a winner!

Talk about a colossal upgrade for a HTPC. A Mini-ITX motherboard that has a dual core CPU and HDMI output!? Insane! Needless to say as soon as this little bad boy hits the streets I’ll be picking one up.

I’m curious if anyone else out there has been in the market for a mini HTPC upgrade as well? What have you been looking for and what were your requirements? I’m interested to hear from you!

Cheers!

Turns out that the MP4 files made by the Samsung NV24HD camera are a of a non-standard H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. So what’s to do?

Well, if you’re an Apple user (which I assume you are since you’re reading blog entry about iMovie ), then you’re in luck. There’s a tool you can download called ffmpegX which allows you to convert the MP4 files to iMovie compatible MOV MPEG-4 files. In addition, ffmpegx can convert video files to a multitude of formats inlcuding iPod, iPhone and DivX formats. So even if your issue isnt EXACTLY the video files from the Samsung NV24HD camera, ffmpegx is still a great utility to use for video transcoding/covnverting in OSX

Screen Shot of ffmpegX

The only down side I had to doing this was the time it took to convert. It took over two hours to encode a 25 minute movie at 640×480 on my 2.4ghz Macbook Pro. So if you’re planning to use this method, plan to leave your Mac plugged in for a while.

Also, I’ve yet to try newer iMovie ’09 which also just may fix this issue. When I’m able to get my hot little hands on a copy of iLife ’09, I’ll be sure to let everyone know if it works out!

Hope this post is able to help out my fellow Samsung and Apple users out there!

Cheers!

I checked around the net for models that were supported by my car (which was hard because it was a 1st generation, 1st year TSX). I know there’s an MP3/DVD Player option as well as an XM head unit available for the 2004 TSX, but no iPod adapters from Honda. I finally decided on the DICE Electronics R4 Kit for Honda/Acura because it had received positive reviews and seemed a pretty simple install

I purchased the DICE iPod Kit from a reputable seller on eBay for $139 + tax and had it within a few days. The unit itself is pretty small (only a couple square inches) and has inputs for the iPod cable as well as AUX input. It’s a good thing the unit is so small because it has to fit up in the dash

Installing the unit in my car took about all of 2 minutes. Literally.

(Sorry about no pictures, I’ll add them as soon as I’m able to!)

Step one was to remove the storage bin that is located below the factory radio. This is where the factor XM or MP3 player would go. Simply open the bin and pull it out towards you. There are two clips on the bottom right and left as well as clips on the top.

Pull out the storage bin carefully as the light above is still attached to it. Carefully remove the light taking care to not break the housing. Once the bin is out your radio compartment will be exposed. Just a warning: be careful in there! Unless you’ve unhooked your battery, there’s still live current as well as some wires for the airbags Don’t kill yourself over an iPod hookup

Step two is wiring it in. You’ll see one wire running straight up into the stereo. Unplug this. This is the wire that will plug into the daisy chain provided by the DICE iPod kit. Plug the other end of the DICE iPod kit into the factory radio.

Step three is running our cables however you choose (into the glove box, storage bin, middle console) and putting the storage bin back in! Presto! Done!

I used a Dremel and cut out a small section of the bin to run the cables through. To keep it clean looking, I used a bit of rubber (read: old mouse pad) to cover the Dremel spot and cut a slit down the middle allowing the cables to run through it. This helps seal up the bin without having a gaping hole into my dash. Also, for the sake of future use I added a small amount of hot glue to the connectors that are plugged into the DICE iPod Kit so (god forbid) someone pulls on the cable too hard it wont unplug from the DICE iPod Kit while still in my dash. I didn’t add a LOT of glue, just a small drop to hold them in place nicely.

Finished storage bin with iPod & Aux Cables

A few “gotcha’s” about this unit and the 2004 Acura TSX. The ‘XM’ mode of the DICE iPod Kit only works with Honda/Acura models with an actual ‘XM’ button. This wasn’t introduced until the 2005 model year. The 2004 Acura TSX only has a “CD/AUX” button. Because of this, the DICE iPod Kit cannot work and will not be detected in XM mode. You have to set the unit to “CDC” (CD Changer) mode.

Other than that, the unit works great! It’s able to charge my iPhone 3G while I’m listening to music as well as allowing me to stream my iPod and any audio from my iPod straight into my factory radio!

Setting the DICE iPod Kit to ‘iPod’ mode allows you to control the iPod manually on the screen and not with the wheel controls. I find this much easier than trying to navigate the songs using a ‘track up’ & ‘track down’ method on my steering wheel. Also, in ‘iPod’ mode, the DICE iPod Kit acts as a standard audio source. Meaning it’ll play Pandora and send ring tones to your factory radio without having to use the AUX input, like iPod adapters from other manufacturers!

I hope this helps someone else out there in the same situation I was in Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be sure to post pictures of my setup as soon as I get them!

Cheers!

Talk about backwards game development!

It’s a pretty sweet soundtrack and I highly suggest everyone take a click over this his website to check out the soundtrack as well as his other musical creations which are just as good!

Cheers!

SCIENCE!

Backing up to DivX is another story though. I’ve always been a stickler for quality and control over the process. A perfect example of this is my use of “old” programs such as VirtualDub and refusal to use the “1-Click” applications because I feel like I lose control over the quality. I think this stems from my age and time of use because back during DivX 3.11 there were no “1-Click” applications that could copy a DVD and any attempt at making one usually failed terribly.

So I’ve always manually converted them, again, out of my own stubbornness. I thought I’d post my steps here to see if anyone agrees that there’s some method to my madness (or to tell me that I’m getting old and should get with the times!)

My process allows me to encode any DVD content into DivX using 2-pass XviD encoding while still maintaining the original Dolby Digital AC3 audio track.

To use my process, the following programs are required:

1. DVD Decrypter
2. DGIndex
3. VFAPI (codec + utility)
4. XviD (codec, koepi’s build)
5. VirtualDubMod

Step 1: Backup the DVD

Actually, that’s a misleading title. Really it should be decrypt and demux the movie. Using DVD Decrypter, I demux the MPEG-2 (M2V) and the Dolby Digital Audio (AC3). This gives me the raw video and audio files I need. Set the AC3 aside because we’re only going to deal with the M2V file.

Open DVD Decrypter and select the drive with the DVD you wish to backup. Select “IFO Mode” from the Mode menu and choose the “Stream Processing” Tab.

Inside this Tab, you’re able to select which streams you want to backup from the DVD. Usually I only select the Video Stream and the 6 Channel Audio Stream. Be sure to also select the “Demux” radio button for each stream. Start the backup!

DVD Decrypter

Step 2: Create a D2V File

Open DGIndex and open the demuxed M2V file. This will generate a D2V file which contains information needed by other programs to open and process the M2V file properly (such as Framerate, Aspect Ratio, etc., etc). Once the file is opened, select File -> Save Project. This will start DGIndex processing the video file and analizing its contents. Once the process is complete it’ll give you a D2V file that you can now use in VFAPI

DGIndex

Step 3: Create AVI File using VFAPI

Using the VFAPI driver and utility, you’re able to create a .AVI container file that uses the D2V information and M2V file as the video source. This allows you to open the .AVI file in a program (such as VirtualDub) and access the video information without having to actually go through an MPEG-2 parser.

Open VFAPI Converter, hit “Add File” and select the D2V file generated by DGIndex. Then select “Convert”. This will create the .AVI file we will work with in VirtualDubMod.

VFAPI Utility

Step 4: ENCODE!

I use VirtualDubMod as my video editor here because the “Mod” version supports muxing the AC3 audio back into the video file we create.

I do two pass encoding using XviD because it gives me the highest quality video and a more precise file size. This way I can set my movies to be encoded into an exactly 2GB file and TV show episodes into 700MB files.

Before I begin encoding the first pass, I also add the Virtualdub Deinterlace filter to it’ll handle the deinterlacing of the input video. This is important so you don’t lose any bits of data with the encoder trying to give data to the interlaced movement when it shouldn’t even be here!

VirtualDubMod Deinterlace Filter

UPDATE 01/27/2009: It was brought to my attention by my good friend Paul that there is a ‘better’ Deinterlacing plug-in for VirtualDub called Smart Deinterlacer which can be had from their website It sports some good features such as edge-directed interpolation which is a feature of the (formerly) Faroudja DCDI video processor used in quite a few high end video processors! As far as quality comparisons/speed between the default VirtualDub plugin and Smart Deinterlacer, well, I haven’t been able to spot a difference yet. I used the movie Leatherheads as a test and the frames seemed identical when I compared the deinterlaced output (Smart Deinterlacer v2.8 beta 1 used). I guess it’s up for you to decide which you prefer, but I felt I owed it to my readers to at least offer up an alternative!

Another option in the latest version of XviD is the ability to encode using multiple threads, thus enabling XviD to encode faster on multi-core machines. Currently encoding a movie at full resolution with the deinterlace filter, my Q6600 can encode a movie at 70fps first pass and 35fps second pass.

XviD Multi-Threaded Encoding Option

(Note: Not all modes of XviD encoding are multi-core friendly. Enabling cartoon mode for example will force the XviD encoder to use only a single thread)

On your second pass, this is where we remux back in the AC3 audio stream. Add it to the stream list and encode!

Adding the AC3 Stream back to the DivX Video

Your finished product will be a high quality DivX backup of your original DVD movie!

Now, I’m sure there’ll be some questions from the peanut gallery on why I do things one way or another. So I’ll just handle a few obvious ones here

Q: Why do you use DGIndex/VFAPI to handle the MPEG2 Video? Why don’t you just use the MPEG2 Input filter for VirtualDub?

A: I gave that a try for a while but it turns out that handling an MPEG2 video in VirtualDub using the plug in is hella slow. The file is not easily navigated, takes a long time to load and in the end is just burdensome to work with. I find using the DGIndex/VFAPI driver solution better because the input file is loaded quickly and is easily worked with. It doesn’t require loading the entire MPEG2 stream to memory

Q: You’re crazy! You know single click solutions probably give you just as good quality with much less work!

A: You’re probably right! I never claimed that this is the “one and only way” to encode a DivX file to get the highest quality. I just find this way works best for me

Q: Can I use this method to backup a DVD using the new ‘corrupt IFO block’ copy protection found on newer DVD releases such as “The Dark Knight”?

A: Short answer, no. The new copy protection mechenism used causes DVD Decrypter to just crash. Even if you’re using a driver patch decrypter like DVD43, DVD Decrypter still won’t be able to handle the corrupt IFO information. Have I been able to work around it? Yes, but the only process I’ve come up with thus far is long and cumbersome. I’ll blog about that later if it’s requested, but it’s not pretty.

Q: Why do you keep the AC-3 audio? Why not just conver it to MP3 so you can get more space for better video quality?

A: I’m an audiophile. I’m willing to deal with the recoded video because I know the audio will still be the same sweet sounding Dolby 5.1 that was on the original DVD. If you are so inclined to convert the AC3 track to MP3, you can do so using HeadAC3he. If you are going to be converting the AC3 to MP3, I suggest when demuxing the DVD you select the Dolby 2.0 track, this way it’s down sampled to stereo by the studio which will yeield much better results than letting HeadAC3he down sample six channels to two.

Q: Why XviD? Why not use an official copy of DivX?

A: I chose XviD because it keeps my method of backing up DVD’s to only free/open source programs. Also, I’m a fan of the XviD encoder options in letting me configure and specify a lot of different things. Such as number of threads to encode with (so it’ll take advantage of my multi-core machine) as well as different encoding types (such as enabling Cartoon Mode). Koepi’s build is lightwight and easy to use.

Q: Why are you still using the AVI container? You know that there are much better containers out there such as MKV, right?

A: Of course I know! I just don’t use them… well, to be honest, because nobody else uses them! Seriously though, I haven’t run across a commercial DVD player or network media device that can demux Matroska files in my every day use. So until then, I’ll stick with tried and true AVI

Well, the other night my wife was watching a movie through Netflix on the TiVo and about four times it just quit out to the main TiVo menu. What the frick?

I told my wife to give the XBox 360 a try and see how it handles. Well turns out that the 360 had a hiccup too, but you know what it was? A buffer underrun! That’s right! My internet connection for whatever reason couldn’t keep up with the Netflix stream and it ran out of data. Of course the XBox client was smart enough to realize this, displayed a message and buffered some before streaming again.

My TiVo client? Crashed out. Talk about two code bases not up to par with one another.

So if you’re having the same issues, odds are your network connection (for whatever reason) is not keeping up with the Netflix stream and it’s just crashing out to the main menu of TiVo.

My suggested work around for the time being is try watching it on your XBox 360 if you have the option. Otherwise, you might want to contact your cable provider or stop torrenting all that norwegian snow porn

Cheers!