My goal sounds so simple - Store my kids' movies on my WHS where they can watch them on either of my hard wired extenders (xbox & DMA2100) with FF/RW capability (chapter skip would be awesome, but I am dreaming). The playback needs to be rock-solid (i.e. no "buffering" message on the extender) and work as reliably as my TV shows. Also, I am stingy and would like to do this for free/cheap.
From everything I have read and tried, it looks like I will need to store my movies in WTV or DVRMS format. VideoRedo is expensive and only stores in DVRMS, and I would prefer WTV. I am using the really powerful DVRMSToolbox (DTB) to convert (or remux, not sure) a single VOB into a MPG file. I like the idea of H.264, but space is not my primary concern and have had some issues with my DMA2100 reliably playing H.264. For now, I would like to stick with MPEG2 format in a WTV container. I was REALLY excited when DTB 1.2.2.0 came out with a profile to do what I want - convert VOB to WTV.
My problem is the next step - using todvrms to convert the MPG to WTV. When I use todvrms, most of the time, I get nothing that plays. I have had success in getting a playable WTV file when I use mencoder to convert the VOB, but I cannot FF/RW. Also, the WTV is a lot smaller than the MPG, which leads me to believe it is H.264.
I have tried using the todvrms GUI (never gotten it to work) and inside DTB (the partial success described above).
I have looked for documentation on todvrms, but have not found it. I greatly appreciate the work that babgvant has done on DTB, but I was wondering if somebody can describe what profiles and or steps they use to reliably turn a MPEG2 / VOB file into a WTV that will play on an extender.
Thanks in advance. Do I need a special codec to do this? I have nothing else installed except DTB and my DVD ripper (DVD Fab HD Decrypter).
I also tried the latest DvrmsToolbox and could not create a dvrms or wtv out of the mpg either.
I installed ToDvrms 1.0.1.0 and it worked after running the registertodvrmsfilters.cmd contained in the zipped file.
OK, quick update. I again tried running a MPG file I converted from a VOB with DTB through todvrms to get a WTV. I usually walk away when it starts, but this time, I watched. After about a minute of running, DTB has a major error. I am talking about the kind where a box shows up saying "Windows is trying to find a solution". That is why the WTV file is so much smaller(~1GB) than the MPG (~4GB) and doesn't play. So, I no longer think todvrms is re-encoding to H.264, I think todvrms cannot handle MPEG2 files.
kotipoby -- Any luck converting your VOBs to WTV? I have tried DvrmsToolbox as well but can't get it to complete...I keep getting a "profile not found" error during the ffmpg conversion step...very frustrating.
What's unbelievable is that I have started using "Auto Rip and Compress" to rip my new DVDs to .wtv and it works great, but it wont work on the 200+ DVDs I have already ripped and have on my hard drive. -- that is frustrating!
Logan