HDR Fox T2 File ts Editing

af123 said:
Yes, you will lose skip etc.
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That's not entirely true - I have edited lead ins and outs from SD ts files taken off the box, then re-saved them as ts files (using VideoRedo) and put them back on the box in a new folder (so no sidecar files). They allow me to skip forward and back using the arrow buttons and also by using the left and right on the big silver button as well - I tend to use this more often cos it's easier to find by touch on the remote!!. The only bit that doesn't work is the buttons that go through 2x, 4x, 8x speed etc.
 
Although this is an older thread I am updating this one for two reasons - the first is that a recent question was asked about editing Hummy video files for writing to DVD, but also because I think that the latest version of Freemake (as originally suggested by fenlander) is now worthy of mention.

I tried Freemake again recently to see if anything had changed since I last checked it and yes it has. I was able to take both SD and HD files off the Hummy (subject to all current decryption necessities), load them into Freemake, select start and end edit points, remove the selections and save the file in a format that I could play either direct on the Hummy, or from a DLNA NAS device - both allowing trick play functions.

In addition to this I needed to make a backup of a DVD movie to a file. Once I had extracted the relevant VOB files (the film was broken into multiple VOB's) I was able to simply drag the first one onto Freemake and it listed one entry but for the entire duration of the film - so it seems to understand that the seperate VOB's in fact referred to one continuous chunk.

I then Converted that to the pre-set MP4 setting with a new files name and waited about an hour and there it was - a nicely joined file, perfectly playable from Hummy or NAS.

There are many other pre-sets to write files to in addition to MP4 including a BluRay setting so the software does believe it can handle a wide range of formats including HD.

For recordings off the box as far as I can tell the output seems to maintain the H264 AAC settings from the original Hummy file but I haven't yet done anything on a full size HD file - just a short 5 minute clip for the purpose of checking it loads and can be edited.

I do experience a lag when clicking buttons but as long as I am patient it always catches up. As has been reported before VideoReDo seems to be universally accepted as the Gold standard but it comes at a price. I'd have to say for now that for true free software Freemake seems to be doing a pretty good job in so far as being able to do the job, even if you do have to wait a bit longer while you're doing it.

So far I have only worked on 10-15 minute SD files but I am going to try and take the adverts out of a full length HD recording when I get time and see how cumbersome or easy that turns out to be.
 
I initially wrote Freemake's editor off as unusable - based on its performance on my 3-year old Sony media PC. The new version is just as bad on that machine. Trying it on my 5-year old Tosh laptop which has a much lower spec, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, although slow and laggy, it is usable. I guess it must be a video driver problem on the Sony. When I get a new laptop with graphics acceleration and a post-ark processor this may become a real option.
 
Thanks for the tip, I'll have to give it a go.

Although, DSO isn't until 2012 here, so will have to wait a while to see how it performs on HD!
 
oijonesey said:
So far I have only worked on 10-15 minute SD files but I am going to try and take the adverts out of a full length HD recording when I get time and see how cumbersome or easy that turns out to be.
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I tried copying over my recording of the Transformers movie from the weekend last night - yeah right gonna need to ferret out my ethernet cable!! 13 gig takes a long time over the wireless!!! :eek: I reckon I could fit my entire Cupcake Wars collection in the space left by the adverts I'm trying to remove!!! I will update my findings once I've got the file onto the laptop!

Erm while I think of it the 'Download' option on the webif does decrypt HD files doesn't it?? I'd better go and confirm that before I try it again!!!
 
oijonesey said:
Erm while I think of it the 'Download' option on the webif does decrypt HD files doesn't it?? I'd better go and confirm that before I try it again!!!
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It should do, if all the relevant flags are being cleared by auto-unprotect (not just the Enc flag). Wouldn't it be quicker to do a decrypt-copy to an external NTFS drive and then sneakernet? At the transfer rates I have seen, a 13GB file should copy in about an hour or so.
 
Black Hole said:
Wouldn't it be quicker to do a decrypt-copy to an external NTFS drive and then sneakernet? At the transfer rates I have seen, a 13GB file should copy in about an hour or so.
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Funny you mention that - I was watching your recent posts about using the NTFS mod so that it would be easier to do just that. As I think you mentioned it also means that the file transfers can be left running on the Hummy rather than via my laptop as was the case (late) last night! Currently I have an old 320GB HDD attached which I formatted to EXT3 using the Hummy's menu so I'll have to make my move before I fill it up much more - or use it as an excuse to go buy more storage!!
 
I've just experimented with an episode of DCI Banks (2.5GB) using Freemake. I was using my old Tosh laptop (dual-core, 1.6GHz, no graphics acceleration), wired connection to the Hummy and 802.11n wireless to the Tosh.
Time to download/decrypt using Opt+ option in webif: 7.5 minutes. (Note: I think this is much quicker that any process involving copying to usb.)
Time to top/tail file and edit out 3 ad breaks with Freemake: 7 minutes.
Time to encode file to 720p .mp4 with h264 and AAC audio(approx 1GB): 70 minutes (I want an i5!)
When copied back to the Hummy, the file plays perfectly with full transport control. However, if encoded to .mkv, instead of .mp4, using exactly the same parameters, it does not play - the Hummy seems to have issues with the mkv container.
 
@fenlander - that sounds alright for free software!! Two questions if I may - was that an HD file? And how much of the 7 minute editing step would you say was waiting for it to catch up?
 
Yes, it was HD. So far as editing is concerned, on kit like mine you need a different technique from that you can use with VRD. It's not really practical to move the cursor freely through the file and expect the display to keep up: instead, you move directly to a location in the file where you might reasonably expect the ads to be and having found them, shuffle to the start of the ad break and leave a start marker. Then move on about 4 minutes in the file, shuffle to the start of the next programme segment and set the end marker. Then delete the marked segment. It sounds clumsy and, compared to VRD, it is, but it works quite well with a programme where the ad breaks are in predictable places. I wouldn't do this as a matter of routine, but for occasional 'keepers' it's good enough.

With HD files even VRD H264 is slow and laggy on my laptop. I'm sure that the whole thing would be much slicker on a higher-spec pc.

I should also add that you MUST get the latest version of Freemake (2.4.0). The previous one had so many bugs it was really unusable.
 
Just trying Freemake v2.4.0 as I write this. Downloaded an HD Grand Designs and edited out the start/finish adverts just to test. It's currently 35% completed after 15 minutes. Looking good.

Thanks for the info.
 
It completed in 44 minutes. I was only testing and it was the first time I used the software but I found it quite intuitive. As I say, I only 'topped and tailed' the recording. Its not too refined. I 'frame advanced' to the first cut point and literally set the point to cut on a frame change. However, on playback after conversion, there is still a blip of the ident. All done without even reading the instructions.

VideoReDo H.264 (TV Suite) is much more accurate, but hey, that costs and Freemake is free!

Intel i7-920 (first gen), Win7 64bit, 6GB DDR3 1600 RAM, Intel 80GB SSD boot drive, 4 X Samsung 1TB HDD, ATI Radeon 4870 1GB RAM. Windows Experience Index of 7.5
 
I'm about to try the Transformers movie - all 11.8GB of it. See you when I'm done (what time to the Olympics start?!!:))
 
@Wallace
That's about 40-45% faster than my lappy. I'd expected a bigger difference than that. Mind you, I'm just trying a bigger task: 'Duplicity' (movie), transmitted recently with a split in the middle for the news and totalling 7GB. Looks like it's going to take about 3.5 hours to encode. What do these guys who post edited and encoded TV shows within an hour of broadcast use to get such quick results?

@oijonesey
I tried to watch that movie but gave up in despair. My wetware's just not up to the task.
 
'Duplicity' took 3hrs 14minutes. The .mp4 is 2.5GB and seems to be excellent quality. Freemake also joined the two original files into a single output file.
 
Hmmm a full length HD movie was a different test than a 10 minute SD clip!!! Gonna have to try freeing up some resources maybe before attempting large files? I also found some other free options which I'll have a crack at in time.
 
OK so after waiting 10 minutes for Freemake to react after trying to scroll to the end of an ad break I gave up on a full size HD movie edit for now. I think Freemake was goiong to try and do it but I had no way to know how long it would need to work with a 11GB file. Just for comparison I loaded it up into VideoReDo just to see how agile the interface was and as a benchmark it was pretty good. Granted it was a bit more laggy than I'd seen before but still very usable in terms of marking multiple cut points. I couldn't test saving it though becuse my trial period ran out so it's limited to 5 minute saves.

So I had another google about for free editors.

I found one called Lightworks NLE - which used to be a movie industry solution (!) which then went on a free public release! It does require a Codec download and an update to Quicktime in addition to the program itself. It certainly looked impressive although it would only load up an SD file and I couldn't fathom out how to actually edit the bloody thing - but boy did it look like it should have been able to do it!!! The write up claims it has been widely used in the movie industry and you can even get an optional dedicated control device to use with it!! Actually it probably can do what I want but being a typical bloke I didn't bother to read any instructions on how to do it - but then again if it's not intuitive enough in the first place maybe it's too much of a sledgehammer for my nut at the moment (alright no gags please!)

I also found one called TS Convertor which looked promising, and claimed to be able to edit the files but again I couldn't find where the option to do that was (it's starting to get past my bedtime at this point!)

Then I found something I'm currently evaluating which is a Linux solution - however for Windows users like me you can download an ISO which will create you a standalone bootable Linux OS predefined and installed with a bundle of AV editors!! It takes a long time to download the ISO (only a 2GB file but a slooooow ftp site) so by about midnight I'd managed to burn the disc and boot up from it but not much more beyond that. Will try out the various programs tonight and if nothing explodes I'll report back.

There's one more I found that says it's free but with features disabled but good enough to try and might be cheaper than Video Redo which is Virtual Edit. I've been to the site but I haven't tried this one out yet.

I have more options to go look at beyond these but I want to at least go to the web page first in case any of them are not what they seem - I don't want to post bad links. That's all for now -more news when I have it.
 
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