Converting H.264 TS to MPEG-2 files?
 

Do you have any recommendations on how to convert my H.264 .ts files generated by the Hauppage HD PVR/Arcsoft TME to .mpg's? I used the latest VideoRedo TV Suite, setting two-pass encode and a high bit rate and that seems to produce a decent result easily and fairly quickly (processing an hour's worth of footage in about 45 minutes on my quad core), but was wondering if you had any better suggestions.

HD MPEG-2 for Blu-ray?
Or standard definition MPEG-2 for DVD-Video format?

I assume the H.264 is HD?

MPEG-2 for DVD-Video. Yes, the H.264 is 1920x1080i HD.

Forgot to mention that I also set 720x480 in VideoRedo TVS.

Transport streams (TS, .ts) are only really used in two workflows:

1. broadcasted digital video (antenna HD, cable, satellite)
2. and certain HD video cameras

As such, there are only two real choices for working with TS files:

1. PVR software with TS editing/encoding abilities
2. Professional NLEs (non-linear editors) like Adobe Premiere CS3/CS4 Pro or Sony Vegas Pro -- sometimes though intermediary codecs or imports

I'm actually happy to say that I don't work with this too much, because I don't record a lot of TV these days, and my cameras don't use those formats.

Womble and VideoReDo are the two big names in PVR software, although they tend to differ in methodology and features. Historically, both of them have awful encoding quality, but recent versions have supposedly changed the rendering engines. I've not really looked into it just yet, low priority.

However, Womble has asked me twice to review the latest version 5 of Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD, which I've heard now uses an FFMPEG engine to re-encode. ConvertXToDVD uses a similar encoder, and deserves it's reputation for high quality video encoding (XVID/Divx AVI > DVD).

If you want to submit a TS stream on a DVD, I'll use it to review the Womble software. I only try full versions of software; however, you may want to have a look at their publicly available trial. Not sure if it has limits, or if it's just time-limited.

I could also run it through Premiere CS3 and CS4, if you're curious. Having not done it before, not sure if there will be any bottlenecks or codec/import issues to deal with.

If there anything wrong/inferior about the VideoReDo encode? Or are you just curious about possible alternative methods?

Transport streams (TS, .ts) are only really used in two workflows:

1. broadcasted digital video (antenna HD, cable, satellite)
2. and certain HD video cameras

As such, there are only two real choices for working with TS files:

1. PVR software with TS editing/encoding abilities
2. Professional NLEs (non-linear editors) like Adobe Premiere CS3/CS4 Pro or Sony Vegas Pro -- sometimes though intermediary codecs or imports

I'm actually happy to say that I don't work with this too much, because I don't record a lot of TV these days, and my cameras don't use those formats.

Womble and VideoReDo are the two big names in PVR software, although they tend to differ in methodology and features. Historically, both of them have awful encoding quality, but recent versions have supposedly changed the rendering engines. I've not really looked into it just yet, low priority.

However, Womble has asked me twice to review the latest version 5 of Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD, which I've heard now uses an FFMPEG engine to re-encode. ConvertXToDVD uses a similar encoder, and deserves it's reputation for high quality video encoding (XVID/Divx AVI > DVD).

If you want to submit a TS stream on a DVD, I'll use it to review the Womble software. I only try full versions of software; however, you may want to have a look at their publicly available trial. Not sure if it has limits, or if it's just time-limited.

I could also run it through Premiere CS3 and CS4, if you're curious. Having not done it before, not sure if there will be any bottlenecks or codec/import issues to deal with.

If there anything wrong/inferior about the VideoReDo encode? Or are you just curious about possible alternative methods?

I was just wondering about possible alternate methods. The resulting MPEG-2 DVD seems to be of high quality when played back on my HDTV. I just want to see if there is something even better.

When I tried Womble over 5 years ago to process Hauppage PVR mpg files the audio would go out of sync. The more cuts there were, the worse the sync problem. I never had any sync problems with VideoRedo.

I'd be happy to create a DVD with a .ts file generated by the HD PVR if you tell me where to send it (you can PM me if you like). Thanks.