How To Convert DVD Movies To MPEG-2 For Playback On Your TiVo
Dave Zatz has an excellent tutorial which explains how to rip your DVD movies and play them back using your TiVo. To play the recordings back, you need to have TiVo’s latest software release (7.2).
To be perfectly honest, I’m not exactly sure why you would want to do this however; it is still pretty neat. In any case, it is a good example of what you can do with your TiVo.
Hat tip eHomeUpgrade.
September 13th, 2005 at 7:45 am |
Why would you do this….well…..I have mulitple Tivos and 1 DVD player. This allows me to watch a movie on any TV in the house that has a Tivo.
September 13th, 2005 at 1:14 pm |
“Dave Zatz has an excellent tutorial which explains how to rip your DVD movies and play them back using your TiVo.”
Sadly, this only applies to TiVos with DVD burners… regular SAs don’t know what to do with AC3 audio tracks.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:35 am |
Can someone confirm whether this won’t work on standalones? I played around with some MPG2 video from archive.org and didn’t have any issues … but the audio may have been simple stereo.
http://mrshiney.froppy.com/blog/
September 14th, 2005 at 6:24 pm |
Shiney: TiVo confirmed it when they published the specs…
http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/public/tv251080.htm
The MPEG 2 you’ve played with is undoubtedly in SVCD format, which uses mp2 audio.
In theory, it should be possible to take the results of a DVDShrink operation, demux the audio/video, convert the AC3 to mp2, and then mux everything together again for use on a regular SA. Due to limited skills and patience, I’ve been so far unsuccessful in the attempt.
September 14th, 2005 at 7:59 pm |
“Sadly, this only applies to TiVos with DVD burners… regular SAs don’t know what to do with AC3 audio tracks.”
Not true…..SA Series 2 Tivos can handle the AC3 track….I’ve done it multiple times. The key is only have 1 video stream and 1 audio stream in the MPEG file. SA’s will handle the audio just fine.
I have been successful in using DVD Decrypter to extract 1 video stream and 1 audio stream (AC3) into a single .mpg file that both my 240 Series 2 and 540 Series 2 can handle. The 540 needed the aspect ration to change in the Tivo.
September 15th, 2005 at 12:11 pm |
K: Your experience contradicts TiVo’s specs, which state than non-DVD SAs require audio to be in MPEG-1 Layer II format. And my experience fits with the specs… neither of my SAs can handle AC3 audio.
I’d love it to be otherwise, though. I’ll go fiddle around with DVD Decrypter and see what happens.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:04 pm |
I will confirm what K wrote…as long as you select only a single AC3 track, it worked fine for me.
My setup is a Series 2 24 SA running 7.2
September 18th, 2005 at 10:21 am |
Okay, back from further testing.
- Remastered one disc, moved it to the TiVo, and it played flawlessly.
- Remastered another using identical settings, and TiVo wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
- Remastered another using identical settings, moved it to the TiVo, and it played flawlessly.
Both discs had AC3 audio. The only significant difference (on the surface) is that the problematic disc was already on my hard drive after a pre-7.2 rip… trying to remaster it produced something the TiVo couldn’t handle.
Which leads me to the following questions:
(1) Why do TiVo’s docs specifically state that non-DVD SAs require MPEG1 Layer II audio if they can handle AC3 just fine?
(2) What subtle differences allow one ripped film to play while the other doesn’t?
September 18th, 2005 at 10:37 am |
I have two comments…
1. The reason to do this is so you can archive your entire DVD collection (or maybe Netflix’s entire DVD collection) to your hard drive - giving you your very own video-on-demand library, from any Tivo in the house.
2. Tivo’s published specs are incorrect. Like others said some DVDs/MPEGs work and others don’t. We’re narrowing it down to high bitrates and/or possible audio track issues (on Tivo with and without DVD drives) but don’t know for certain. Tivo’s software isn’t very fault tolerant yet. Hopefully, the next release will do better.
September 19th, 2005 at 10:48 am |
Good point… How large are these files when you rip them? Wouldn’t you need to have a lot of disc space in order to create a true “video-on-demand” library?
Thanks for stopping by!
September 19th, 2005 at 11:23 am |
Alex: It depends upon how much (if any) compression you use when reauthoring. If you apply max compression in something like DVDShrink, I’ve seen full-length features as small as 2GB. For an action flick, you might end up in the 3-4GB range. (More if you’re picky about MPEG artifacts.)
That seems like a ton of consumed space, but if you RAID together a few 300GB drives, that’s a lotta room for video.
October 19th, 2005 at 10:33 pm |
I just tried this method, ac3 audio with 1 track worled fine on my DVR, but for some reason the video is all distorted. I followed everything exactly but video was horrible, almost even unwatchable.
I’ll try a different dvd to follow up this post
October 21st, 2005 at 6:41 am |
Well, second try with different DVD source, same problem.. Video is distorted ect…
October 21st, 2005 at 5:20 pm |
Ok, so here’s what I figgured out.. I have a widescreen TV that supports the 16:9 aspect ratio, yet the TiVo is playing the 16:9 aspect ratio incorrectly. So I used DVDpatcher to modify the mpeg header into 4:3. Also, I can confirm that AC3 audio does work fine on my DVR without a DVDBurner.
I only wish TiVo wasnt so picky… PAL is not supported, 25 fps is not supported, I mean cmon TiVo, get with the program
October 28th, 2005 at 7:12 pm |
[...] I just received the following feedback from Joshua Garnett. Apparently Joshua found a post on this site which linked him to Dave Zatz’s article on converting a DVD so that you could play it back with your TiVo. Joshua has put together a tutorial which is suppose to address some drawbacks he found in Dave’s tutorial. Read on for the link to Joshua’s site. After searching on google for a way to transfers movies to Tivo, I stumbled upon your site. You included a link to another site, http://www.zatznotfunny.com/dvdshrink.htm, that offered an easy way to convert DVDs into content that’ll play on a Tivo. After experimenting with the How To, I found a few drawbacks. Mainly the fact that most Tivo’s can’t render 16:9 content properly. After reading through numerous guides and making a few guesses I’ve found a way to convert the 16:9 content to letterboxed 4:3. This is by using all freeware/shareware. I think others would benefit from my findings. Anyways, here is a link to the guide. [...]
October 29th, 2005 at 9:01 pm |
Joshua’s tutorial is good, but adds a couple of longer steps… after creating one vob with dvdshrink, use dvd patcher to convert 16:9 to 4:3. Only takes a few seconds. Also, AC3 audio works fine on my tivo w/o dvdr… so no need to convert to wav
October 31st, 2005 at 12:00 pm |
“Joshua’s tutorial is good, but adds a couple of longer steps… after creating one vob with dvdshrink, use dvd patcher to convert 16:9 to 4:3. Only takes a few seconds. Also, AC3 audio works fine on my tivo w/o dvdr… so no need to convert to wav” — Tivo Guy
DVDPatcher will make the video playable (you can also just goto Settings->Video and enable 16:9 support), but if your TV doesn’t add the letterbox to the 16:9 stream you end up with a stretched image, which in my opinion is not watchable.
April 5th, 2006 at 12:35 am |
why not use Amor MPEG to DVD Burner. it’s really a useful tool!
http://www.yaodownload.com/video-design/video/amor-mpeg2dvd-burner/ check out it!
August 4th, 2006 at 3:43 am |
choose this powerful and handy tool to burn video DVD disc from exist DVD VCD SVCD compatible MPEG files which has been converted using your video converting tools.
http://www.purchaseshareware.com/multimedia-design-video/amor-mpeg-to-dvd-burner9369-10.htm
November 13th, 2006 at 2:54 pm |
how do you convert mov files into wmv files, without having installed quicktime player itself?
just wondering if anyone knew.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:04 pm |
hello? Please help
November 13th, 2006 at 3:06 pm |
did you do a google search?
I’ve never done it myself but I’m sure it’s possible. Anybody have any specific advice?
November 13th, 2006 at 3:07 pm |
yes I did already, thanks for the advice though.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:09 pm |
I’ve tried many programs but none seem to work.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:10 pm |
you might need to bite the bullet and buy Quicktime. This is why I bought it.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:11 pm |
Your’e sure there isn’t any way of doing it?
oh well.
got to go, I’ll be back later.
November 13th, 2006 at 4:10 pm |
I’m back!
okay,
so if there aren’t any programs out there that convert mov files to wmv files, then where can I get a copy of quicktime player?
Perferably zipped or somehow small-a-lized (I have dial-up, so it would take a million years if the file was 5mb)
November 13th, 2006 at 7:14 pm |
Anybody?
November 13th, 2006 at 7:16 pm |
Argh!
November 15th, 2006 at 2:26 am |
apple.com?
November 15th, 2006 at 7:48 pm |
just go to my web page!
I figured out how to play quicktime files! Without quicktime!
I have spent many hours working on this, if you have any questions, leave them on my web page.
November 15th, 2006 at 7:50 pm |
yeah, by the way click bob if you want to find out how to play quicktime, without…QUICKTIME!!!!
November 28th, 2006 at 3:27 pm |
good job bob.