I have a lot of recordings stored on my Tivo that I COULD pull as MPG2 files. Is there anyway to put those in the Channels DVR folder to view later? I'm under the impression it will only play those items that IT recorded initially.
I'm trying to watch these via Apple TV and would prefer something that plays MPG2 files as well as Channels does.
There is no way to import tv recordings at the moment
I successfully downloaded and converted all the recordings off our TiVos with cTiVo; there is also kmttg which I used to use. If you have a Mac, cTiVo does a better job; it’ll optionally tag commercials just like Channels does.
The movies worked fine when imported using Channels’ experimental movie import feature, though I did have to fix a few thumbnails manually.
Channels doesn’t support importing TV shows yet, but cTiVo’s metadata all comes across nicely into iTunes so you can use Home Sharing with the “Computers” app on the Apple TV and the TV shows look great there.
Thank you. I didn't see this reply previously.
So you CAN import movies into Channels? Or by "experimental" you mean it's not available broadly.
Which program on your Apple TV are you using to watch the shows from your Tivo? I am using cTivo to download them, but I'm not CONVERTING them in this process . . . just saving them at MPEG2. The Plex player still really chokes on this format and Infuse is not allowing me to view them anymore without a Pro subscription. I don't know of any other Apple TV apps that can play MPEG2 natively as well as Channels.
I converted them with cTiVo and as above am playing the converted files with either Channels (movies) or Home Sharing/“Computers” (TV shows). I didn’t save the original MPEG-2 streams from the TiVo.
Okay, thank you. I understand that if I convert to mp4 or something I have lots of choices. I'm looking to keep them in the original format.
You can use something like ffmpeg to convert. While it does not support EDL files, you can convert an EDL file into ffmpeg's own ffmeta format, which can include the same information. A command like:
ffmpeg -i movie.mpg -i movie.ffmeta -map 0 -c copy movie.mkv
That will take the MPEG-2 encoded movie, the ffmeta formatted information to indicate chapter markers, copy all of the streams in their original formats (including secondary audio, etc.), and output a Matroska container. Now your video hasn't changed, but it has chapter markers for where the commercial breaks would be.
For completeness' sake, here is an EDL that comskip generated last evening:
0.00 16.97 0
372.40 534.00 0
1018.77 1185.20 0
1746.77 2007.53 0
2700.23 2983.27 0
3495.80 3779.77 0
Similarly, here is the ffmeta file that comskip generated for the same program (same input, 2 different output formats):
;FFMETADATA1
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=0
END=1696
title=Commercial Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=1700
END=37240
title=Show Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=37240
END=53400
title=Commercial Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=53403
END=101876
title=Show Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=101876
END=118520
title=Commercial Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=118523
END=174676
title=Show Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=174676
END=200753
title=Commercial Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=200756
END=270023
title=Show Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=270023
END=298326
title=Commercial Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=298330
END=349580
title=Show Segment
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/100
START=349580
END=377976
title=Commercial Segment
As you can see, it would be pretty simple to use a simple AWK script to parse the EDL and generate a complementary ffmeta.
However, if you are interested in completely removing the commercial segments, here is the ffsplit file that comskip generated to output several segments, that could then be concatenated into a single without the commercials.
-c copy -ss 17.000 -t 355.400 segment001.ts
-c copy -ss 534.033 -t 484.733 segment002.ts
-c copy -ss 1185.233 -t 561.533 segment003.ts
-c copy -ss 2007.567 -t 692.667 segment004.ts
-c copy -ss 2983.300 -t 512.500 segment005.ts