Hi Mike, > I'm looking for a good real-time mpeg encoder for recording TV shows and > what not. So far it seems like the best one is in broadcast 2000, but I > am having trouble keeping the audio and video in sync. (it keeps > dropping video frames, so the audio falls behind). I tried grabbing the > code from mjpeg.sourceforge.net, but it's not up on the ftp server. It should appear there's 6 or 8 hour update cycle... let me know if it doesn't I certainly uploaded it. There's an alternative download site at my lab: userpc33.comlab.ox.ac.uk/mjpeg_beta_1.tar.gz > Also they say it only grabs at around 6 frames/sec on a 366..I have a > dual 400, but I'm looking for something a bit quicker.. > FAME sounded good, but doesn't do sound as of yet, and video quality was > a little low. Ooops maybe my rubric wasn't very clear. It doesn't *capture* at all. The mpeg encoder works on mjpeg AVI or Quicktime files captured elsewhere. Thats its *compression* speed you need to use something really quick like mjpeg to capture to a file first. 6 frames /sec is with full 15*frame distance pixel motion compensation turned on. You'll get around 10/sec with motion compensation turn off. However, the code really isn't set up for use with little or no motion compensation. So its pretty inefficient used that way... and bottlenecked in lots of ways in code that otherwise is well down the profiling list. You then still need to compress audio and multiplex. Again, not bottlenecks when you're working hard on squeezing out the last drop of compression but increasingly so as you go faster. The development objective was is to go as fast as possible whilst still maintain as-good-as-possible quality results at VCD bit-rates. You can't do that without decent motion compensation. I gather the latest mp1e apparently may do B and P frame (which should make it rather better than MJPEG). However, as is typical, I can't look at the source code to see if it does much (or any) motion compensation. However, even without it should get another 50% or so data reduction over mjpeg. Its certainly blazingly fast according to Brian Ristuccia. This means they're (a) being incredibly clever and I shall cease developing mpeg2enc and hacking MMX/SSE grab a copy of mp1e and watch and compress movies ;-) (b) they're not doing much motion compensation and I'll see if I can merge my motion compensation goodies into mp1e for the best of both worlds. The code base *can't* be more obscure than mpeg2enc ;-). I'd love to be more specific, (mp1e sounds like the answer to this maidens prayer), but the web-site (appears to be down) to look at the 1.8 source code. Aaaaaargh.... anyone care to put me out of my misery. I gotta look at that code. Andrew > anyone know of anything different/better? > > My goal is to make a TiVo-like device, to record shows, and have the > ability to pause/rewind a live show... > In case anyone is interested I think I'll be using xmltv and gtv for > grabbing/displaying the listings. I have that sort of thing up and running downstairs using an old Buz. Works great and because the CPU load is soooo low (3% or something) very reliable. I can cheerfully play mp3's, copy files etc, while capturing. However mjpeg is plain too fat for archiving stuff I like to CD. You *really* need mpeg for that. Needless to say thats why I started hacking on mpeg2enc. I use an old DXR2 to for hardware MPEG-1/VCD/MPEG-2/DVD playback. Andrew
