How to import HD movies into Windows Media Center
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted August 18th 2009 11:00AM
posted August 18th 2009 11:00AM
Disclaimer
This is in no way meant to encourage you to pirate content. While we believe it is perfectly acceptable to store copies of movies you bought on your computer, we are not lawyers and do not believe it is okay to download things off the internet that you didn't pay for. So use your better judgment and do what is right. And whatever you do, don't say we didn't warn you.
Overview
This is a simple process that accepts various video files, analyzes the codecs in the container, converts the streams to MPEG-2 video with AC3 audio and wraps it all up into a dvr-ms file. We're leveraging the Movie Library in Media Center to view and pull metadata, but we're also using a utility to help it along. The utility is called Yet Another Media Meta Manager (Yammm) and it simply takes the file name and downloads the folder.jpg and dvdid.xml file needed by Media Center to make it download the rest of the metadata. If you use a different program like Media Browser to play the content, we created a slimmed down DVRMSToolBox profile that only does the conversion called Convert avi or mkv to DVR-MS.
What you need
Besides Windows 7, you really only need two downloads to do this. The first is the latest version of DVRMSToolBox and the second is YAMMM.
Download - DVRMSToolBox 1.2.1.8
Download - YAMMM
Getting things setup
Once you've run the installers, which consists of a little next, next, next; start by configuring Yammm (you can skip the YAMMM config if you don't want metadata) by setting the path it should watch for new movies. This is where your movies are stored and should have a full path of something like this.
D:\DVD\The Hunt For Red October\The.Hunt.For.Red.October.dvr-ms
In this example, you'd set Yammm to watch D:\DVD\ like in the image below. This is the same directory that you need to add to Media Center to watch for Movies via Settings>Media Library>Movies menu options.
The latest version of DVRMSToolBox is pretty much ready to go out of the box, but if you are using Movie Library, you need to edit the MoviePath in the profile. So start by launching DVRMSToolboxSettings and find the Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder profile, select it and hit and edit profile button at the bottom. (if you aren't using Movie Library, then use the profile called Convert avi or mkv to DVR-MS instead, which doesn't require editing).
Now select the first step and hit Configure. Change the 'Replace Regex' box with your movie path, be sure to have it end with '\$1\' so something like 'D:\DVD\$1\' or '\\whs1\DVD\$1\' (UNC paths work here).
Again, this should be the same path as you are watching with Yammm and Media Center. Before you exit and save, you can add your own steps if you want, say if you wanted to delete the source file or move it to another directory for archiving, or something.
After you hit ok, save, save; launch DVRMSToolBoxGUI.
Before you select your file though, you must rename it; this is so Yammm knows which movie it is. So if your file name is The.Hunt.For.Red.October.1990.720p.BluRay.DTS.x264.mkv you need to change it to The.Hunt.For.Red.October.mkv
Now in the DTB GUI, double click on the input file box and navigate to your file (UNC paths are not supported here, so if the file is on the network, you need to map a drive).
Copy and paste the contents of the input file box to the output file box (this is required, although ignored).
From the drop down profile box select Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder .
If you have plenty of movies to convert, you might wan to hit Queue with Filewatcher to queue them up automatically (logs are wrote to C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\FWLogs by default) otherwise hit the Run button and the log will display below.
There is no status bar or anything and buffer errors can be ignored, but in about the same amount of time as it'll take you to watch the movie, your movie will pop up in Movie Library complete with box art.
Subtitles
If you need/want subtitles, the process will accept SRT or SSA files and hardsub them in -- they can never be turned off. There are a number of ways to acquire a subtitle file; you can rip it from a DVD with SubRip, you can download it, you can even watch the movie and create one with a text editor. This goes for all types of subtitles including regular and forced subtitles (for non-english parts of english movies, think The Hunt for Red October). Simply rename the SRT file to the same as your source file and put it in the same directory. The process will see it and hardsub it in. So in our example, our SRT file would be The.Hunt.For.Red.October.srt.
If you have an MKV file that already contains subtitles that you want to hardsub, you have to extract the SSA file first. So use mkvinfo to determine which track contains the desired subtitles, and then use mkvextract to extract the stream. Here is an example.
"C:\Program Files\MKVtoolnix\mkvextract" tracks The.Hunt.For.Red.October.mkv -c ISO8859-1 3:The.Hunt.For.Red.October.srt
Although this track is a SSA stream, we still name it SRT because that it what the process looks for. In the future there might be an option to hardsub a stream from the source file.
When things go wrong and ripped DVDs
This process doesn't accept every codec known to mankind and in fact was only really tested with avi and mkv files that contain XviD, H.264, MP3, AC3, and DTS codecs. For example, it won't work on VOBs ripped from DVDs. If you want to convert your DVDs, you're best bet is to use VideoReDo TV Suit, but if you want something free, then you can find a VOB to MPEG2 profile for DVRMSToolbox online, but it requires you to rip your DVD to a single VOB.
MencoderProper, where the real magic happens
We'll be honest, we've been working on this since before we posted our How to import HD into Media Center post, but just couldn't come up with a workable solution until recently. The reason was because unlike TV shows, HD moves come in many shapes and sizes. Between the various aspect ratios and audio codecs, we just couldn't obtain the desired results. That was until we discovered the My Network Project blog -- thanks to a podcast listener. We realized that the author, Andres Echevarria, was trying to solve the same problem we were, but the difference was he was taking a programmatical approach. Now we're not exactly sure how his application MencoderProper works, but what we know is that it does and with great results. The 100 foot view is that it analyzes the source file and generates the mencoder arguments on the fly. The results are high quality transcodes that come out perfect every time. The most amazing part to us is its ability to detect and transcode DTS to AC3 and hardsub subtitles at the same time. It really is great, and we owe a really big thanks to Andres for all of his hard work. Thanks!
DVRMSToolbox still rocks!
Yes, it really is the swiss army knife of video tools for PC based DVR software and that's why it the first thing we install when we setup a Media Center. Besides the ability to leverage Show Analyzer to automatically skip commericals, DTB is so open that you can pretty much make it to anything you want. We really appreciate all of Andy's hard work on the project and still can't believe he answers our email when we hit him up with yet another harebrained idea that we want his help on. Thank Andy!
Getting things setup
Once you've run the installers, which consists of a little next, next, next; start by configuring Yammm (you can skip the YAMMM config if you don't want metadata) by setting the path it should watch for new movies. This is where your movies are stored and should have a full path of something like this.
D:\DVD\The Hunt For Red October\The.Hunt.For.Red.October.dvr-ms
In this example, you'd set Yammm to watch D:\DVD\ like in the image below. This is the same directory that you need to add to Media Center to watch for Movies via Settings>Media Library>Movies menu options.
The last thing you have to configure in Yammm is where you want the metadata cached. We want it on our main user account and all of our extenders, so our Metadata tab looks like this.
Now select the first step and hit Configure. Change the 'Replace Regex' box with your movie path, be sure to have it end with '\$1\' so something like 'D:\DVD\$1\' or '\\whs1\DVD\$1\' (UNC paths work here).
Again, this should be the same path as you are watching with Yammm and Media Center. Before you exit and save, you can add your own steps if you want, say if you wanted to delete the source file or move it to another directory for archiving, or something.
After you hit ok, save, save; launch DVRMSToolBoxGUI.
Before you select your file though, you must rename it; this is so Yammm knows which movie it is. So if your file name is The.Hunt.For.Red.October.1990.720p.BluRay.DTS.x264.mkv you need to change it to The.Hunt.For.Red.October.mkv
Now in the DTB GUI, double click on the input file box and navigate to your file (UNC paths are not supported here, so if the file is on the network, you need to map a drive).
Copy and paste the contents of the input file box to the output file box (this is required, although ignored).
From the drop down profile box select Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder .
If you have plenty of movies to convert, you might wan to hit Queue with Filewatcher to queue them up automatically (logs are wrote to C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\FWLogs by default) otherwise hit the Run button and the log will display below.
There is no status bar or anything and buffer errors can be ignored, but in about the same amount of time as it'll take you to watch the movie, your movie will pop up in Movie Library complete with box art.
Subtitles
If you need/want subtitles, the process will accept SRT or SSA files and hardsub them in -- they can never be turned off. There are a number of ways to acquire a subtitle file; you can rip it from a DVD with SubRip, you can download it, you can even watch the movie and create one with a text editor. This goes for all types of subtitles including regular and forced subtitles (for non-english parts of english movies, think The Hunt for Red October). Simply rename the SRT file to the same as your source file and put it in the same directory. The process will see it and hardsub it in. So in our example, our SRT file would be The.Hunt.For.Red.October.srt.
If you have an MKV file that already contains subtitles that you want to hardsub, you have to extract the SSA file first. So use mkvinfo to determine which track contains the desired subtitles, and then use mkvextract to extract the stream. Here is an example.
"C:\Program Files\MKVtoolnix\mkvextract" tracks The.Hunt.For.Red.October.mkv -c ISO8859-1 3:The.Hunt.For.Red.October.srt
Although this track is a SSA stream, we still name it SRT because that it what the process looks for. In the future there might be an option to hardsub a stream from the source file.
When things go wrong and ripped DVDs
This process doesn't accept every codec known to mankind and in fact was only really tested with avi and mkv files that contain XviD, H.264, MP3, AC3, and DTS codecs. For example, it won't work on VOBs ripped from DVDs. If you want to convert your DVDs, you're best bet is to use VideoReDo TV Suit, but if you want something free, then you can find a VOB to MPEG2 profile for DVRMSToolbox online, but it requires you to rip your DVD to a single VOB.
MencoderProper, where the real magic happens
We'll be honest, we've been working on this since before we posted our How to import HD into Media Center post, but just couldn't come up with a workable solution until recently. The reason was because unlike TV shows, HD moves come in many shapes and sizes. Between the various aspect ratios and audio codecs, we just couldn't obtain the desired results. That was until we discovered the My Network Project blog -- thanks to a podcast listener. We realized that the author, Andres Echevarria, was trying to solve the same problem we were, but the difference was he was taking a programmatical approach. Now we're not exactly sure how his application MencoderProper works, but what we know is that it does and with great results. The 100 foot view is that it analyzes the source file and generates the mencoder arguments on the fly. The results are high quality transcodes that come out perfect every time. The most amazing part to us is its ability to detect and transcode DTS to AC3 and hardsub subtitles at the same time. It really is great, and we owe a really big thanks to Andres for all of his hard work. Thanks!
DVRMSToolbox still rocks!
Yes, it really is the swiss army knife of video tools for PC based DVR software and that's why it the first thing we install when we setup a Media Center. Besides the ability to leverage Show Analyzer to automatically skip commericals, DTB is so open that you can pretty much make it to anything you want. We really appreciate all of Andy's hard work on the project and still can't believe he answers our email when we hit him up with yet another harebrained idea that we want his help on. Thank Andy!
hmm - i have Windows 7 on pre-order and currently use Popcorn Hour A110 but this looks like it might be a solution for streaming HD to other TVs in the house?!
So much work to stream HD to an extender, something SageTV has been able to do for a long time.
Or an even better way.
Use SageTV:
Rip to hard drive
Play in any client PC (softsled) or HD100 or HD200 extender
Or Use SageTV:
Run AnyDVD
Stream to any client PC (softsled) or HD100 or HD200 extender
For Extenders this includes Blu-rays...
dang you guys must be mind readers i've been searching the internet all morning trying to come up with the best way to do this, thanks!
I would like to see this explain how to convert Blu-ray and HD DVD to WMV HD instead of MKV to WMV HD because I am assuming you already converted the video from the Blu-ray mt2s to MKV and there would have been some quality lose. Unless I am incorrect and there is a way to keep the video untouched/unconverted and placed into the KWV container.
This might work, I haven't tried it. You would have to re-encode though as right now MC can't handle bit rates that high. Not to mention it supports h.264, not AVC that is used for Blu-ray.
I don't know if that's actually true. I been playing around with Blu-ray and streaming to the 360 as an extender and finally been able to play both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight without any issues. These are direct rips from the Blu-ray discsI bought and aren't converted. They are still in their native mt2s format from the Blu-ray disc. I have been reading about others seeing issues with it shuttering and blaming the 360 not being able to support the high bit rate but I am not seeing this problem. And also, the 360 doesn't have an actual limit to bit rate, it looks like if there are issues it's a software issue somewhere.
But again, I am not seeing any issues. Batman Begins bit rate is at 16 bits and The Dark Knight is over 20 bits, I can't remember the exact number right now.
Isn't h.264 and AVC the same?
Starkenator,
No, if only it was. h.264 is optimized for live streaming, while AVC is for media playback, scrubbing etc. So the header is different and Media Center doesn't support AVC, just h.264. The good news is that you can make them the same very easily without transcoding, the bad news is that right now there isn't a way to do this. I've heard of a few projects with this goal, but currently it just doesn't work.
Thanks Ben.
Brian how did you get your Blu-ray m2ts files to play back stutter free? In the Windows 7 beta I could not even get m2ts files with VC-1 to play at all even on the PC itself. I have not tried it on the RC. AVC m2ts files have played back just fine on the PC but they have always stuttered and crashed my xbox extender. My only solution has been to convert to WMVHD with TMPGEnc but I have been having some lack of memory errors lately as well as the RC does not work as well as the beta for streaming m2ts to my xbox (works fine on the dashboard but not through the extender interface).
Actually I just realized I was incorrect. I am running My Movies instead of the new Movies folder. Only because My Movies loads much faster then the new Movies section in Windows 7. But I had forgetton that I added back in the DVD copies I have of the movies so when I went into to try to test some things I changed around to get mt2s files to play that I clicked on the DVD copies. So...I'm back to that I can't even get them to play at all.
I really don't mind too much if I can convert the files from m2ts to WMV HD and I have been looking into this for the past day but I can't find a simple solution, and one that doesn't require you to convert to something like MWV and then to WMV HD. Or with HD DVD converting the evo files to MWV HD. There are solutions but it seems like you have to convert the video, then convert it again which to me isn't ideal. I only want to allow it to be converted once.
Oh, and I can play m2ts on the PC via PowerDVD with no problems.
Brian, TMPGEnc costs $100 bucks but it is the best solution for converting BD m2ts to WMVHD with multichannel audio. As long as the m2ts file has AVC video it is a one step process to go from m2ts to WMVHD. WIth VC-1 you have to convert it to an AVI and AC3 first which is a pain. However, I have had problems with errors due to low system memory which have really caused some frustration. I am running VIsta 32 bit with 4 GB of RAM and I hope when I upgrade to W7 64 bit I won't have this problem.
Just wondering here but Im guessing the dvr-ms files are alot larger than then original mkv's.... the whole mpeg4 to mpeg2 conversion.
Personally Im waiting for somebody to figure out how to create wtv's since they can support some flavors of mpeg4.
also can you not embed subtitles the way its embedded in dvr-ms files? You would think there would be a way since recorded tv can do it.
I meant to add this to my original post but I was meaning to contact you about this anyways.... Im currently using the mkv preview but it doesnt play all mkv's (even after you get the audio converted) so I was starting to look at something that would play better with media center so this post might get me started looking at other solutions. But I dont know if I want to convert all my mpeg4 stuff to mpeg2.
how big would the converted file be? anybody know the approximate ratio?
this whole process sounds great since it makes it more user-friendly (or in my case, wife and in-law friendly), but if it costs too much space i probably won't do it.
having all that metadata added in automatically would be great tho. :(
pauze,
You can use Yammm with any file type. Just install and configure it to watch a folder with the same structure and it will add the metadata automatically.
Aaron,
The dvr-ms files aren't that much bigger, and can even be smaller if the original file had DTS since it converts it to 440kbps AC3.
Yes, ideally we could just re-wrap the mkv into the wtv container, but so far no one has yet to devise a way to do that. I'm sure someone will eventually though.
As for subtitles. WTV files support closed captions but not subtitles. So you'd have to figure out a way to convert the subtitles to the closed caption format and then add it to a stream. Technically it is possible, but again, no one has done it yet.
guess Ill give it a try ben.... I really thought to achieve the same quality the file would need to be substantially larger.
And to tell you the truth on most movies subtitles dont matter but some they do and it is an issue on those movies. If the quality is good enough with dvr-ms ill probably just keep 2 copies of my movie rips for now. (I have plenty of space still on my whs)
I understand the need to maybe do something like this to get files to play on extenders, but why is connecting a HTPC directly to a TV considered "for the birds"?!
Mine is connected to a receiver which is connected to a TV... seems to work just fine for me, and I don't need to do all this re-encoding nonsense when I play mkv's or blu-ray iso's on my beautiful TV. I have a second -- cheaper -- HTPC connected to the bedroom TV that is just as capable.
So I don't get it... $400 for another HTPC seems better than storing multiple versions of everything on a NAS and wasting countless hours of your life converting files.
MC Extenders are just sooo... 2005.
But, I guess if you have to deal with them, this is a handy way to do so.
/shrug
I'm gonna have to co-sign that statement.
I agree with most things Ben says, but not this time.
I have no issues with overscan or anything on my LCD. Direct DVI to my HDTV, and I could have just as easily used HDMI if I wanted.
If anything, overscan is for the birds.
I'm going to have to agree as well. I have been very disappointed with extenders. I have 1 primary and 3 secondary HTPCs all running W7RC. The primary records ATSC and is connected via HDMI. One of the secondaries records QAM, another records component via HDPVR with DVB-link and FireSTB and is connected via DVI, and the last is just for playback in the workout area connected via DVI. Homegroup makes it easy to share all of the recorded files. The primary also plays back bluray via Total Media Extreme. This is not as elegant as being embedded in the 7MC interface, but it works and the MC remote provides play/pause/stop functionality in TME. None of my movies are torrents so although this piece is informative, it is not really as useful as one that would help me get those blurays on my hard drive and playing inside 7MC.
Good info. Hopefully this article won't scare away any potential users, lol.
I have a better way:
1) Rip to hard drive
2) play in media browser
Not on extender you don't.
Ben, do you know if the 360 as an extender will be able to play mkvs with the divx remoulade and media browser?
Once you get the process setup it's very simple. It actually gives you a 1-click solution to convert MKV's into the most compatible format for Windows Media Center - the native DVR-MS.
I have everything centralized on my Media Center and Home Server. Whenever a movie shows up in Media Browser now there is no question as to whether or not it will work. Works every time with smooth fast forward and rewind. Works on my Media Center PC and on both of my $100 Linksys extenders.
So for the DVD aspect of this program. Does this mean that if i rip all of my DVD's to a single VOB file without the menus and title them correctly that i can use a separate mencoder profile to auto convert each of the files and attach the meta data for my dvd movies? I realize this solution doesn't convert for VOB2DVRMS but will it attach the meta data to my movies if i find a different way to convert them. If so i'm thinking of ditching the MyMovies method I had planned on us.
Also if i use the encoder in DVRMS for VOB2DVRMS will it mess up the aspect ratio as was initially the problem for Blue Ray Rips?
before somebody else corrects me i meant to type Blu-Ray.
If you don't need subtitles, then you are better off just using Videoredo TV Suite. But I do have a profile for vob to mpg, but it doesn't work 100% of the time. If you want subtitles hardsubed in you need to re-encode, otherwise you can just change containers. My vob to mpg profile can be found here.
http://bjdraw.com/2009/04/05/how-to-automatically-convert-vob-to-mpg-and-dts-to-ac3/
VideoReDo rocks. Been using it for years to convert VOBs to MPEG2s.
@Brian
What is your process. I am looking for a simple as possible of a process for ripping movies. I want insert the DVD pick an audio track (i usually use DVD Shrink) and rip to a folder and let VideoRedo go do its thing. Is this what you do and can i auto grab meta data thanks to this article or am i still stuck mapping each file in My Movies 2
normychas
It's pretty easy to convert VOB to MPEG2, which keeps everything at 100% quality. There is no video or audio conversion, it's basically change the container. You first need to get the VOB file. Once you have that, can open up VideoReDo and open the VOB file. It may or may not show an error while it tries to play the file for you. It may also show that the movie is maybe 2 seconds long. It's still okay. To select AC3, inside VideoReDo you go to Tools/Select Stream. AC3 is almost always shown as x80. Sometimes it may show as x81 or another but it is rare. Only a handful out of hundreds of movies I have done I have run into this. Then you just do a File/Save As and it will save it as MPEG2 with AC3. It also may error out or start to show a timer that is in the thousands of minutes. In that cause, you need to do a Tools/QuickStream Fix…and save it that way. This works 99.9999999% of the time for me.
It can’t hard code the subtitles if you need them. I actually need to look into how to do sub titles for movies like Apocalypto.
The biggest issue I ever run into is ripping the VOB file off. I sometimes have to use various programs and various methods to do it. But the tools I use is DVD Decrypter, AnyDVD, and DVD Fab. Sometimes I have used DVD Shrink to get some movies to work but it’s been awhile since I have needed to. AnyDVD or DVD Fab seem to almost always do the trick. Which with those I may rip them to an ISO (maybe just the main movie, or cloning the entire disc) and then use DVD Decrypter to get the VOB off.
It sucks to have to go through this to put movies I already own to be viewed via Media Center but at least it’s not too complicated for DVDs.
normychas
Also forgot to mention about My Movies. I use it because it seems to load faster then the new Movies app in Windows 7. It sucks to have to map each movie to My Movies but once it is setup it works great. The metadata does not populate over to the WIndows 7 Movies so you would need a way with like how Ben discribes it.
I know My Movies does have a way to auto add movies and I beleive it is based on the name of the folder but I am not 100% sure. I just don't trust it and I want to add each movie the way I want it so I never tried it.
I do think the new Movies section in Wnidows 7 looks better then My Movies but for me it runs slower when using my Xbox 360 because I have a lot of movies. I have had it take 5+ minutes just to load while My Movies takes maybe 10 seconds to load.
See people, this is why Media center will never be mainstream. To much fiddling, converting, tweaking. MCE just a nerds toy cause (he has no girl friend)
I'd rather spend 7 bills on that Sony bluray changer.
Lazy ^
How about Microsoft just supports MKV or other codecs right in Media Center?
I am not a Microsoft hater or anything just a frustrated HTPC user who has long since abandoned their Media Center front end for greener pastures. Windows looks attractive but when will they get it through their skulls that people want to play more than their file formats?
You CAN play mkv in vista media center (google for how), the question is extenders which have horrible support for other video codecs.
I would say one of the main drivers for developing the solution in the first place was extenders. I use extenders primarily in my household and I want a consistent experience from extender to extender to PC.
Hey ben.... got done testing my first file and came across a problem. Overall I am very surprised how close the quality is to the source. Its good enough for me that I will convert all my movies into this format but my test bdrip was a 1280x544 resolution. But the DVR-MS file ended up being 1280x704.
I dont see any reason the resoltion would change.... just for some reason.
Looks like it happened here in the scripting.
Writing header...
INITV: 0.200, 0.158, fps: 23.976
VDec: vo config request - 1280 x 544 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 2.35:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
videocodec: libavcodec (1280x704 fourcc=3267706d [mpg2])
INITV: 0.242, 0.200, fps: 23.976
BUFFER UNDEFLOW at stream 0, raising muxrate to 11088 kb/s, delta_scr: 39896
also forgot one thing... I know movies recorded with media center from the guide will appear with the hd logo in the movie section. I set the hdtv thing for my test movie but it will not show a logo for it. Have you looked at that at all? (would be a nice added benefit to get the hd logos working again because not all of my movies are my bluray rips)
Aaron,
You'd have to ask the developer of MencoderProper that one, follow the link above to his site and post a comment.
Not sure how you checked the final resolution, but I do know that sometimes dvr-ms files can report the incorrect resolution in the metadata.
As for the HD logo, that is just a metadata element. It should just be just a matter of figuring out which one it is and setting it to yes.
thanks ben.... fyi this is what I was seeing. guess its supposed to mess with the resolution for some reason. It does change the file height and its slightly larger than the source file. Not sure if Im gonna dive head first with this process yet. I did leave a comment at his website wondering why it needs to change the resolution.
I understand how you feel. In fact Andres and I are already talking about how we'd love for the next version to take a AVC/DTS mkv and turn it into a H.264/DD+ wtv. But this works in the meantime.
That would be optimal ben..... I might convert some of my "problem" mkv's for now but a wtv would be the next step to this (and imo will be the best solution). If you ever need any beta testers lmk.
Awesome Ben, thanks! o7
running W7 RC7100 x64. from GUI mencoderproper.exe warns it is crashing, then script continues to run, but then it stops with no output result after about 10 seconds.
any suggestions?
is there a x64 version I need to be running? or "run as administrator" crap I have to do?
@extinctdoughnut - I think the problem is that there is not x64 version of the MediaInfo DLL. The code actually looks for it but there is no x64 version included with DVRMSToolbox. I think you can manually download the x64 version of MediaInfo DLL and put in in this path "$\Applications\MediaInfo\X64\MediaInfo.dll" ($ = the DVRMSToolbox install directory you used) and it should work.
Followed your suggestion, got dll from here:
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download/Windows
dll 64-bit without installer version. put in x64 directory next to x86 directory.
"Mencoderproper.exe has stopped working"
InputFile=E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv
Processing actions, this may take some time!!
File is not a dvrms-file
Run Profile = Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder
ProcessId = 656
DvrmsToolbox Version: 1.2.1.8
Get the value of Context["InputFile"] and set the value of Context["MoviePath"]
Context["InputFile"] = E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv
Context["MoviePath"] = E:\Movies\true.blood.s01.e01\
Duration = 00:00:00.0020001
Throttle DVRMStoMPEG
FWThrottle: E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv
WaitTime: 5 PollTime
Waiting to process file
Queue file
Duration = 00:00:01.0160581
Waiting for available worker: 8/19/2009 2:40 PM
Worker allocated: 8/19/2009 2:40 PM
Get the value of Context["InputFile"] and set the value of Context["OutputFile"]
Context["InputFile"] = E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv
Context["OutputFile"] = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg
Duration = 00:00:00.0010001
Run MencoderProper\MencoderProper.exe "E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv" "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg"
Run C:\Program Files (x86)\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\MencoderProper\MencoderProper.exe "E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv" "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg"
[MencoderProper] Need some help running Mencoder? Well that's what I'm here for!
[MencoderProper] You entered [E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv] as the file you would like to convert and [C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg] as the destination file.
[MencoderProper] Initializing........
[MencoderProper] Loading config file located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\MencoderProper\MencoderProper.config
[MencoderProper] Config file loaded.
[MencoderProper] Initialization complete.
[MencoderProper] Obtaining input file location from parameter passed in and setting output to parameter passed in.
[MencoderProper] Getting MediaInfo for [E:\temp\true.blood.s01.e01.mkv]
Duration = 00:00:05.0082865
Get the value of Context["OutputFile"] and set the value of Context["InputFile"]
Context["OutputFile"] = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg
Context["InputFile"] = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg
Duration = 00:00:00
Get the value of Context["OutputFile"] and set the value of Context["OutputFile"]
Context["OutputFile"] = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg
Context["OutputFile"] = C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.dvr-ms
Duration = 00:00:00.0010000
Run todvrms.exe "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg" "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.dvr-ms"
Run C:\Program Files (x86)\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\todvrms.exe "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg" "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.dvr-ms"
C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.mpg does not exist
Duration = 00:00:05.0032862
Delete the file in Context["InputFile"]
Duration = 00:00:00.0010000
Run C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c mkdir "E:\Movies\true.blood.s01.e01\"
Run C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c mkdir "E:\Movies\true.blood.s01.e01\"
Duration = 00:00:05.0082865
Run C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c move /y "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.dvr-ms" "E:\Movies\true.blood.s01.e01\"
Run C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c move /y "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\DTBTemp\true.blood.s01.e01.dvr-ms" "E:\Movies\true.blood.s01.e01\"
Duration = 00:00:05.0082865
Total Duration = 00:00:21.0512040
Or you could just use mediabrowser.tv which is amazing!!
It didn't get any of the MediaInfo. Without the Media Info (video height, video width, audio codec, audio bitrate) it won't work. Hmm... I don't have an x64 version of Windows to try. Email me directly and I'll get you to help me test out an updated version with x64 support.
aechevarria@gmail.com