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kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
Anyone familiar with doing it this way? I've given up on using EyeTV's Exporter, and the Apple TV preset is especially, to be blunt, crap.

I can't find a good guide on using MPEG Streamclip with EyeTV recordings (I exported the recording from EyeTV as a MPEG Stream). I want to export it, but it has a whole load of settings that need playing around with.

Essentially, I want to have a 30 minute TV Show in MP4 with H.264 with a file size of about 230MB's. Audio in original format (5.1 if present), but AAC and AC3.

What is the best way to achieve this? I'd appreciate any help greatly, this is something I've always wanted to get round to mastering.
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Right-click on the Eye TV video file, then choose "Show Package Contents". Inside this should be the video file. Copy it (do NOT drag it out of the folder) to another location, then try using it with MPEG Streamclip. I don't know if it'll work, but it does work with VisualHub.
 

nnsa

macrumors newbie
Jun 16, 2008
4
0
From EyeTV to AppleTV

I use EyeTV 3.0X. The build-in export to AppleTV (build into EyeTV) is very good for me. My other method is: dragging the recording to my desktop and then dragging into Turbo.264 (also an Elgato product).

N. Noordegraaf
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
Cave Man: Is that how you get your EyeTV recordings exported?

I tried doing that, but the audio was out of sync slightly and the imagine quality was poor. Ideally, I want to end up with the same quality as you would downloading a TV Show on torrent.
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Cave Man: Is that how you get your EyeTV recordings exported?

No, I just use the Eye TV software (version 3). I have over-the-antenna ETV Hybrid, so I get crappy MPEG-2 streams to start with. As far as I'm concerned, none of the digital broadcasters I've had to deal with (various TV stations and DirecTV) broadcast in very good bitrates anyway.

I tried doing that, but the audio was out of sync slightly and the imagine quality was poor. Ideally, I want to end up with the same quality as you would downloading a TV Show on torrent.

I've not had problems with this with VisualHub, but it's not much faster than Elgoto's software (but gives me much more control of the output).
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
er, HandBrake can read and encode most eyetv files. The macgui will get the .mpg stream right out of the eyetv package.
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
I don't have an issue with the quality of the broadcasts or bitrate. And I'm talking SD here, we haven't quite got HD over-the-air on antenna's yet unfortunately. The recordings in EyeTV play fine, it is just when I export the recording, I have all sorts of quality issues - everything gets pixelated. And on the Apple TV preset, the video quality isn't really anything to smile about, and the audio is just dreadful.

I'm currently exporting from MPEG Streamclip with the following settings:

mpeg_set.png
 

Gentile

macrumors regular
Apr 29, 2007
195
7
Ohio
I am using EyeTV 3. I would use the EyeTv export and pick the H.264 Format. Under options pick whatever video and audio options you would like. I would pick a data rate of around 1300 kbits/sec to get a file size around 240 MB for a 30 minute show. If you don't like the quality, increase the bitrate.
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
I am using EyeTV 3. I would use the EyeTv export and pick the H.264 Format. Under options pick whatever video and audio options you would like. I would pick a data rate of around 1300 kbits/sec to get a file size around 240 MB for a 30 minute show. If you don't like the quality, increase the bitrate.

It isn't the bitrate or anything - I've had an MP4 H.264 file that is over 1GB for a 30 minute TV show and it too suffers from pixelated video.

A lot of people have complained about the quality of the EyeTV Exporter a Google search shows.
 

sandman42

macrumors 6502a
Oct 23, 2003
959
59
Seattle
From EyeTV 2.x (I forget what version was the last before 3.0) I export "as MPEG program stream." This gives me a raw MPEG2 file without re-coding. I've tried extracting the MPEG2 file from the package as described above, but had some bad results. I've never had trouble with exporting the MPEG stream, but it does take a little longer (not much though, as there's no transcoding).

I then use MPEG Streamclip to convert the file (usually to DV for importing into iMovie). I think, though, that I had to purchase the QuickTime MPEG2 Component in order for MPEG Streamclip to do this. Could be wrong about that -- it was a long time ago.
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
< whispers ... "HB dev snapshot" > :)

Sorry I missed your post - what is HB like for doing this? I'll see how my MPEG Streamclip one turns out, and do the same test in HandBrake, see which is faster at the encoding and so fourth.

So I can just drag the .eyetv file to HandBrake and it'll work? I don't need to 'Show Package Contents' and drag the MPEG2 file?
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
On the open dialogue, just like dvd, just pick the eyetv file. The HB Macgui will automatically grab the .mpg from inside the eyetv package.

Realize that in 0.9.2 it was really experimental and in the latest dev snapshot its better.

... though having said that, I have done a whole bunch of encodes using hb and eyetv and I have to say the quality from OTA HD encodes is really nice.

expect more in the next dev snapshot.
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
Okay, my MPEG Streamclip export is still going - I did a two-pass and it went through it twice (taking 30 minutes each) and now it is actually encoding the thing which will take another 30 minutes.

Why 3 times?! I thought it would only do it twice.

So an hour and 30 minutes to complete that. I'll give it a bash with HandBrake once this encode completes with two-pass and see if it is any quicker.
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
Okay, the quality wasn't what I was expecting when I used MPEG Streamclip...I'm sure it was the settings. The video is slightly fuzzy.

On the open dialogue, just like dvd, just pick the eyetv file. The HB Macgui will automatically grab the .mpg from inside the eyetv package.

Realize that in 0.9.2 it was really experimental and in the latest dev snapshot its better.

... though having said that, I have done a whole bunch of encodes using hb and eyetv and I have to say the quality from OTA HD encodes is really nice.

expect more in the next dev snapshot.

HandBrake crashes when I open the EyeTV file..
 

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
Still struggling to get any decent quality out of these exports in either EyeTV (tried pretty much every option) or MPEG Streamclip or VisualHub.
 

MacMuppet

macrumors member
Dec 3, 2006
49
0
London, UK
Still struggling to get any decent quality out of these exports in either EyeTV (tried pretty much every option) or MPEG Streamclip or VisualHub.

I've just had the need to export EyeTV recordings to DV and
the quality of the results has been appalling. Looks like were stuck.
 

sandman42

macrumors 6502a
Oct 23, 2003
959
59
Seattle
Try using EyeTV's 'Export as MPEG Program Stream' (the fastest export option -- no transcoding), then import that into Streamclip. Of all the methods I've tried, this has give me the best results, though I mostly use this to create DV files for use in iMovie, not creating MP4 files in Streamclip.
 
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