Bend in the Weather

IPL doesn't stand for Initial Program Load to non-geeks.... it doesn't even stand for the IBM Public License.

Ask any Indian and they will tell you it most certainly stands for the Indian Premier League. Many would be excused for confusing it with the English Premier League as an Indian version of the famous English football competition.

Whilst it is a professional sports league, it has nothing to do with football (or soccer for those inclined). Though it does actually spring from another English sport -- cricket.

The Indian Premier League is basically a Twenty20 competition (20 overs per side). With 8 teams and stars from around the world of the game of cricket contracted to play. Many are on large money deals after the players were auctioned off.

You're asking what on earth does this have to do MythTV?! A good question indeed!

If you take a look at any TV guide you'll find from around 12:15am each night on Channel 10 for the next 40 odd days that you'll see an entry into the wee hours for IPL. It's being broadcast live into Australia (and around the world for that matter). Being live and timezones what they are means the games start extremely late.

A Twenty20 game is normally over in 3-3.5 hours... but that means in order to watch the game you won't be heading to bed until 4am. (Not really good if you're wanting to work the next day). Even worse if there is a double-header that night!

MythTV comes to the rescue... I just schedule to record the show and watch it in a more Australian Friendly timezone.

However recording 43 days worth of 3-3.5 hour shows does indeed chew a lot of disk space (particularly when recording HDTV!)

In order to get around this I convert the recorded shows in xvid format. Whilst the quality is probably no-where as great as HDTV, it's still very watchable (in fact my blind eyes actually don't tell the difference most of the time!)

I convert the nuv (MythTVs MPEG2 streams+recording info file format) into xvid avis using nuvexport.
I've played around with various settings and have the following works extremely well for me.

It ensures I get:

1. A good crisp image for sports action (fast moving action).
2. Reasonable sound.
3. Most importantly, a reasonably sized file so I can store up weeks of games to watch at my choosing.

Here is the settings I utilise:

Where would you like to export the files to? [/var/lib/mythtv/recordings/transcode]
Enable Myth cutlist? [No]
Enable noise reduction (slower, but better results)? [No]
Enable deinterlacing? [Yes]
Crop broadcast overscan border (0-5%) ? [1.5]
Audio bitrate? [128]
Variable bitrate video? [Yes]
Multi-pass (slower, but better quality)? [Yes]
Video bitrate? [768]
Default resolution based on requested dimensions.
Width? [624]
Height? [352]

This then converts the file from the MPEG2 stream -> xvid avi at around 45fps for me (YMMV depending on the CPU grunt you have available). It also produces an excellent 16:9 video that is perfect to watch on my wide-screen TV.

Once done, I then use avidemux to seek through the avi file (using the seek black frame options) to discover where the adverts are and remove them.

I find this approach is much more reliable then using MythTVs commercial advert detection and cutlists. Whilst it takes a while, and can be tedious the results are much more impressive.

I now find I can watch a game of cricket much faster, without interruption and without the crazy commentator 'analysis' during the game/change of innings.

It's the only way to watch the IPL!

So next time you need to record on your MythTV box, look at exporting it. nuvexport supports are range of formats including:

1. XviD
2. SVCD
3. VCD
4. DVCD (VCD with 48kHz audio for making DVDs)
5. DVD
6. DivX
7. ASF
8. MP3
9. PSP (disabled)
10. MP4 (iPod)
11. Export to .nuv and .sql
    

It also means you should be able to spit it out on a format you prefer. Whether that be onto a DVD, Xvid or even an MP4 for portable watching. PSP isn't currently supported and is documented on their website.

It's one way to ensure you have a great library of recorded shows at your disposal, but not eating a large amount of disk space.

I'm sure that whilst many of you might not be interested in the cricket (yeah I know I'm a sad individual), you can find a great way to reduce your MythTV disk usage... meaning you can record a lot more.

For those wishing to import the exported recording back into MythTV take a read of Jeffery Fernandez's excellent blog entry on just the thing.