Step One:

Remove hard disk from PVR and install in computer (tip: a removable HDD bay is a beautiful thing! Connect one to your PVR, and install another in your computer, and you can carry the drive back and forth between the two as often as you like.)

SAFETY NOTE: When using a removeable drive bay, sure to unplug your PVR before removing drive, don't just "hot swap" using the key-switch. Even though you may have it powered off, it's still running and looking for the drive. And be sure to shut down your computer before inserting the drive and removing it; there is still power there even before or after turning the key-switch, and you could damage your drive. </public service announcement>

Run PVRdSE.exe and choose the programs you would like to rip (there is an "All" option, also...see the PVRdSE documentation.)

This should leave you with five important files: catalog.cat, .idx, .ses, .xx22 and .xx23

You'll notice the .xx22 and .xx23 files are quite large. These are your raw audio and video stream files. They should total roughly 1 GB for an hour-long program.

Step Two:

Select "Open With"

Select "Other"

Browse for PVRConv

Select OK (If you choose "Always use this program to open these files" you can simply double click on catalog.cat to lauch PVRConv in the future.)

This program will tell you which shows you have available .ses, .xx22 and .xx23 files for. Choose the one you wish to convert.

While your computer is processing that (should take 3-5 minutes or so) remove the HDD from your computer and reinstall in the PVR. When PVRConv is finished, you will have two new files: .m2v (an mpeg2 video stream) and .mp2 (mpeg layer-2 audio.)

You can now erase everything BUT these two files if you're pressed for hard drive space. I also keep my PVRdSE.txt file because it has your program title, channel, and description on it, which I later include in my .nfo file for my encodes. Hereafter, these files will be known as source.m2v and source.mp2

Step Three:

Open MAD Frontend or any other program capable of converting an .mp2 to a .wav (SoundForge will do it, but it will take 10-20 minutes.)

Choose "Add Files"

Select "All Files" and browse for your source.mp2

Set your output directory to someplace you'll remember (it wouldn't do to lose your .wav, after all.)

Click "Decode." MAD should take about 5 minutes to complete this process.

Step Four:

Open DVD2AVI

Choose File-->Open and browse for your source.m2v file

Click OK

Choose File-->Save Project and save as source.d2v.

Do yourself a favor and simplify the file name a bit.

It will process for a moment with a pop-up window like this:

When it's done, exit DVD2AVI, go into Windows Explorer, and rename your source.wav to an easier-to-remember filename also (preferably one that matches your .d2v filename.).

Step Five:

Open AviUtl.

Under File-->Open choose source.d2v

Under File--> Open Audio choose source.wav

Under File--> General Settings make sure "Frame Number Starts From 0" is checked

This should give you a frame by frame view of your video with a waveform of the audio, and the corresponding frame numbers displayed at the top (Note: it's the first number, not the second--ie: frame #/total frames)

Step through this file and find your "black" frames at the beginning and end of commercial breaks, where the audio is also silent. This way, you can be sure you're not truncating your soundtrack or including commercial audio in your edits. Write down the numbers where the video you want to keep begins and ends, NOT where the commercials begin and end. (Where the commercial ends should be your FIRST number--i.e., where the video begins)

Step Six:

Install AVISynth and the plugins Decomb.dll and Mpeg2Dec.dll.

Open the sample.avs script in Notepad.

Edit the directories locating decomb.dll and mpeg2dec.dll to point them to the directory where you saved those plugins.

Edit the "Mpeg2Source" and "WavSource" to reflect the appropriate directories and filenames of your source.d2v and source.wav files

Edit the In01, Out1, In02, Out2, etc variables to reflect the frame numbers you recorded earlier. Feel free to add more In and Out varibles if needed, or delete those in the script if needed. If you add or delete In and Out points, be sure to add or delete the corresponding sets of Trim(In##, Out#) to the Trim commands line. Simply use the same syntax as with the pre-existing commands.

If you wish to play with the Decomb parameters, feel free to do so (see documentation in the Decomb file archive). This sample script I have provided uses the Decomb "hybrid" parameters, which I find works best with the hybrid nature of the satellite bitstream. Using the direct IVTC settings left me with too many skipped and/or duplicated frames and jerky motion.

Save this file as an .avs script. DO NOT save it as a .txt file.

Step Seven:

Open TMPGEnc. Add the TooLame plugin in the Edit-->Environmental Settings-->External Plugins tab.

Choose "File-->New Project"

Under Audio Source, select your .avs script

In the "Settings" menu, confirm the following settings: 44100 Hz and 192 or 224 Kbps.

Click OK, then click "Start"

Audio encoding takes roughly 12 minutes on a 1 Ghz Athlon for an hour program. It should leave you with another .mp2 file, this one without commercials and at the proper sampling rate (44100 Hz.) We will call the resulting file encode.mp2

Step Eight:

Open CCE SP 2.5

Right click on the field and select "Add"

Choose your .avs script

Doubleclick on your .avs script line item to go into the settings for your project.

Uncheck "Audio"--we already did that part in TMPGenc, and CCE's audio encoding is terrible.

You can choose CBR or 1-pass VBR to save time. For better quality, choose 2 or 3 pass VBR. An hour long (roughly 43 minutes after commercials are edited out) program will usually come in at around 770MB with the following settings: Avg 2200, Min 1100, Max 2500. Consult FitCD bitrate calculator if you want more specific numbers.

In the "Video Settings" tab, UNCHECK "Top field first" (this might not make a difference, since our video should now be progressive rather than interlaced, but when the video IS interlaced, leaving this option checked causes judder) and CHECK "Progressive Frames," "Linear Quantization" and "ZigZag Processing".

In the "Quality Settings" tab, UNCHECK noise reduction; we don't need it. Messing with the Quality slider is at your discretion. This allocates bits to the more complex parts, so it might be worth it to bump it down to 10 or 15.

Click OK

Click Encode

Save your program settings if you want or don't, no big deal.

Go make dinner. Watch TV. Have a nap. Play with the kids. In three hours or so, come back and you should have an .mpv file (mpeg video stream, just like .m2v.) We will call this file encode.mpv

Step Nine:

Open BBMpeg's AVI2MPG2 encoder. Click "Start Encoding"

Click "Settings"

In the Input and Output Files tab, select encode.mpv in the "Open VS" box, encode.mp2 in the "Open AS1" box, and assign a filename for your resulting file in the topmost "Open PS" field. We'll refer to it as mux.mpg.

In the Program Stream Settings tab, choose "SVCD" from the options at the top.

Click OK

Click START

Multiplexing should take about 3-5 minutes. When you are done, you will have a fully multiplexed and SVCD-compliant MPEG2 file. You can view this file in Windows Media Player or any number of Mpeg2 viewers, or you can burn it to a CDR and play it on your standalone player as an SVCD. I recommend VCDEasy.

ALTERNATIVE AUDIO ENCODING METHOD--Better quality!!! (sorry, no screen caps yet):

Step 7B--

During Step 6, remove the "ResampleAudio(44100)" command from the end of the script.

After Step 6, open VirtualDub.

In the File menu, under "Open Video File", open your .avs script.

In the Audio menu, choose "Full Processing Mode"

In the Audio menu, choose "Conversion." This will bring up a window with several options. Under the resampling options, choose "44100" and to the right of this setting, choose "High Quality"* VERY IMPORTANT!!! If you don't choose "High Quality, your audio will come out sounding very echoey and with a pronounced ringing.

In the File menu, choose "Save Wav" and output your audio to a wave file.

There are several applications capable of encoding a .wav to an .mp2. I am presently using BeSweetGUI, but this particular program isn't very intuitive--I'm still figuring out how to get my settings right. You may also use MPV (seems to be a trial limitation on .mp2 encoding, though.) or TooLameGUI. headch3he might also work, but I haven't tried it yet. At any rate, use the .wav you saved in Vdub as your source file and output to an .mp2.

Bottom line, I've found this process encodes the audio in only about 5 minutes, as opposed to the 10 minutes is takes in going through TMPGenc and TooLame. I think this is because the "ResampleAudio(44100)" command in the AviSynth script is very slow. Vdub resamples the audio in about 1 minute, but if you leave the command in your avs script instead of resampling in Vdub, saving the output wave takes about 5-6 minutes.

KSJ