How to digitally transfer recorded videos from the Wintal
PVR-X10 or Digicrystal SDT-9000PVR
to your PC
version 1.2, by PC Pro
Table Of Contents:
Disclaimer, Warranty & Legals
Requirements
Caution
Background and Overview
First Transfer Method overview (DVD Recorder)
Second Transfer Method overview (PC Video Capture Card)
Third Transfer Method overview (Transferring Digitally To Your PC)
Transfer Method 3 Guide (detailed version)
Transfer Method 3 Guide (summarised version)
Appendix 1: Adjusting the DVD to allow full screen & widescreen playback
(detailed version)
Appendix 1: Adjusting the DVD to allow full screen & widescreen playback
(summarised version)
Appendix 2: Using DigeniusDisk via the
Command Line
Appendix 3: Troubleshooting DigeniusDiskX not recognising
the PVR hard drive
Credits
Website Links
Disclaimer, Warranty & Legals
You assume full responsibility for any damage you may cause as a result of using
this document. If you choose to follow this guide then you do so at your own risk.
The Wintal company does not endorse this guide, and in fact threaten voiding the
unit's warranty even if you simply remove the screws and open the cover. The
choice is yours whether to continue or not.
Requirements
You need the following: Wintal PVR-X10 or Digicrystal SDT-9000PVR digital set
top box; a fast PC running Windows 2000 or XP; many Gigabytes of available NTFS
formatted hard drive space on your PC (remembering that the Wintal's hard drive
can hold 80 Gigabytes in total); a spare hard drive jumper pin connector
(optional); a PC DVD burner (optional); a DVD authoring application (optional);
a phillips-head screw driver.
Caution
This exercise is not for PC beginners. It assumes moderate level PC know-how,
user competence in Windows XP, and experience in the removal and installation of
hard drives.
Background and Overview
The Wintal PVR-X10 is a good new standard definition digital set top box, with
hard disk recording capabilities, and extremely useful time-shifting
functionality. Time-shifting allows you to start recording a show, come back
later, and watch the same (or a different previously recorded) show from the
beginning and fast forward the commercials, all while the unit is recording the
rest of the show in the background.
The Wintal unit is distributed by Wintal's owner, the "Radio Parts Group" from
Melbourne, Australia. The Wintal PVR-X10, and the similar Digicrystal
SDT-9000PVR unit, are based on the set top boxes made by
Digenius in Germany. Their hard drive recording features make them one of the
first of their kind in Australia, and one of the cheapest Personal Video
Recorder (PVR) digital set top boxes (around $220 on eBay), hence their steady
growth in popularity into the mainstream market. The units do have some
intermittent bugs and other issues though, but I'm not going into those here.
You can read about users' positive and negative experiences at
http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showforum=8
Unlike more expensive PVR digital set top boxes, such as the Topfield TF5000PVRt
unit (which retails around the $950 mark), the Digenius-based units
unfortunately do not have a digital external interface, such as a USB port, to
connect it directly to a PC in order to digitally transfer the recorded programs
without quality loss. Instead there are only analogue outputs (RCA and SCART
connectors). This leaves three possible ways of transferring your recorded
digital TV programs to a PC and/or a DVD, should you want to store some
recordings away from the Wintal or Digicrystal unit.
(Note: From here on, mostly only the Wintal unit will be specifically referenced, for
convenience. If you own a Digicrystal SDT-9000PVR unit, you can substitute
Digicrystal for where you read Wintal.)
First Transfer Method overview (DVD Recorder)
The first video transfer method is by using the Wintal unit's
3-plug RCA outputs (the most common connectors), or SCART output, or S-VIDEO
output (via a separately purchased SCART-to-SVIDEO adapter) into to a
stand-alone set-top DVD recorder (if you own one). Simply press "Play" on the
Wintal unit and "Record" on the DVD recorder for each recording you want to burn
to DVD in real-time. Some video and audio quality loss will inevitably occur due
to the analogue connectors used, as well as the required DVD encoding
(re-compression) that the DVD recorder must do. If you are a PC novice or aren't
concerned with trying to achieve optimum picture and audio quality, then this
method is for you. The S-VIDEO (Super Video) output is the highest quality video
output option for this method. You'll still need to use the two common red and white stereo RCA outputs for audio. For
better quality audio output, the Wintal does have a less common SPDIF output
connector as well. So if your stand alone DVD recorder accepts an S-VIDEO
connection, buy an "output SCART-to-SVIDEO adapter" from an electronics store
(such as Bing Lee) for about $15, along with a standard S-VIDEO cable.
Tip: In order for SCART/S-Video output to work in
colour, you'll need to change your Wintal's video output setting in it's menu to
CVBS.
Second Transfer Method overview (PC Video Capture Card)
The second transfer method, using the same analogue outputs of the Wintal box
as described in Transfer Method 1, when connected into a video capture card on a PC. The
video is then "captured" (recorded) to the PC in real-time similar to Method 1,
and then allows you to edit and manipulate the video once it is on the computer. Preferably you
would use the S-VIDEO output into a DV capture card for highest quality. This
method is a good one for multimedia-savvy PC users with video capture hardware.
However some quality loss is unavoidable. The S-VIDEO output is one digital to
analogue visual quality conversion process that takes place, the converting and
capturing from the S-VIDEO signal to the DV codec within the PC is another, and
then once captured, the DV footage must then be compressed and converted again
to a DVD compatible MPEG file. Those files are then likely edited and imported
into a DVD authoring application to be burned to DVD. This method is much slower
than Method 1. Despite all the video conversions, this method gives quite good
quality overall, but you will see why Method 3 below, while it does still
involve some file conversion processes, does not involve video or sound quality
loss from when it was originally recorded on the PVR.
Third Transfer Method overview (Transferring Digitally To Your PC)
The third, latest, and best method (in my opinion) is to transfer the raw
digital footage from the Wintal's hard drive to your PC, and then burn it to DVD
from there. The key thing here is that all digital TV shows are actually already
encoded and saved onto the Wintal's hard drive as DVD-ready MPEG files. The
trouble is getting to them. Since the Wintal unit does not have a digital video
output, such as a USB or Firewire interface, the process is fairly involved.
In summary, the first thing that needs to happen is to remove the hard drive
from the Wintal unit and plug it into a PC, using one of a variety of ways. The
initial problem is that the file system on the Wintal hard drive cannot be read
by a PC in the normal way. But as at mid March 2005, there is now a free
software program, DigeniusDisk, that allows special access to this hard drive
from within Windows. Digitally transferring recordings from the Wintal PVR-X10
to the PC and ultimately to DVD is now possible! However DigeniusDisk is a
command-line program, which is DOS-like and therefore not very user-friendly for
some. It is also written in German, which makes it somewhat unpractical for us English
speaking folk. More recently in May 2005, there is a new mostly English
program, DigeniusDiskX v0.4a, which allows you to use DigeniusDisk via a
standard user-friendly Windows graphical interface. Special thanks goes out to
the DigeniusDiskX author, MacDisein, for translating and compiling an English
version of DigeniusDiskX for us.
Once the recordings are transferred from the Wintal hard drive to your PC, the
next problem is that the videos are transferred in a file format (known as "PES"
files) which DVD software applications cannot automatically recognise. Therefore
these PES files need to have the video and audio MPEG files within them
extracted out (or more accurately "demuxed") into two MPEG files. Once the
separate video and audio files are in MPEG format, they can then be
"multiplexed" (merged) into one MPG file. It is this DVD standard MPG file that
you can edit (eg. cut out the commercials), then import into a DVD authoring
application, add a menu if you'd like, and burn it to a DVD, all with no
quality loss from the original digital TV recording. The Method 3 Guide below
will show you how to perform this third transfer method.
========================================================================================================
TRANSFER METHOD 3 GUIDE (detailed version)
1) Once you are ready to transfer some of your recorded videos from your Wintal PVR-X10
hard drive to your PC, turn off and unplug the Wintal unit from the power
supply.
2) Remove all cables out the back of the Wintal unit.
3) Using a phillips-head screw driver, remove the 5
screws from the lid of the Wintal unit. Take note of the lengths of the screws
and where they belong, as there are two different lengths used inside this unit,
and it is best not to get them mixed up.
Note: Do not perform
this hard drive removal on a carpeted floor, due to possible static that carpet
causes, which can destroy electronic circuitry.
4) Remove the lid from the Wintal unit.
5) Earth yourself by touching a close metal object (other than the Wintal unit)
with both hands, such as your kitchen sink.
6) You will see the Western Digital 80 Gigabyte hard drive centrally inside the unit.
It is held in place by two mounting rails on either side of the hard drive. As
there is not a lot of room inside you need to be extra careful not to damage a
cable, or scratch anything.
7) Unscrew the 4 vertical screws securing
the hard drive's left and right mounting plates to the unit.
8) Carefully lift the hard drive up about an inch, then carefully and gently
disconnect the power and IDE ribbon cable from the hard drive.
9) Remove the hard drive from the Wintal unit, and place the Wintal unit aside
for now.
10) Holding the hard drive, unscrew the
remaining 4 horizontal screws holding the side mounting plates to the hard drive, taking
note of the lengths of the screws used.
11) You are about to insert or plug-in this Western Digital hard drive
into your PC. The easiest and most recommended way to connect it to your PC, is
to use an external USB 5.25-inch hard drive casing, if you own one (worth around $35).
This way, you would insert the Wintal hard drive into the casing, and then
easily connect that to a spare USB2 port on your PC. The Wintal hard drive will
auto-detect within Windows and you'd needn't even power off your PC.
If you don't own a USB hard drive casing, the next best way is to use an
removable IDE hard drive bay, if you own one (worth around $25). The third, most
inconvenient, but free way is to connect it internally within your PC. You would power off your PC, take the lid
off your PC and connect it up to a spare IDE cable spot. You'll need experience
in the addition and removal of PC
hard drives to be able to do this. If you don't know how to install a new hard
drive into your PC, get someone who does. Apart from the USB connection method,
you'll need to set the
jumper setting on the Wintal's hard drive to the required Master or Slave setting before
powering on your PC. This is where the spare jumper pin connector can be
required. Refer to the diagram on the upper side of the hard drive as to which
pins to short in order to set the hard drive to Master or Slave.
12) Once all correctly connected up, if you've used the USB connection method,
go to Step 14. If you've used one of the IDE connection methods, turn your PC
back on and enter the PC's BIOS setup to ensure that the Western Digital hard
drive has been correctly identified by your PC. Again you'll need some PC
know-how to do this. If it doesn't detect within the BIOS, either it is not
connected properly, or the wrong pins have been shortened, or you simply need to
use the USB method to properly connect it.
13) Once you have verified the newly inserted hard drive has been detected in
the BIOS, exit the BIOS and start up the PC to Windows 2000 or XP in the normal
fashion.
14) Warning! Do not enter the Disk Management section within Windows 2000/XP, as this
will want to "initialise" the newly detected hard drive, which will probably
render the hard drive useless for the Wintal unit! Also be aware that the hard
drive will not be accessible in Windows Explorer as a new drive letter, as the
contents of the hard drive are not Windows compatible.
15) If you've not already downloaded it, download the latest version of the German
software program "DigeniusDisk", being version 0.9.8 at the time of
writing, from
http://domroes-meckenheim.bei.t-online.de or here.
16) If you've not already downloaded it, download the English version of DigeniusDiskX v0.4a from (at the time of
writing)
http://www.faithful-eliza.de/upload/DigeniusDiskX04a.zip
17) Using My Computer or Windows Explorer, choose a hard drive location on your
PC where there is plenty of available hard drive space, and create a new
directory named "Wintal" (or another descriptive name). This is where you want the Wintal's recordings to be transferred to.
Tip: It is recommended you choose a hard drive
location that has the NTFS file system on it. The older FAT32 file system format
only supports a maximum size of 4 Gigabytes per file, which equates to about an
hour of video. The NTFS file system has no such file size limitations (worth
mentioning). You can find what file system is used on your PC, by right-clicking
each hard drive letter within My Computer, and choosing Properties.
18) Open then extract the ZIP file contents of the two software programs,
DigeniusDisk and DigeniusDiskX, into the same directory location you chose in Step 17.
Note: both ZIP files contain identical files
"Disk32.dll" and "Disk16.dll".
19) Using My Computer or Windows Explorer, go to the chosen hard drive location
where the now extracted DigeniusDisk and DigeniusDiskX programs reside.
Double-click the DigeniusDiskX.exe file to run DigeniusDiskX.
20) If the Wintal/Digicrystal hard drive is connected properly, and the hard
drive has Digenius file system v1.02 on it (see
Appendix 3 for more info on this subject), you
should get presented with a screen similar to the below one, displaying your
recorded shows.
Note: If
DigeniusDiskX does not detect your Wintal/Digicrystal hard drive, and instead are presented with a
German error message, you'll need to refer to
Appendix 3
of this guide for
further instructions.
21) Tick the boxes next to
the show/s that you want to transfer, and then click the Rip button. Expect to
wait around 3 to 5 minutes of transfer time for each hour of recorded footage,
depending on the speed of your PC. This transfer process will be much faster
than having to capture it in real time to a video capture card or stand alone
DVD recorder, which is one of the main reasons why you are doing this method in
the first place. The other reason being no quality loss occurs. You can try and
tick multiple boxes to rip (transfer) them to your PC all in one go,
however I found this sometimes resulted in a German error message. So my
recommendation is if you can't transfer multiple shows at once, try ticking and
transferring one show at a time.
Tip: It is best to wait until each transfer is finished before clicking
elsewhere on your PC, otherwise the DigeniusDiskX program is likely to enter
into a "Not Responding" state. If this happens, the videos are
still transferring in the background, and you just have to wait until the
transfer process finishes before DigeniusDiskX returns to a usable state
again. Also know that the "Used diskspace" meter on the bottom on the
DigeniusDiskX screen is inaccurate, so disregard it.
22) Using My Computer or Windows Explorer, go to the chosen Wintal directory on
your hard disk. You will notice large ".PES" files now exist in there. As
labelled, for each recording there is one for the audio file and one is for the video file. It might be a good
idea to rename these PES files to more descriptive file names, remembering to
include whether it is the audio or video file, and also retain it's ".PES" file
extension.
Tip: You can double-click on the video.pes file and open it with Windows Media
Player to get a silent preview of the contents of the video. However as PES
files are not in true MPEG format, DVD Authoring software will not allow PES
files. This is why we need to "demux" them into MPEG files shortly.
Note: You may need to
close down DigeniusDiskX in order to rename or play the PES files as described
in this Step.
23) If you have more recordings to transfer to PC, go back into DigeniusDiskX, and follow Steps 20 to 22.
Otherwise continue to Step 24.
24) Once finished transferring to PC all the recordings you want to keep, I recommend
shutting down your PC at this point, removing the Wintal hard drive, and then
carefully placing it back into the Wintal unit again, connecting it back up the way you
found it. We are now finished with
the Wintal unit.
Note: If you are using the USB connection method, you don't need to
shutdown the PC in order to detach the Wintal hard drive.
25) Back into Windows XP, you'll need to download ProjectX software, if you
don't already have it. You can download it from the official website at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/project-x
Alternatively, I've made this software available from my website which can be
downloaded here:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/pcpro/ProjectX_0.82.0.05b.zip
26) Extract the ProjectX_0.82.0.05b.ZIP file into a nominated ProjectX directory
location on your PC. It is a Java application, and therefore it needs the latest
Java runtime software to be installed on your PC for ProjectX to work. If it is
not already installed, the Java runtime can be downloaded from
http://www.java.com/en/download/download_the_latest.jsp
27) To start ProjectX, double-click the ProjectX.JAR file from your new ProjectX
directory.
Note: If the screen goes blurry at this point, it is because your video card's "anti-aliasing" setting is not set to "Off" in the
Display Settings of your computer.
28) To extract the pair of DVD-ready MPEG video and the audio files from within
each PES
file, you need to "demux" the PES files. To do so within ProjectX, add a recording’s
video.pes and audio.pes files into ProjectX, in that order (always video.pes
file first, then audio.pes file.) Simply click File then Add, then locate your
PES files to add them.
29) Time Saving Tip 1: To save time during the upcoming demuxing process, you can choose to only demux the portion/s of the video that you want to keep. This is especially useful when you have a long recording but only want to keep 10 minutes of it. To do this, right-click the video.pes file and choose "Open Cut/Specials". Now use the horizontal video scroll bar and click on the "add point" button to set as many start and end points as you like. When finished, click "apply & close". Without audio or even a play button, use this tool as a rough selection editor only. You can fine tune the editing later.
30) Time Saving Tip 2: If you have multiple recordings to demux,
rather than manually demux one pair of PES files at a time, you can have
ProjectX demux them all in one batch process. To do this, after adding your
first pair of PES files, click the + sign located in the top-middle section of
the main ProjectX screen. This will start a new "collection" number. Now add
another pair of PES files as per Steps 28 and 29, and then click + again if you
want to add some more. When finished adding in all your PES recordings into
different collections, ensure that the "all coll's" box is ticked. This box is
located on the lower left of the ProjectX screen.
31) You can click on Go! at this point to demux all the PES collections to MPG
files. However, without changing a particular ProjectX configuration setting, you are
likely to encounter numerous "missing startcode" errors in the Logwindow tab. To
reduce or eliminate these errors, you'll need to change the "I-Buffersize"
setting within the Options tab of ProjectX. The default I-Buffersize setting is
196608. My recommendation is to first change the setting to 524288. Then click Go! to
demux, and then review the Logwindow to see if you still get
numerous "missing startcode" errors during the video demuxing process. If so,
change the I-Buffersize setting even higher, and try demuxing them again. Be aware
however, that the higher the I-Buffersize setting, the longer it will take to
demux the PES files. Therefore some experimentation with this setting may be
required. The Logwindow contents is saved as log files for your review in the
same directory as the MPG files.
Note: If you've set the I-Buffersize
setting to be 524288 or more, only adjust this setting further if you are still getting streams
of these Missing Startcode errors in succession. Don't worry if you only get one
or two of these errors. It is common to get them during the first or
last second of the video demuxing process. Also disregard the error message if it
appears during the audio demuxing process.
32) Once the demuxing of the PES files process is successfully completed, for
each recording, an MPA (audio) file and an M2V (video) file will now exist in
the same directory as the PES files. If you have no more PES recordings to demux,
close ProjectX.
33) What you need to do now, for each pair of MPG files (ie. each recording), is to merge the two newly
created MPA and M2V files into one MPG video file. I recommend using the MPEG
Tools section of TMPGEnc v2.5 software (found within TMPGEnc by clicking the
File menu, then MPEG Tools). Go to
http://www.tmpgenc.net to download a free
version. This will multiplex the video and audio files together to create a new
merged MPG file. There are other good alternative multiplexing applications that can do the
same thing.
Note: Some advanced
users may prefer to leave the video and audio files as separate files, but most
users would prefer the video and audio be in one file.
34) Go ahead and sample play the new MPG file by locating it on your PC and
double-clicking it. Marvel at the high DVD quality. If your media player
software doesn't display the correct aspect ratio of the video (eg. it squashes
16:9 widescreen into 4:3), try playing it using a dedicated DVD Software player,
such as WinDVD. Alternatively I recommend playing it using "Media Player
Classic" with the "Keep Aspect Ratio" option ticked. Media Player Classic can be
found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli
35) Repeat Steps 33 and 34 to multiplex each of the transferred recordings to a
single new MPG file.
Tip: If you are running
out of available hard disk space at this point, after reviewing the single
multiplexed MPG files and are happy with them, you can delete the PES files.
Remember to empty your Recycle Bin to recover the disk space.
36) For each recording, once multiplexed into a single MPG file, you may want to edit it
to
cut out the commercials and further refine the start and end points. If maximum
video quality is your primary concern, I
recommend using the "Merge & Cut" tab of the TMPGEnc v2.5 "MPEG Tools" section
to edit the MPG video.
This special "Merge & Cut" edit tool within TMPGEnc v2.5 is not the fastest MPG
editing tool available, but is one of the only MPG editing tools that
will not re-compress any of the MPG video when outputting to a new
edited MPG file. Alternatively, other faster MPG editors, such as the newer "TMPGEnc MPEG
Editor", usually resort to re-compressing
certain sections of the
MPG video to achieve frame-accurate edit points, and a faster editing experience, which
in turn results in slightly
reduced video quality for those re-compressed sections. So while the "Merge & Cut"
retains the original quality of the video by not re-compress any of it, it is slower to produce the final MPG than
other editors, due to all the "seeking" it needs to perform during the
outputting process.
37) If you plan on burning the final MPGs
to DVD video, import the edited final MPG file/s into a DVD authoring application,
such as Ulead DVD Workshop or TMPGEnc DVD Author.
Tip: Remember that a blank
single-layer DVD disc can only store 4.38 Gigabytes, which equates to around 75
minutes of digital TV. If the recording/s you want burned to a single DVD go
over the DVD size limit, trim them down or remove some videos from the list to
be burned to that DVD. Alternatively you can export the DVD contents out to a
VIDEO_TS directory on your hard drive, and then compress that contents down to
around 4480 Megabytes using DVD Shrink v3.2 (http://www.dvdshrink.org).
38) This transfer guide has transferred all recordings in the 16:9
(widescreen/letterbox) format, not the 4:3 (regular square TV style) full
screen format. So if you have a regular 4:3 TV, and want to have the option to
play back your finished DVD in 4:3 full screen format, rather than be forced to
watch the shows in widescreen letterboxed format, you need to read the
Appendix
1 section of this guide. But if you have a widescreen TV only, you can burn
the final DVD using a DVD Authoring application, or a good DVD Video burning
application like Nero Burning ROM or Nero Express. Go ahead and test your DVD, and enjoy it!
========================================================================================================
TRANSFER METHOD 3 GUIDE (summarised version)
· Remove the Wintal hard drive from the Wintal unit and connect it to your PC.
· Download DigeniusDisk v0.9.8 and DigeniusDiskX v0.4a, and extract them into
the same directory.
· Run DigeniusDiskX and transfer your chosen videos
to your PC's hard drive, as PES files.
· Carefully re-insert the Wintal hard drive back into the Wintal unit.
· Back at your PC, download and run ProjectX to demux each pair of video and
audio PES files into MPEG files. Save time by having ProjectX only demux a
selected section of the recording, by right-clicking the "Video.PES" file and
choose "Open Cut/Specials", before demuxing.
· Using the MPEG Tools section of TMPGEnc
v2.5, multiplex the pairs of newly created
MPEG files into a single MPEG file.
· Still in MPEG Tools, use the Merge & Cut section to edit the
new multiplexed MPEG file, to refine start and end points, or cut out
commercials, etc.
· Add the finished
edited MPEG file/s to a DVD Authoring application. Add a DVD menu if
you like.
· If you own a widescreen TV, you may burn to DVD and finish here. Otherwise
continue if you plan to play the DVD on a regular 4:3 TV.
========================================================================================================
Appendix 1: Adjusting the DVD to allow full screen & widescreen playback
(detailed version)
All digital TV is recorded to the PVR in widescreen
format, including 4:3 (non-widescreen) shows. If you were to burn your final MPGs to DVD now,
all shows on that DVD will be played back on your TV in
letterboxed or widescreen format. This default widescreen state is good if you
have a widescreen TV (figures 3 and 6 below), but not so good for 4:3 TV owners
(as all shows will look like
figure 1 or 2). For 4:3 TVs, ideally you would want to be able
to have the choice to display the DVD play back on your TV in full screen (figure
4 or 5) or
letterboxed widescreen (figure 1 or 2), just as you have this choice when
viewing recordings from your digital set top box.
The good news is that
there is a special way enable this choice of display format from a DVD. To perform this, do the following:
1) Follow the main "Transfer Method 3" guide through, until are ready and to
burn your final MPG videos to DVD.
2) Using a DVD Authoring application such as TMPGEnc DVD Author, don't burn to DVD yet, but instead output the ready-to-burn-to-DVD files to a folder location on your hard drive. You will end up with a VIDEO_TS directory on your hard drive containing the large VOB files and small IFO files. This VIDEO_TS directory is the actual contents of the final DVD that will be soon burned to a DVD.
3) Download the program IFOEdit from http://www.ifoedit.com
4) Start IFOEdit, and click on Open. Locate this new VIDEO_TS directory on your PC's hard drive, and double-click on it.
5) You will notice there are a few IFO files. There will at least be a VIDEO_TS.IFO file and a VTS_01_0.IFO file, but there may be more.
6) Ignore the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. Instead open the next IFO file, starting from "VTS_01_0.IFO"
7) Towards the middle of the IFOEdit screen, under the heading of "Title Set (Movie) attributes", double-click the line "Video: MPEG-2 720x576 (PAL) (PAL 625/50) (16:9) (letterboxed)".
8) Now in the Video Attributes window, look under the Static section (located on the bottom right of the window). By default, typically only "Automatic Letterbox" is ticked, and this is why the DVD is forced to play back only in widescreen letterbox by default. So now you have a choice to make. Ticking both "Automatic Pan&Scan" and "Automatic Letterbox" boxes will enable you to choose the display format of this DVD via your DVD player's setup menu (ie. full screen Pan&Scan or Letterbox). However if you want to force the whole DVD to only play in 4:3 full screen, untick the Automatic Letterbox and only tick Automatic Pan&Scan. Once you've made your decision, click OK.
9) Back in the IFOEdit main screen, click Save. Click Save again to overwrite the existing IFO file.
10) Repeat steps 6 to 9 if there are more IFO files listed in the VIDEO_TS directory (such as VTS_02_0.IFO). Remember to ignore the VIDEO_TS.IFO file.
11) If the overall size of the VIDEO_TS
directory is 4.38Gb or less, burn the VIDEO_TS contents to a writable
single-layer DVD disc,
using DVD burning software, such as your DVD Authoring program, Nero Express or
Nero Burning Rom.
However if the VIDEO_TS directory is larger than 4.38Gb in
size, I recommend using DVD Shrink v3.2 (from
http://www.dvdshrink.org)
to shrink it all down to around 4480
Megabytes. Then burn the subsequent new VIDEO_TS directory as the final DVD
video disc. Alternatively, if the lengthy recording is important enough, you could burn
it in it's current form (without re-compressing) to a double-layer blank DVD that holds 8.5 Gigabytes.
You'll need a dual-layer DVD burner for this, and will spend around $9 per
blank dual-layer DVD disc, compared to around 60c per blank single-layer DVD
blank media.
12) Play this burned DVD on your TV via your set top
DVD player. Assuming you ticked both boxes as per Step 8, you can use the display options in your DVD player's setup
menu to choose whether your DVD plays back in 4:3 full screen or
letterbox.
Well done! The journey was worth it.
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Appendix 1: Adjusting the DVD to allow full screen & widescreen playback (summarised version)
· To play back digital TV recordings from DVD in 4:3 full-screen mode rather
than 16:9 letterbox mode, have the DVD authoring program compile and write the
ready-to-burn-to-DVD files out to a VIDEO_TS directory on your hard drive.
· Download and run IFOEdit.
· Open the VTS_01_0.IFO file within the VIDEO_TS directory, and double-click the
"Video: MPEG-2 720x576 (PAL) (PAL 625/50) (16:9) (letterboxed)" line.
· Ensure that both the "Automatic Pan&Scan" and "Automatic Letterbox" boxes are
ticked.
· Save changes and exit IFOEdit.
· If the total contents of the VIDEO_TS directory is larger than 4.38 Gigabytes,
use DVD Shrink v3.2 to re-compress it down to 4480 Megabytes.
· Using a DVD burning application such as a DVD authoring program or Nero
Burning ROM, burn the VIDEO_TS folder to blank DVD video disc. You can now watch
your DVD and select your desired TV display mode within your DVD player's setup
menu, as either Pan & Scan, Letterbox, or Widescreen.
========================================================================================================
Instead of using the graphics interface of DigeniusDiskX, you can still use the command line driven DigeniusDisk. To do so, replace Steps 19 to 21 from the main guide with the following steps.
19) Start a Command Prompt (type CMD in the
Start > Run box) and then change directory to the location of where you
extracted the file DigeniusDisk.exe.
20) Type in (without the inverted commas) "DigeniusDisk list" This will hopefully detect the Wintal hard drive and show you the recorded program
names that you will recognise, along with a two digit number in front of them.
It is this number that you will use to identify the particular recordings that
you want to transfer to your PC.
21) To transfer a recorded program from the Wintal hard drive to the current directory on your PC, type in (without the inverted commas) "DigeniusDisk movie rip <number>" whereby <number> is the two digit number of the movie you want transferred to your PC.
========================================================================================================
Appendix 3: Troubleshooting DigeniusDiskX not recognising the PVR hard drive
If neither DigeniusDiskX or DigeniusDisk detect your Wintal/Digicrystal hard
drive, there are few things you can try.
1) Firstly ensure Windows 2000/XP has properly detected the newly connected Western Digital hard drive. To check this, start "Device Manager" (by right-clicking My Computer, then selecting Properties > Hardware > Device Manager). Now Double-click on "Disk drives" and ensure that "WDC WD80 0BB-55JKA0" is listed as a hard drive device. If it is, go to step 2. If it is not, then either the Wintal/Digicrystal hard drive is not connected correctly to your PC, or your current connection method isn't working. You should try another connection method, as described in Step 11 of the main guide, and check Device Manager again.
2) Temporarily shutting down all 3rd party software running in the background (ie virus scanner, firewall, Internet, etc)
3) It has been noted by some forum users that the hard drive within the Digicrystal SDT-9000PVR may need to be first "erased" via the Digicrystal's PVR menu system in order for it to be detected properly from then on by DigeniusDiskX. Only do this erase as a last resort if you've tried both suggestions above. Unfortunately the erase function will delete all records currently on the hard drive. If you are faced with this position, I recommend using a different transfer method to get the current lot of video from the hard drive, then erase the hard drive via the PVR's menu system, re-populate it with new recordings, and try DigeniusDiskX again. To perform the hard disk erase, enter the PVR's list of recorded shows menu, then press the Menu button, and finally the OK button.
Within DigeniusDiskX, click "show harddisk" (this function will launch automatically if DigeniusDiskX cannot detect your PVR hard disk). This will display the raw initial data (ie. the header) of each detected hard drives connected to your PC. If detected, the header of the Wintal/Digicrystal hard drive should look like what the red arrow is pointing to below:
========================================================================================================
Credits
I'd like to mention and thank the following users of the Australian Digital
Broadcasting Forum for their interest, support, and for sharing their technical
knowledge and experiences:
GDRGuy69, Bobster05, Dommer, Dilligafocau, Sylvian, Neon Kitten, BigBobOz,
Squarei, Huggo72.
Special thanks goes to Domroem for authoring DigeniusDisk, and to MacDisein for
authoring DigeniusDiskX.
Website Links
DigeniusDisk
http://domroes-meckenheim.bei.t-online.de
DigeniusDiskX
http://www.faithful-eliza.de/upload/DigeniusDiskX04a.zip
ProjectX
http://sourceforge.net/projects/project-x
Java Runtime
http://www.java.com/en/download/download_the_latest.jsp
TMPGEnc
http://www.tmpgenc.net
IFOEdit
http://www.ifoedit.com
Media Player Classic
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli
DVD Shrink
http://www.dvdshrink.org
Australian PVR Forum
http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?s=ee580fc388f8fd28e0b6b6106a4aca88&showforum=8
Wintal transfer forum
http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=16119
Wintal
http://wintal.com.au
Digicrystal
http://www.digicrystal.com.au
Radio Parts Group http://www.radioparts.com.au
Digenius
http://www.digenius.de
PC Pro's website
http://users.bigpond.net.au/pcpro
Copyright © May 2005. All rights reserved.