Settings for converting streamed Peekshows video

[levander]

Wondering if anyone's already played around with this so I can just try their settings?

Just tonight I'm starting this. I can get Peekshows video recorded using Replay Media Catcher. FLV Player plays them, but doesn't let me seek around in them. Windows Media Player plays them at like half speed, the audio is listenable, but it's really slow sounding. So, I want to convert the video.

Following the recommendation on the site, I'm trying AVS Video Converter. And, you can click stuff like "To DVD" or "To MPEG". I tried the "To MPEG" button on a file I recorded. Apparently, the default settings you convert to are like 1920x1080 and 15000 kbps. So, AVS is taking this little 320x240 and I don't know how many kbps FLV file I recorded and turned it into this giant, HD capable video.

Has anyone already got good settings for what to convert video captured from Peekshows?

I remember in TMPGenc, you could just convert it to the same settings that were in the source file which resulted in much less quality degradation. But, I think that was for when you were converting from MPEG to MPEG, so I'm not so sure it matters...

You can try to fix flv files as mentioned in the following thread
Repairing FLV files by remuxing them with freeware FLV Extract and mp4box

But I suggest you to submit a support ticket to Applian, upload the flv file you have problem with, so that Replay Media Catcher can be fixed to save these video and convert them properly.

[levander]

I'm still working on this. But apparently, there's another common problem than videos playing at the wrong speed. Even the videos that are playing at the right speed, when I try to split them into separate audio and video files using FLV Extract, I get an error saying the audio was encoded using the NellyMoser encoder which is unsupported. From Googling around, apparently the NellyMoser encoder is proprietary, and that's why it won't extract. And, I bet the free software everyone is using to split the stream, because the codec is commercial, the free software developers aren't going to pay for it (understandably). That's why it doesn't support that codec.

I'm open to using commercial software like Adobe Premier. Anybody know if something like that would help with 1.) my video too fast and 2.) can't get the sound stream out of the video problems?

Similar problem:
Problem: Can't seek/skip .FLV file (How to fix recorded live video stream)

[levander]

Stream, I guess you're saying that the video playing at the wrong speed that I mention is the same problem as not being able to seek that is mentioned in the thread you linked to?

As it turns out, Jaksta works flawlessly with Peekshows. Well, the recording the stream part does. The conversion feature included with Jaksta, not at all. I've read that AVS Video Converter works with the proprietary NellyMoser audio codec, so I'm trying to use AVS to convert the FLV's to MPEG's so I can edit them in VirtualDub.

So, I'm back to the original question. Anybody know good MPEG settings to do the conversion? I know the FLV's I'm capturing are 320x480 because FLV Player tells me that much. And, not that I know anything about MPEG 1 vs. MPEG 2 vs. MPEG 4, but I'm using the MPEG 1 standard just because the file doesn't seem high quality and the 1st revision should be enough to capture that?

I've only tried the conversion once and I stopped it at about 50% progress because a 54 MB FLV had already been turned into a 1.5 GB MPEG file.

More on the settings I'm trying now:

Video Codec: MPEG1
Frame Size: 320x240
FrameRate: 29,97 fps (I really think that's a comma in the AVS settings dialog, but shouldn't it be a period?)
Bitrate: 15000 (I'm thinking this should be set down)
Audio Codec: MP2 (Again, it's not the greatest quality audio, so MP2 should suffice? Shouldn't need to bump it up to MP3?)
Channels: Mono (On some Peeks video I was able to save somewhere, I remember seeing that the audio was just mono - saw it in some properties dialog somewhere when I was recording video with Replay. It's never been listed in any properties dialog when I record the video with Jaksta)
Sample Size: 16 bit (No idea what would be good here)
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz (No idea)
Bitrate: 160 kbps

Hints as to good ideas for these, greatly appreciated.

[levander]

Oh yeah, I'm hesitant to go reporting any bugs yet because I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. But, I believe the reason Jaksta works better with Peekshows than RMC is because Jaksta mentions a notion of a "Live Stream" in their documentation. I bet Jaksta has specific programming code to handle live streams, whereas Replay just handles them like any other stream.

Why do you want to use VirtualDub? What exactly do you want to do with your videos?

May be you can use AVS Video Editor instead. May be something else.

Originally Posted by levander

Anybody know good MPEG settings to do the conversion? I know the FLV's I'm capturing are 320x480 because FLV Player tells me that much. And, not that I know anything about MPEG 1 vs. MPEG 2 vs. MPEG 4, but I'm using the MPEG 1 standard just because the file doesn't seem high quality and the 1st revision should be enough to capture that?

I prefer to edit files without conversion. If you still prefer to convert, you can convert to MPEG-2 format and then edit your video. MPEG-2 video can be edited with Virtual Dub or say AVS Video Remaker. I use the latter program a lot to cut ads.

Originally Posted by levander

I've only tried the conversion once and I stopped it at about 50% progress because a 54 MB FLV had already been turned into a 1.5 GB MPEG file.

MPEG-1 files are huge.

Originally Posted by levander

Video Codec: MPEG1
Frame Size: 320x240
FrameRate: 29,97 fps (I really think that's a comma in the AVS settings dialog, but shouldn't it be a period?)
Bitrate: 15000 (I'm thinking this should be set down)
Audio Codec: MP2 (Again, it's not the greatest quality audio, so MP2 should suffice? Shouldn't need to bump it up to MP3?)
Channels: Mono (On some Peeks video I was able to save somewhere, I remember seeing that the audio was just mono - saw it in some properties dialog somewhere when I was recording video with Replay. It's never been listed in any properties dialog when I record the video with Jaksta)
Sample Size: 16 bit (No idea what would be good here)
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz (No idea)
Bitrate: 160 kbps

29,97 here means 29.97. Many countries use a comma instead of a period in the numbers.

Many players like freeware Media Player Classic can give you a detailed information about audio and video settings of a file.