How to use iView (ABC Australia) downloaders

[blood.eaglz]

Originally Posted by Wahroonga Farm

The iViewnapper MP4 format does not appear to be widely recognised. VLC does it, but not much else.

The iview mp4 is actually F4V which means its mpeg4 contents wrapped in a flv to increase compatability you need to strip the flv and remux as a true mp4

I've included my solution to this which is a couple of bat files using ffmpeg (all of 3 must be in the same directory, with the mp4s) and another zip with a cmd program called recycle.exe which need to be put in the windows->System32 folder

the remux.bat converts whatever file you drop n' drop on it into an mp4 with directly copied streams ie no reencoding (also works with plus7 flv files as they are also F4V), while the feeder.bat will go through every .mp4 file in the folder and will run them through the remux.bat.

the recycle.exe is required to send the originals to the recycle bin rather than deleting them outright in case some thing goes wrong.

lastly I suggest you get mediainfo as it is a nice quick acid test on whether the remux was successful as if it does not show data for all segments (container, video and audio) then its a dud and need to restore the original and go from there.

Obviously this is a windows based solution, and will be little use to you if you're running a Apple or Linux machine.

EDIT: forgot to mention there is another windows solution somewhere in this thread, a VBscript that also uses ffmpeg, and automatically takes care of mentioned 'problems', (which I should clarify is a bit of junk data at the end of the files, I personally use frhed to fix this, but it is almost irrelevant now as problem files are becoming rarer.)

[Wahroonga Farm]

Originally Posted by blood.eaglz

...I've included my solution ...

Thanks very much. I'll give it a whirl.

Cheers

Edit ... And I did.

Thank you sooo much ... works perfectly.

'Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones' was tonight's very sweet treat.

[downloader]

iviewfox is not working. Is there an update due soon?

[Yansky]

Originally Posted by downloader

iviewfox is not working. Is there an update due soon?

I've tested the latest version (1.1.8) with OSX and Windows 7 and it worked ok for me. Do you have the latest version installed?

If so, please give me more details about how it's not working. What happened when you click on the "Watch Program" link after selecting a show. Does the save dialog box come up? Also, what's your operating system and ISP?

[blood.eaglz]

Originally Posted by Wahroonga Farm

Thanks very much. ... works perfectly.

Glad to be of help.

[Wahroonga Farm]

Originally Posted by blood.eaglz

Glad to be of help.

Thanks again.

One more question?

Given that the Iview (Original and Remux'd version) is some 30% larger than the direct download version; is the Iview version by definition; higher quality?

Here is a MediaInfo snap of two identical episodes of Rake series One, Episode 5.

ie 401 vs 555 Kbps

[Anywho]

Originally Posted by Wahroonga Farm

Given that the Iview (Original and Remux'd version) is some 30% larger than the direct download version; is the Iview version by definition; higher quality?

The "direct" download has a resolution of 512x288 and uses a lower bitrate.

The "remux" version has a resolution of 640x360 and uses a higher bitrate. The default of iView video on the web.

The remux version "may be" better because it is larger in resolution (more information in the image). I say "may be" because it depends on what resolution the original video was to start with.

Strictly speaking, the native resolution video will give a better image quality than one that has been up/down-scaled to another resolution. However, seeing as we don't know what the video resolution is that they start(ed) with, it is best to use your eyes to judge that (compare the two).

[Wahroonga Farm]

Thanks Guys.

The "direct" download has a resolution of 512x288 and uses 401 Kbps

The "remux" version has a resolution of 640x360 and uses 555 Kbps

An Olin STB recorded version has a resolution 720x526 and uses 4739 (?) Kbps

So it appears that neither of the MP4's are in native resolution.

Here is MediaInfo for the Olin STB recording.

[Anywho]

Originally Posted by Wahroonga Farm

So it appears that neither of the MP4's are in native resolution.

Actually, the 640x360 is actually likely to be the native...

640 / 16 = 40, 360 / 40 = 9. The 16:9 ratio is maintained.

With the one from your Olin STB...

720 / 16 = 45, 576 / 45 = 12.8... The 16:9 ratio is not maintained.

So, what I think is happening is that STB's are upscaling the 640x360 video or, more likely, the video is transmitted from ABC as prescaled-up (dimesions required for PAL-TV standard transmissions in Oz.)

[edit: Note that the 512x288 also gives a 16:9 ratio - so again, either could be the original (or neither )]
[edit2: It doesn't half get ugly after reading Wikipedia on the subject of PAL, 576i, and Anamorphic widescreen. Bleh!]

[blood.eaglz]

Originally Posted by Wahroonga Farm

is the Iview version ... higher quality?

Yep, audio wise they are exactly the same quality, video wise the iView is higher.

In a technical sense the higher the bit rate the higher the quality, whether its a noticeable/significant difference is another matter altogether.
Also the resolution being higher means that on bigger displays the iview file will look better.

the problem with asking which is better is that it is very subjective and context variable with such a relatively small difference.

EDIT: Haha Anywho Just beat me to the punch.