MP3 / DVArchive / ReplayTV

Hi, I tossed this page together in hopes that it will help in getting projects to serve up MP3s to a ReplayTV off the ground. Here you will find files at verious states from MP3s to ReplayTV compliant mpeg's.

Start with these files...

It takes me longer on my computer to create a video then it does to play the equivalent lenght MP3. I keep thinking there must be a better way of doing this (I am using transcode), but for now I use a generic video file I generate ahead of time: generic_6minute_video.m2v. I am using an MP3 clip from something my brother in law recorded: sound_clip.mp3. The sound clip is shorter then the video. Apparently, to our advantage, the tools we are using don't have a problem with that.

Processing the sound...

The ReplayTV sound format is not MP3, it's mpeg layer II sampled at a 48KHz rate. To get there I used lame to turn the MP3 into a WAV file. Then I used mp2enc (which is part of transcode) to convert the WAV into an mpeg level II file with a sample rate of 48KHz. Here is the command:

cat sound_clip.mp3 | lame --mp3input --decode - - | mp2enc -v 0 -r 48000 -b 192 -s -o stream1.mpa

Adding video...

To add the generic video, I used mplex (I believe that would be part of mjpegtools). Here is the command I use:

mplex -f 4 -S 680 -o stream1.mpg generic_6minute_video.m2v stream1.mpa

Conversion to ReplayTV files...

We still need the magic of rtvtools to generate the ReplayTV compatible mpeg along with the index and event files. Look in this thread for the executable "rtvconvert". Here is the command I used:

rtvconvert stream1.mpg file1final.mpg

A Script to do the above ...

I wrote a script to do the above in "csh". This should be executable on most Unix systems. It takes advantage of "named pipes" to stream the data to and from mplex. Unfortunately, rtvconvert doesn't lend its self to using "named pipes" (I have made inquires as to an alternate version of rtvconvert at avsforum ). If there is any hope in streaming an MP3 to a ReplayTV unit the programs involved either need to use standard in and out or at least be compatible with "named pipes". Otherwise, we could only (as in this example) batch job the MP3 to ReplayTV conversion. Here is the script I used: 

#!/bin/csh

mkfifo -m 660 stream1.mpa
mkfifo -m 660 stream1.mpg

mplex -f 4 -S 680 -o stream1.mpg generic_6minute_video.m2v stream1.mpa &

rtvconvert stream1.mpg file1final.mpg &

cat $1 | lame --mp3input --decode - - | mp2enc -v 0 -r 48000 -b 192 -s -o stream1.mpa

rm stream1.mpa
rm stream1.mpg

...or you can down load it here .

What you end up with ...

After running the script or rtvconvert, you should end up with file1final.mpg, file1final.evt and file1final.ndx. If you don't, you can down load the above files. Before playing them in your ReplayTV, you need to import them into DVArchive.

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Since 9/16/95

Email: stuart@xnet.com