Extracting streams with :VLC

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http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/printthread.php?t=42906

Extraction, Insertion, & Streaming Support (http://www.dealdatabase.com/ forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48)

stealthdave 04-07-2005

Now that we have some fantastic ty and vstream modules for VLC (thanks, Neal!), we can now use vlc to give us an mpeg fit for DVD, VCD and SVCD use!

To convert a ty stream from the tivo via vstream, first download and install the ty and vstream modules for vlc on your platform. (Currently Win32, Mac OS X, and Linux x86 binaries are available, as well as source code.) Next, open a command prompt use the following command:

$ vlc -I rc tivo://tivo/123456 ':sout=#transcode
{acodec=mpga,ab=224,samplerate=48000}:std
{access=file,mux=ps,url=stream.mpg}' vlc:quit

The #transcode part is the key. This example will give you a nice, standard mpeg-II audio track at 224kbps and a DVD-friendly 48kHz sample rate. For (S)VCD, you'll want to change that to ab=192,samplerate=44100. Want a nice AC3 stream? No problem! Use a52,ab=384,samplerate=48000. If you don't want to do any transcoding, just use 'sout:stdfile…'.

To break it down:

the "-I rc" tells vlc to use the "remote control" interface, but really all we want to do is not start the gui.
tivo://tivo/123456 is the link to the stream you want to convert. If you don't have vstream, you can load a ty file (your program.ty) or possibly even use an mfs ftp link as well (ftp://tivo:3105/ty/123456.ty for example; this is untested).

The "sout:#…" line tells vlc what to do with the stream, and it's important to keep this line in quotes.

o transcode tells vlc how to convert the audio (or video if desired)
o std (or 'standard') tells vlc what to do with the stream, in this case
  save it to a file

"vlc:quit" tells vlc to, well, quit. :)

You can even do full transcoding by specifying a video codec, ala vcodec=xvid,vb=800 (don't forget to change the muxer, too). This will obviously take a lot more processor time, though, whereas just transcoding the audio is pretty easy stuff for most pcs. For more transcoding options, check out http://www.videolan.org.

Note for Mac OS X users: To use vlc from the command-line, you need to use the file that is burried within VLC.app. If you have VLC in your main Applications folder, your command-line will look like this:

$ /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc test.ty ':sout=#transcode
{acodec=mpga,ab=224,samplerate=48000}:std
{access=file,mux=ps,url=stream.mpg}' vlc:quit

Now you can extract and convert streams to mpeg on the Mac! Thanks to tx413 for not only creating the necessary vlc modules, but also the idea to use vlc for converting the streams to standard mpegs with transcoded audio. My next project will be to create a java-based gui so that you can point-and- click extract your programs on any platform supporting Java and VLC.

Stealth Dave

Extracting streams with :VLC

lgkahn 04-08-2005 11:42 PM

I figured out what was wrong your post is wrong on post 1 of this thread.. it is missing the /ty

the command should be this:

start /wait vlc -I rc tivo/ty://tivo1/187343 ":sout=#transcode
{acodec=mpga,ab=224,samplerate=48000}:std
{access=file,mux=ps,url=godfatheriii.mpg}" vlc:quit

not

start /wait vlc -I rc tivo//tivo1/187343 ":sout=#transcode
{acodec=mpga,ab=224,samplerate=48000}:std
{access=file,mux=ps,url=godfatheriii.mpg}" vlc:quit

then it works fine