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Converting Videos For Tivo ToGo using FFMPEG

18 January 2006

In order to use the Tivo ToGo (galleon calls this the GoBack) feature, your video files not only need to be mpeg files, but they need to meet DVD standards. Here is what tivo recommends. Note: you may be able to encode your files in AC3 even if you are on a standalone tivo (not just the DVD burner tivo’s).

I found a really easy way (and free) to integrate the conversion into your Windows Explorer.

Software Requirements:

FFMPEG (you can download CVS windows binaries here and here) - Check out the book A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression: From Sprockets and Rasters to Macro Blocks for more tips on using FFMPEG

Tivo Desktop (or Galleon, which is what I use)

1. Extract FFMPEG to a folder (like c:\cmdutils)
2. Either create a folder for moviesForTivo or edit the next line so that the output files go into the standard c:\tivo recordings directory
3. start notepad and paste this text into it

   c:\cmdutils\ffmpeg.exe -i %1 -target ntsc-dvd -b 2500 -s 352x480 -hq -ab 160 "c:\data\MoviesForTivo\%~n1.mpg"

Dissecting the actual command line here for FFMPEG

ffmpeg.exe -i %1 -target ntsc-dvd -b 2500 -s 352x480 -hq -ab 160 "f:\data\MoviesForTivo\%~n1.mpg"

The %1 is the first parameter to the batch file. (for example if your batch file is named movToGo.cmd… the call to it would be movToGo fileName.avi

then we see -target ntsc-dvd : this is what presets all the codecs to be DVD compatable, but this will default to 720×480 and 8000 bitrate, so you can change that (like I did with the next arguments)

-b 2500 : bitrate 2500 (this will encode pretty fast as it is a pretty low bitrate, tivo recommends 4000 as a high quality setting, although most DVDs are between 5000-8000)

-s 352×480 : picture size 352×480 (see the specs on the tivo site, there are several different sizes you can use, I use this because a Tivo High Quality setting results in a video file of this size)

-hq : High Quality

-ab 160 : Audio-Bitrate 160 (instead of the standard 448)

then the last command is the output file, to see the modifiers (like the one i am using here %~n1) go to a command prompt and type “help for” a few screens down talk about modifiers to the %I variable…. this is applicable to command arguments too…. this is the only place I have found documentation on these extended command line options for the windows nt command shell.

This command will produce a MPEG-2 file that is encoded with AC3 as the audio codec (this works on my standalone tivo)

Then all you have to do is associate this to your .AVI’s and .MOV’s and anything else you want to be able to convert from.

3 Responses to “Converting Videos For Tivo ToGo using FFMPEG”

1. Dennis Says:
   October 11th, 2006 at 8:06 pm

   Hey, this works great!

2. Tony Says:
   December 9th, 2006 at 11:42 am

   I just found a place to download the very latest builds of FFMPEG, including windows binaries, shared and static! check it out at http://arrozcru.no-ip.org/ffmpeg_builds/ for CSV builds!

3. Andre Says:
   December 13th, 2006 at 7:11 pm

   Mac users should check out http://www.ffmpegx.com, which is a nice GUI for ffmpeg (and other tools).

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