So I am loving the live tv functionality but my issue is with the dvr recordings. a 35 minute show creates a 2.8gb HD MKV file which when i try to play back just keeps working on transcoding and won’t play. So my files need some kind of post processing but am curious which of the above would be best. I am only running an i7-3770 3.5ghz cpu so I am a little leary of having the machine transcode and hog resources from people who are trying to watch other stuff. What is best practice or recommended at this time?
Depending on your Operating System there could be several options for doing post processing. I am running Windows and use mcebuddy to remove commercials and convert the ts recording to a mp4. Total time for processing depends on whether the recording was SD or HD and 30 or 60 minutes. Maximum post processing time I am seeing is roughly 11 minutes after recording has finished to converted file being added to my library. I am not seeing transcoding when watching recorded content because it has already been transcoded from mpeg2 in ts file to H264 in mp4 file. If you are not running Windows you can still do Post Processing, mcebuddy basically provides a nice wrapper for Comskip, ffmpeg, and handbrake which are all available on other Operating Systems. So would just be a matter of installing and configuring your post processing to do each of the processes you want on your recordings.
Yeah, I’m using MCEBuddy as well it works well to manage the size and quality of all the recordings. My workflow has recordings going to one directory where MCEBuddy then picks it up converts it and strips the commercials out. MCEBuddy then puts the completed file in another directory and the original file in a temp archive folder where i have a script delete old files after a set time-frame. It’s worked really well so far, i set up this workflow back when Plex DVR first came out with no major issues.
One way i’ve been able to work around CPU contention is to have MCEBuddy only convert videos during a set time frame. For me the best time was 1-6AM so during that time all the previous day’s recordings are converted from mpeg2 to h264.
Together these both answered my question. Thanks for the help.
