[M T]

The PAC-12 has their top 10 plays of the week.
  http://blog.pac-12.com/vote-on-your-favo...-top-10-2/
where you get to vote among the 10 plays they choose (That link is a couple of weeks old, but I bet you'll want to vote).  I presume this will devolve into a "I'll vote for my school, no matter what" type contest, so it will be virtually meaningless.  (And, oddly, they don't include Sunday's games.)

Now that we have the opportunity to embed video, maybe we should start doing our own top plays of the week?  Anyone else able to grab video and make single highlight plays available (presumably on Youtube)?  (If someone knows this is a no-no, rather than fair use, please speak up.  I don't want to have a process server wake me up some morning.)

FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

[M T]

The PAC-12 has their top 10 plays of the week.
  http://blog.pac-12.com/vote-on-your-favo...-top-10-2/
where you get to vote among the 10 plays they choose (That link is a couple of weeks old, but I bet you'll want to vote).  I presume this will devolve into a "I'll vote for my school, no matter what" type contest, so it will be virtually meaningless.  (And, oddly, they don't include Sunday's games.)

Now that we have the opportunity to embed video, maybe we should start doing our own top plays of the week?  Anyone else able to grab video and make single highlight plays available (presumably on Youtube)?  (If someone knows this is a no-no, rather than fair use, please speak up.  I don't want to have a process server wake me up some morning.)

FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

[82 Card]

....
FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

Instead of Tivo, I use a Hauppauge HD PVR box (not the HD PVR II) for recording from the cable box. This thing takes component video up to 1080i and encodes it real time in H.264. It connects to a PC with USB cable. I use Sage TV (no longer available, no thanks to Google) on a PC to schedule recordings and control the box. I believe you can also use the software that comes with the box. But I don't think that would give you automatic chanel control with IR blaster.  My setup works fine with PAC12 channel.

Of course, these recordings are only for personal use.

[82 Card]

....
FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

Instead of Tivo, I use a Hauppauge HD PVR box (not the HD PVR II) for recording from the cable box. This thing takes component video up to 1080i and encodes it real time in H.264. It connects to a PC with USB cable. I use Sage TV (no longer available, no thanks to Google) on a PC to schedule recordings and control the box. I believe you can also use the software that comes with the box. But I don't think that would give you automatic chanel control with IR blaster.  My setup works fine with PAC12 channel.

Of course, these recordings are only for personal use.

[jayasena]

FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

I seriously doubt the PAC-12 (or anyone not in a closed system) would ever intentionally produce video that violated the standard. If they did, their content probably wouldn't play on the vast majority of devices out there. That's clearly not the case here.

I don't know how Tivo exports the video (does it re-encode or does it output the original stream etc.), but it's quite likely that the video stream is using a profile or level or feature that's incompatible with what you are trying to decode it with. It's not surprising that a new channel like the PAC-12 would use the latest features available in the standards (which keep evolving).

[jayasena]

FYI, I've had trouble dealing with the PAC-12 channel.  While I've had no trouble encoding games from other channels (for my own archives) (including other 1080i broadcast video), I've had difficulties with PAC-12 video.  If anyone else is able to do this for that channel, let me know what settings/software you're using.  Even VLC sometimes has problems with the PAC-12 video decrtyped from TiVo.  I'm wondering if they're producing video that violates the standard (perhaps intentionally).

I seriously doubt the PAC-12 (or anyone not in a closed system) would ever intentionally produce video that violated the standard. If they did, their content probably wouldn't play on the vast majority of devices out there. That's clearly not the case here.

I don't know how Tivo exports the video (does it re-encode or does it output the original stream etc.), but it's quite likely that the video stream is using a profile or level or feature that's incompatible with what you are trying to decode it with. It's not surprising that a new channel like the PAC-12 would use the latest features available in the standards (which keep evolving).

[M T]

TiVo (this is the TiVo HD box) has cable-company owned tuning cards in it to decode the cable signal (ie, no separate cable box), so the TiVo takes that signal in.  TiVo writes an encrypted MPEG-2 to its disk.  It provides a mechanism by which those files can be transferred to a computer, and a way to decrypt them.  That part works fine (for this channel & others).  But MPEG-2 isn't a convenient format, so one typically transcodes it to other formats.  The Apple Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin doesn't seem to be able to handle the video, but only for this one channel.  The latest VLC player (which usually plays most anything) seems to play some of the recordings but has problems.  With the s/w that I'm using (1 of several) to download & decode the TiVo files, has various transcoding capabilities, but the ones I've tried generate an output file but the players reject that file for PAC-12 recordings.  I've tried running ffmpeg directly to transcode, but that has failed, possibly due to operator error.

TiVo respects a "Do not transfer" flag on programs that disallows it from sending the video out its auxiliary output (perhaps to a DVD recorder).  I believe I'm unable to transfer such files to a computer as well.  This is not the issue here.

I'll continue to ask around.  It is useful to know that at least one person is able to get a good copy by another means.  Thanks!

[M T]

TiVo (this is the TiVo HD box) has cable-company owned tuning cards in it to decode the cable signal (ie, no separate cable box), so the TiVo takes that signal in.  TiVo writes an encrypted MPEG-2 to its disk.  It provides a mechanism by which those files can be transferred to a computer, and a way to decrypt them.  That part works fine (for this channel & others).  But MPEG-2 isn't a convenient format, so one typically transcodes it to other formats.  The Apple Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin doesn't seem to be able to handle the video, but only for this one channel.  The latest VLC player (which usually plays most anything) seems to play some of the recordings but has problems.  With the s/w that I'm using (1 of several) to download & decode the TiVo files, has various transcoding capabilities, but the ones I've tried generate an output file but the players reject that file for PAC-12 recordings.  I've tried running ffmpeg directly to transcode, but that has failed, possibly due to operator error.

TiVo respects a "Do not transfer" flag on programs that disallows it from sending the video out its auxiliary output (perhaps to a DVD recorder).  I believe I'm unable to transfer such files to a computer as well.  This is not the issue here.

I'll continue to ask around.  It is useful to know that at least one person is able to get a good copy by another means.  Thanks!

[jayasena]

Yeah, sounds like some part of the chain of tools you are using is incompatible with the PAC-12 stream's encoding.

If I understand correctly, what 82 Card is doing will *always* work (even in the presence of copy protection flags). His setup sounds like it's taking the fully decoded component signal from the cable box that would normally go directly to the TV and re-encodes it in h.264. The downside is that there's some quality loss because component out of a cable box is an analog signal recreated from the previous lossy encoding that comes through the cable, which will then be re-encoded in another lossy h.264 codec.

[jayasena]

Yeah, sounds like some part of the chain of tools you are using is incompatible with the PAC-12 stream's encoding.

If I understand correctly, what 82 Card is doing will *always* work (even in the presence of copy protection flags). His setup sounds like it's taking the fully decoded component signal from the cable box that would normally go directly to the TV and re-encodes it in h.264. The downside is that there's some quality loss because component out of a cable box is an analog signal recreated from the previous lossy encoding that comes through the cable, which will then be re-encoded in another lossy h.264 codec.

[82 Card]

Somnambule is right. There is some generation loss taking it through an analog stage.  There's probably some more any time you recode, since I don't think any of the formats are lossless. However, I have not found it to be noticeable. It may be that my eyes are just not what they used to be. I generally don't recode after the first recording. It's only necessary for watching on the tablet.

[82 Card]

Somnambule is right. There is some generation loss taking it through an analog stage.  There's probably some more any time you recode, since I don't think any of the formats are lossless. However, I have not found it to be noticeable. It may be that my eyes are just not what they used to be. I generally don't recode after the first recording. It's only necessary for watching on the tablet.