MCEBuddy

In all cases then start the configuration tool. Start->All Programs->MCEBuddy->MCEBuddy Configuration.

The recommended settings for all systems are defined in each configuration screenshot for each system type below. These settings are based upon the most common and safest settings used by most MCEBuddy users. These settings do the following:

Note for media portal you will need to specify the source and destination paths as they will vary depending on the installation you have performed.

Press START to save your settings and start the service. At midnight, conversions should begin. Note that if you wish to change the settings you will need to STOP the service first.

You do not need the configuration / monitor application running for your video to be converted so you can close it at any time. You simply need the service running.

If you wish to test first (recommended), you may wish to uncheck the “convert between” option while you are doing so.

Video is NOT placed back into Recorded TV, but is placed into Videos by default. This is not a limitation of MCEBuddy but one of Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center will only show WTV and DVR-MS files located in Recorded TV and there is no way to force it to do otherwise.

Do not make the source and destination path the same.

Setup installs the MCEBuddy service and the configuration/monitor tool. The service is what converts the video for you. It runs in the background and you do not need to run anything for this to happen. The configuration/monitor tool is used to change settings, start and stop the service and view the progress of the conversion. It does not need to be running for your conversions to occur. The configuration tool needs to run with admin rights to be able to start and stop the service, so if you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 you may receive a User Access Control request message.

-End of Quick Start Guide-

MCEBuddy 1.x can perform two different conversions of television recordings.  For example one conversion may be to H.264 for high quality playback on the local Media Center PC and one could be for playback on an iPod video player.

This determines what format the first conversion will be to. The default is H264 MP4. A more detailed description of the codec types (H.264 MP4, Xvid AVI, DivX AVI) is in the Codec Types section.

The first group of default conversions will resize recordings down to 720 pixels wide. This produces a high quality result (DVD resolutions) and does not take too long to convert. HDTV recordings will be scaled down from higher resolutions (eg 1920 wide) to this resolution.

The second group of conversions do not resize the original video (No Resize). This means that the original resolution will be retained. This will produce a very high quality result for HDTV conversions. However, this will also mean it will take a lot longer for the conversion to occur and will also result in much larger converted file sizes.

The third group of conversions do not resize the original video (No Resize) as well as perform a 2 pass conversion. This will have the same effects as No Resize as well as producing the best quality result possible and sometimes slightly smaller file sizes. Note that this will almost double the conversion time of the No Resize conversion. Make sure you have a powerful processor and not too many recordings to convert.

The final group is for a number of portable devices. Note that I do not actually have most of these devices myself so they are tested as best I can with the support of beta testers, which is can be a difficult process.

This setting will cause MCEBuddy to delete your original recording once it has converted it. This is not set on by default. Do not set this on until you are comfortable MCEBuddy is running the way you want – ideally after a week or so of operation. Do not point this to the only copy of your video recording library. This may be obvious advice but it is there in any case.

This will cause MCEBuddy to attempt to detect commercials and remove them before conversion. By default Comskip is used for detection, but if ShowAnalyzer is installed that application will be used instead. More details on Commercial Removal are located in the Commercial Removal section.

This will cause MCEBuddy to place the converted video into subdirectories based upon the series name that is located within the source file name. So if your recording has The Simpsons in the appropriate location in the recording name it will be sorted into a The Simpsons sub directory in the destination. This is not based on recording metadata in MCEBuddy 1.x.

This causes the configuration application to start minimised in the system tray. You would typically set this if you put the tool in the Startup folder.

This setting restricts when MCEBuddy will perform conversions and when it will attempt to wake the system. The start time is when MCEBuddy will start conversions. If the system is asleep it will also attempt to wake the system to perform conversions at this time (1.0.9 and later). The end time is the last time it will start to convert another file. This means if a conversion is still occurring at the end time it will not stop or pause the conversion but will continue it until it is completed.

This setting turns verbose debugging on. Significantly greater detail is written to the even log during MCEBuddy operations. This can assist with troubleshooting problems.

Video age controls how old a recording needs to be before MCEBuddy converts it. For example, many people record a lot of shows but do not want to convert and retain many of them. They set this to 7 days and delete the ones they don’t want to keep in Recorded TV. Only the ones that are in Recorded TV and are 7 days old or older will be converted.

File selection allows you to control what videos are converted. It uses a standard Windows file mask with one exception. Typing [video] into this field will search for all supported video types.

[video] = *.dvr-ms; *.wtv; *.asf; *.avi; *.divx; *.dv; *.flv; *.gxf; *.m1v; *.m2v; *.m2ts; *.m4v; *.mkv; *.mov; *.mp2; *.mp4; *.mpeg; *.mpeg1; *.mpeg2; *.mpeg4; *.mpg; *.mts; *.mxf; *.ogm; *.ts; *.vob; *.wmv; *.tp

Multiple file masks can be used in MCEBuddy 1.1 and later.
Eg. *.dvrs ; *.wtv ; simpsons*.wtv

This setting causes MCEBuddy to search the source directory and all its sub-directories for files to convert.

Video paths allow you to control where recorded TV shows are picked up from. By default this is set to where Media Center on your platform would put them. If you are using different DVR software, have a custom installation or you are using a server based installation you may need to modify these.

The man-and-key button next door to the path allows you to specify the connection credentials (username/password) when connecting to a network resource such as a NAS device, a server or another computer. It is important to note that MCEBuddy will not use the currently logged on user to connect to these shares. You must specify the user account to use here.

Converted video is NOT put back into Recorded TV, but is placed into Videos by default. This is not a limitation of MCEBuddy but one of Media Center. Media Center will only show WTV and DVR-MS files located in Recorded TV and there is no way to force it to do otherwise.

If you wish a second conversion to occur of the show configure it here, exactly the same way as the first one. This is usually for people with portable media players.

This shows you what is occurring at the moment and if available a progress bar shows how far through that activity it is.

This saves the configuration as it is and starts the MCEBuddy Service. Nothing will occur until this happens. By default the MCEBuddy service will start on system boot.

This stops the MCEBuddy service and allows the configuration to be changed.

This brings up a list of MCEBuddy specific events for troubleshooting and monitoring.

This brings up a list of files that have been converted. Once a file has been converted it is placed in this list. If a file is found in the source location and is in this list it will not be converted again. To cause a file to be converted again, simply delete it from this list.

Saves the configuration as it is.

This conversion type produces the best quality and has the widest support from vendors and mobile devices. It is the default and recommended conversion type. This conversion is the most demanding on your CPU and will use all cores available.

 Common systems and software supported natively:

MCEBuddy 1.1 updates the default codec to support apple devices natively. For example all videos converted in this format should now work on iPhones.

This conversion type uses the open source equivalent of DivX. It is also very widely supported. The quality is not as good as H264. This conversion will only use up to 2 cores of your CPU and as such if you are using this conversion type you can have MCEBuddy convert in the background while using your system for TV playback if it has a decent CPU (ie. you may not need to schedule overnight conversions).

Common systems and software supported natively:

This conversion type is essentially the same as Xvid for practical purposes. Use Xvid in preference to this codec unless you require specific DivX compatibility. This conversion type produces DivX 5.0 which is supported by most (even old) DivX devices.

Windows Movie File format is supported by most Microsoft platforms. MCEBuddy produces WMV2 format. The current version in WMV9 and Microsoft skipped WMV3-8 and went from 2 to 9 for some reason. As such some software that ‘supports WMV’ such as some video editing software or portable devices will not work with the result. The reason why MCEBuddy produces this output is because MCEBuddy is based upon open source / freeware components and libraries and these do not have strong Microsoft format / WMV support.

I would recommend using H264/MP4 or Xvid over WMV these days.

I have a love/hate relationship with codec packs. Windows 7 supports H.264 and Xvid natively but I have audio/visual sync issues using them from time to time and not just with MCEBuddy converted video. When they annoy me enough I install a codec pack, and then after a while I uninstall it and return to defaults. So my opinion of codec packs under Windows 7 varies from week to week. Under Vista and prior, codec packs are essential.

My recommended codec packs for Media Center are CCCP, Vista Codec Pack or K-Lite. At risk of starting a near-religious debate over which is better, here are my comments and links:

·         CCCP – has the lightest touch and is the least intrusive. Doesn’t update too often. This is what I use most of the time. http://www.cccp-project.net/

·         Video Codec Pack – has a good reputation and wide codec support. Not too intrusive but more so than CCCP. http://shark007.net/

·         K-Lite – this is the kitchen sink codec pack. Has everything but is very invasive. Some builds have stuffed up my directshow filters in the past. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm

If you have been using older versions of MCEBuddy and have been converting to H264/AVI (the best high quality option for these releases) and are now running Windows 7 you will need to install a codec pack to view them.

MCEBuddy supports the use of two tools for commercial removal, Comskip and ShowAnalyzer. Comskip is used by default and a more DVR-MS robust version is included in the installation. If ShowAnalyzer is installed on the system it is automatically used instead of Comskip for commercial removal. Note that the paid for version of ShowAnalyzer is required for MCEBuddy 1.x (once the trial period expires).

Commercial removal is not a one-size-fits-all solution in any way. This means that the settings provided by MCEBuddy by default may not work for you in your location or country. This is because each TV station injects ads and logos in different ways. If ad removal is not working then you will need to start customising your ad profile settings.

MCEBuddy 1.1 onwards support the latest Comskip and ShowAnalyzer and should provide better results using defaults than previous versions.

A known bug is for very large recordings, sometimes the discovered commercials are ignored during conversions.

For Comskip customisation is performed by changing the Comskip.ini file located in the C:\Program Files\Tyrell\MCEBuddy directory. Note you will need to be logged in as an administrator to do this under Vista and Windows 7.  In many cases you will need to search the web for one for your location or ask around on the Comskip forum. If you do customise the Comskip.ini, ensure that “output_edl=1” and “dvrms_live_tv_retries=1” are set. Also note that later versions of Comskip have issues with some DVR-MS files so do not replace the Comskip.exe file unless you are sure you know what you are doing. Comskip is located here: http://www.kaashoek.com/Comskip/.

If Comskip is not doing it for you and you want to try another tool before diving into ad profiling you can try ShowAnalyzer. If you download this tool and install it MCEBuddy will automatically use it. Please ensure you run the ShowAnalyzer Configuration tool, turn on MPlayer output and save the settings before you use MCEBuddy (see following screenshot). You will also need to use a registered version (not free) as the free version will not work once the trial runs out. ShowAnalyzer is located here: http://www.dragonglobal.biz/showanalyzer.html.

Versions up to 0.97 have been tested with MCEBuddy 1.1.

MCEBuddy 1.1 introduces an update check where it checks to see if there is a new version available. If it finds you are out of date it will show a MCEBuddy update video in your destination path.

What occurs is MCEBuddy pulls down a text file from the MCEBuddy site based upon your platform etc. This contains the version number of the latest stable (non beta) version.

If you dislike any form of back to basing, even this, then you can disable it.

·         Log on as an administrator

·         Press Start-Run

·         Type in Regedit and press enter

·         Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tyrell\MCEBuddy

·         From the menu select Edit->New->DWORD Value

·         Type the word “NoUpdateCheck” (without the quotes) and press ENTER

·         Double click on NoUpdateCheck and change the value to 1

·         Stop and start the service

MCEBuddy 1.x writes its events to the Windows event log, so this is the first place to check if things are not running correctly. If this is not providing sufficient information you can turn debugging on (Debug check box).

MCEBuddy 1.x does not support WTV under Windows Vista (TV Pack).

MCEBuddy 1.x does not support WTV / H.264. That is HDTV recordings that are broadcast encoded in H.264 instead of HMPEG2. You will need to record that station’s non-HDTV channel (if available) to do this.

If your system has “mencoder.exe” crashing error messages this is most likely due to MCEBuddy 1.x and mencoder being unable to convert a specific video recording. MCEBuddy 1.x uses a specific version of mencoder for conversion that directly supports DVR-MS. This version is not being updated, as such there is no real way to fix this and that specific video will not be able to be converted.

Audio / video sync issues can occur during video conversion. The testing performed tries as much as possible to remove this but some video recordings simply cannot be converted reliably using the mencoder libraries used by MCEBuddy. This is why you should only check ‘delete original’ when you have had MCEBuddy running happily for a while. Also note that different codec implementations have different issues.  I notice significant sync differences between the same H264/MP4 file played under Windows 7 Media Player to when it is played under iTunes/Quicktime. Lastly, if your conversions are out of sync by a consistent period of time you can try adjusting the “delay=” settings in the mencoder.conf file. This is located in C:\Program Files\Tyrell\MCEBuddy\mplayer by default.

If your service starts, runs for a bit and then goes idle without converting a file or your files, it is likely it is or they are H.264/WTV recordings. These will not be converted but all other types will. Check your file log and debug log for details.