Linux VDR Tips

Linux VDR Tips

Table of contents

• Linux VDR Tips
  • Cutting Video for DVD
  • Cutting Video for VDR and DVD (later or before)
  • Convert DVD compatible files for VDR
  • Convert radio recordings to mp3
  • budget_core buffer

Cutting Video for DVD

Really the best program for this is dvbcut. Tested with 0.5.4. If your recording is splitted in multiple files, join them before:

cat 001.vdr 002.vdr 003.vdr > joined.vdr

Then call

dvbcut joined.vdr

(or use 001.vdr if it was only one file). There are 2 sliders in dvbcut. A linear and a nonlinear. With the linear you can find a position nearby a cutting mark and with the nonlinear you can find the frame you want to cut. Set the start and stop marks and export the video. The resulting video has a .mpg extension and can be used with DVD burning tools.

Cutting Video for VDR and DVD (later or before)

Goal here is to get rid of Ads and things recorded before and after the movie you recorded. Just use the same way as described in the chapter before. But if you want to use the cutted video also for viewing with VDR the video has some format restrictions: The files cannt be larger than 2GB and the files have to be separated at a GOP (group of pictures. A special point in a mpeg file that is occurs every 12 frames or so). We also need a index file for VDR so that you can use fast forward.

So after creating the joined.mpg (or 001.mpg) delete the old files:

rm 00*.vdr index.vdr marks.vdr joined.vdr

Then create a index file and split the mpeg in vdr files:

genindex -r -i joined.mpg

The tool genindex can be downloaded here. Tested with 0.1.3.

Convert DVD compatible files for VDR

With disks that have > 1TB size the handling of DVDs is more and more uncomfortable. There are also some DVDs that cannot be played in a standard DVD player so some may want to convert them to a VDR file to play them using Linux VDR. Once you have a mpeg file coming from a DVD you can use genindex to make it to a VDR file. But if you use a full featured DVB Card, it may not be able to play AC3 sound. So if you hear no sound, you have to convert the sound before:
ffmpeg -y -i movie_ac3sound.mpg -vcodec copy -acodec mp2 -ab 256k -ar 48000 movie_mp2sound.mpg

Then go to your recordings directory and create directories:
mkdir -p moviename/2009-08-04.18.05.99.99.rec
Choose any date string you like. Move your movie file there and use genindex to create the vdr files:
mv movie_mp2sound.mpg moviename/2009-08-04.18.05.99.99.rec
cd moviename/2009-08-04.18.05.99.99.rec
genindex -r -i movie_mp2sound.mpg
You can remove the original file if all works. Restart vdr and enjoy.

Convert radio recordings to mp3

It took some time, but the solution is easy. Lame can read the files created by VDR and convert it to mp3 directly. You just have to rename the file to .mp2 or use -mp2input with lame. Example:

lame mp2input abr 192 001.vdr out.mp3

Ignore "bitstream problem: resyncing.." errors.
You could also use the ID3 tag options (-tt -ta ...) in lame together with the info.vdr file fo fill the tags.

budget_core buffer

If you get errors like:
saa7146 (0) vpeirq: used 1 times >80% of buffer (183112 bytes now)
It can be fixed by creating al file /etc/modprobe.d/budget_core with content:
options budget_core bufsize=1410

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