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Why I Wrote This
I just started playing around with taking video off my PVR and while there is lots of information out there for Windows Users, there was less available (at least all in one place) for Mac Users. I wanted a place where all the hardware and software for Mac users could be found and easy to follow instructions (mainly for myself in case I forgot how I did something).
Where to Get More Help
A lot of the information here was gathered by reading the following Groups at Yahoo Groups
Open up the receiver by removing the screws from the cover at the back.
Carefully remove the power connector to the harddrive.
Plug on end of the Y-power splitter into the harddrive. You should be able to do this with a little work without having to remove the harddrive or the warranty sticker. It takes some time, but trust me, it can be one.
Plug the power from the USB to IDE cable into the Y-splitter.
Carefully unplug the IDE cable from the motherboard.
Using the IDE Male to Male Gender Changer, connect the IDE cable from the motherboard to the IDE end of the USB to IDE cable.
Plug in the USB port to your Mac. Choose IGNORE when it gives you the disc warning.
Run PVRExplorer Pro (see below).
When done transferring, unplug the USB to IDE cable and the power connector. Leave the Y-splitter power cable in the back of the harddrive, and now plugin the power connector from the motherboard into the Y-splitter.
Plug the IDE cable back into the motherboard.
Replace the cover on the receiver, plug it in, and power it on to watch TV again.
Thanks to the Easy_USB_Hookup.pdf from the PVRExplorer group for the details
I use the 1.6.1 Beta version at the bottom of the screen - works great!
To crop out commercials:
Select the beginning of the commercial break. Try to get as close as you can to a totally black frame. I think use Command-K to get the nearest Keyframe and hope that it's a totally black screen. It will usually find one but it might take some playing. I do this since there is usually less problems with jagged video or sound after cutting.
Press "I" to mark it as the In Point
Find the end of the commercial break, and Command-K on a Keyframe.
Press "O" to mark it as the Out Point
Press Command-X to cut out the commercial break.
Repeat as necessary.
After Editing:
File -> Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio
It should only take a few minutes for this to be output.
NOTE: RENAME the .mpeg to .mpg or else ffmpegX in the next step doesn't like the file name!
Author the DVD
You could try taking the output file directly into Toast, but then it will want to convert to standard DVD format. We don't want to do this because any re-rendering of video kind of defeats the purpose of taking it off the PVR directly in the first place.
For the 702x480 Movies, you can use a 1-step method in ffmpegX. Select the svcdvd tab under Tools, choose the renamed .mpg file that was created by MPEG Streamclip. This will take a bit of time, but when you are done, you'll have a DVD folder.
For TV Shows:
ffmpegX seems to resize the 504x480 video to normal NTSC when using the one step method above.
So, for TV Shows, it becomes a 2-step method
First, demux the Video:
Then, mux the resulting Video and Audio and author the DVD:
This will take a bit of time, but when you are done, you'll have a DVD folder.
Burning the DVD
I use Toast to burn the DVD but you could also use ffmpegx to make a disc image and then burn the DVD that way.
In Toast, select Video and then DVD-Video from Video_TS
Drop in your Video_TS Folder and Burn Away!
Watch the DVD
Now that you've come this far, hopefully the DVD will play in your player and look right. Some older DVD players might have an issue with the strange video size, but most newer DVD players should be fine. I've read in other places that if your DVD player won't play the DVD you just made, your best bet is to goto the store and buy a cheap new DVD player (since they are so cheap these days anyways).
I'd recommend the Philips DVP-642 - it's fairly cheap and it also plays Divx and Xvid files that you can burn to DVDs and for the most part, they look great!
