I have been experimenting with creating SVCDs from Tivo MPEG2 streams.
Ripping a basic quality stream and burning it to a CD results in an SVCD that is almost playable. The Pioneer DV-333 that we have seems to require a 44.1kHz audio stream. The TiVo produces 32kHz streams at all quality levels. Using TMPGenc to convert the stream from 32kHz 192kbps to 44.1kHz 224kbps one can create a working if slightly noncompliant SVCD (352x480 instead of 480x480). It looks like a CD should hold almost exactly an hour of basic quality.
So is there anyway to create custom video and audio recording quality settings? It would be nice to have one that exactly matches the maximum SVCD bitrate. I haven't tried recording a medium quality stream but I suspect it will work. The high quality stream I tried played but with major skipping (duh) because the data rate is about 6000kbps (I think SVCD is 2824kbps max).
Another problem I'm having is that a two hour stream I ripped dies at about 42 minutes in both TMPGenc and mplex. mplex gets a buffer underrun and TMPGenc eats the entire swap file then crashes. Anyone know the cause of this?
