Vegas Studio 8 and WinXP Media Center Edition

ggrussell wrote on 1/19/2008, 8:46 AM
his is for the more technically inclined. Every since I installed Vegas Studio 8 trial, something strange has happened to my Media Center TV recordings. Yes it still works, but it appears it is now using a different MPEG codec.

How do I know? First of all the files sizes are almost 1GB SMALLER even though the Media Center settings are still the same. When I use TMPEGenc MPEG to convert (does so without changing bitrate) the files to MPEG the bitrate is lower. I also noticed my other DVD authoring application wants to re-encode the files and it never did before.

So my question is: Did installing Vegas Studio 8 change the MPEG codec that Windows Media Center would use for recording TV and if it did, how do I change it back!

Oh yeah, I did try uninstalling Studio and it didn't make a difference so something got changed in the registry that isn't UNDONE during the uninstall.

Comments

Himanshu wrote on 1/20/2008, 10:16 AM
Don't know whether SVMS8 did anything to your WinXP MCE settings. However, TV recording sizes would depend on the compression possible for each show, so I don't think that you can compare any one recording with another, unless it is exactly the same, and if you know that the broadcaster didn't change anything on their side. So my point is, variations can be expected.

As for the code used - find out for sure. Use any of the publicly/freely available tools such as GSpot to see which codecs are used.

Personally I don't use WinXP MCE or TMPGenc so I can't really give specifics, I'm just thinking out loud.
owlsroost wrote on 1/20/2008, 1:16 PM
I don't use MCE (so I don't know how it chooses which codec to use) but Radlight FIlter manager - [url=http://www.videohelp.com/tools/RadLight_Filter_Manager] - is quite a good tool for adjust the 'merit' (=relative preference) of DIrectShow filters.

That said, the Sony MPEG filters don't seem to show up in it's listings, so I suspect they are kept 'private' i.e. not available to other applications......

Can you use 'System Restore' to roll back the system to before you installed WMS8 ?

Tony

ggrussell wrote on 1/23/2008, 7:19 PM
what does the broadcast station have to do with capturing ANALOG cable??? When capturing ONE HOUR of video regardless of the source to MPEG 2@8Mbps, the file will always be about 4GB give or take a few 100MB depending on how much action is in the video. Slight variations in recording sizes - yes. HALF the size - NO.

After I installed Vegas Studio, my Media Center one hour recordings dropped to almost HALF their normal size so something definitely has changed.

As far as GSPot, the codec is still just plain old MPEG 2 and gives no SPECIFIC codec like Mainconcept, etc. Not very helpful.

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"Can you use 'System Restore' to roll back the system to before you installed WMS8 ?"

Yes,, I use True Image, but saving that as a last resort. I've done a lot of updates and installed new apps since then. LOL