# How to encode video to play back with MediaShare using Handbrake?



## hmss007 (Aug 12, 2006)

Hello all,

I tried to find an answer to this in the forum, but didn't find anything. Please forgive me if this has already been addressed.

I have an HP MediaSmart Windows Home server and some home movies encoded to MP4 from DVD using Handbrake on the Mac OS X. How would I re-encode these movies so I can share them on the HP MediaSmart server and allow all my DirecTV DVRs (HR20-700 and HR21-100) to play them?

Thank you in advance for any and all help. Bonus points if you have a Handbrake profile that you could share.

Eric


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

Tversity or iSedora are media servers which should be able to transcode MP4 videos for you. iSedora will also work on your Mac.


----------



## hmss007 (Aug 12, 2006)

Thanks for the suggestions Bob.

But, what I'm really hoping to figure out is a way to use the already built-in media serving features of the HP MediaSmart server and just re-encode some movies so they will playback on the HR2x systems and not need to run another media server.

If I could just figure out the proper way to encode a movie, I think I'd be good to go.

Eric


----------



## hmss007 (Aug 12, 2006)

It looks like Handbrake only supports Mpeg-4 encoding and I think the HR2x requires Mpeg-2 encoding.

I tried TVersity but couldn't get it to encode anything and the HR2x couldn't see the shared directory.

If there is a step-by-step guide somewhere on how to setup and encode movies to take advantage of MediaShare, please point me to it.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Eric


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

That's correct about Handbrake (I think the Windows version has some additional options).

With Tversity you need to go into setup and configure the Library tab by adding the folders you want to see on your DVR.

What software does the HP MediaSmart server use?

I have used a program called VisualHub to re-encode video files to MPEG2. Unfortunately the author stopped working on it and took it off his website. With a bit of work you could probably do this using the open source command line program ffmpeg (it is available for OS X via fink and probably macosports). I studied the man page and after a few mis-steps was able to use it to convert a file. I suspect that a lot of the conversion programs use ffmpeg to do the actual work but with a more practical user interface.

Edit: This looks like it has a possible link to VisualHub: http://www.machoe.com/1565/visual-hub-free-mac-video-convertero.html


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

Here's another OS X program which looks like it will convert almost anything: http://www.ffmpegx.com/.


----------



## fornold (Sep 4, 2006)

Which version of the MediaSmart home server do you have? 

I have the HP495X and the Twonky server on there streams just fine. I had encoded my videos as MPEG2-TS.


----------



## Art7220 (Feb 4, 2004)

VirtualDub is much better or Divx Plus Converter if Vd doesn't work. Then burn the file to a data DVD and put it in your Divx DVD player.


----------



## hmss007 (Aug 12, 2006)

I've kind of given up as I was hoping it would be an easy solution. All my movies are encoded as H.264 MP4 for Apple TV. Was able to get TVersity to play the video but it couldn't do the audio.

I think the only way to get things working would be to re-encode them from scratch in MPEG-2 format and then just let the Windows Home Server host them.

The real goal is to just re-encode a few select titles in a format that will just work without having to install another media server, I'd rather use the built-in Twonky or just the service that will play directly from Windows Home Server.

Does DirecTV have a white paper or something posted with what video MediaShare supports?


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

The only supported video is MPEG-2. DD5.1 audio will only play if it is a transport stream (TS), not a program stream (PS).


----------

