Input needed - 2009 video format on mgovideo.com
So I've been doing a little bit of fooling around this summer and am looking for ways to improve the video releases on mgovideo.com; some input from you guys who use mgovideo would be appreciated.
I have a desire to release everything in 720p .mkv (Leaders and Best, Yo), but there a couple of obstacles -
1) Release size would increase, and would be above 5GB per game. Picture quality would be outstanding; I'd be able to give it about 5000Kbit bitrate per half.
2) Releases above 5GB would require two DVD's. Blank DVD's are pretty cheap these days, ($0.10?), so this wouldn't be a huge input cost.
3) Dual-core computer required for playback (computer purchased within the last two or three years, typically)
Howeva, there are some nice advantages as well -
1) Awesome picture quality. About 90% there based on what you would have seen watching the original ABC/ESPN/BTN HD stream.
2) The ability to burn this HD material to two seperate DVD's (per half) and play it on a BluRay player (I believe they're entering the sub-$200 range. This is very easily done (2 mouse clicks with free software). No extra BluRay hardware is needed other than having a player connected to a DVD. The technical term for putting HD content on a standard 4.7GB and playing back this material, in HD, is called an AVCHD disk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
Sample from 2007 Rose Bowl -http://dump.ninjapirat.org/files/song%20girl.png
Or I can just stick to what I did last year, 1024x560 .mp4's.
Sounds great to me.
Thanks for this, btw.
I've never been able to figure out the whole .mkv video file thing. How do you burn them? I'm used to iso or vobs and using DVD Decryptor, Nero, etc... Anyone have any info??? What programs can I use to edit mkv (like DVDShrink with vob)???
I'm all for having higher quality video, so long as I can burn them.
.mkv is a 'container' for video and audio. It is considered the most versatile format because you can stuff in audio and video that isn't supported by the more proprietary stuff that Apple and Microsoft like to push.
.mkv playback takes a few tools to work correctly, but is worth the effort. I recommend the following pieces of software, all of which are freeware -
MediaPlayer Classic
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download-media-player-classic-hc.html
Haali Media Splitter (Download link in upper right hand corner)
http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/
And AC3Filter
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ac3filter/ac3filter_1_61b.exe
Once you have those three things installed, fire up MediaPlayer Classic and try opening a .mkv
I have the 2007 Rose Bowl game that I'll be posting on Tuesday that will be in the .mkv format
Let me know if this works for you, I'm more than willing to help since I'm sure other users may encounter the same issues as well.
Back to your original question -
I'll be posting a guide for burning these to DVD in a day or so.
It's only 3 or 4 steps and the software to do it is again, free.
I'm going to sound like such a n00b for asking this but when I click "download torrent" I get a new window that says open, save and cancel. When I click save essentially all it does is save a shortcut on my desktop to mgovideo and I just go back to the same window with open, save and cancel. What am I doing wrong?
Great site btw
When you download a .torrent file, you're basically downloading a telephone book; it contains the addresses to people who have the file you want, so that you can ring them up and get it from them.
You need a program that will recognize and open up these .torrent files, so that you can connect to the people who have the file you want.
I highly recommend uTorrent, it's very fast and doesn't eat up much CPU/memory.
http://www.utorrent.com/
Just remember to go into Options -> Preferences -> Directories, to set a location on your computer that you're comfortable with, like a certain folder on your hard drive
Well, I can say that I would be unable to watch if you did this and would have to find a way to convert the files to a smaller format that doesn't require dual-core.
So I'd rather you not, but I'm just one guy.
Or provide a mirror in another format?
I'll include a tool to convert to DVD -
http://avstodvd.googlepages.com/home
My thoughts?:
How is that you can burn to DVD and watch on a bluray? Does it still play in HD that way, even though just on a DVD or do you have to burn to bluray disk (I don't have a bluray burner)? Can .mkv be played on a mac? 5 gigs is huge.
It's possible because the DVD just acts as a 'dumb' piece of media in a BluRay player; the magic is all on the end of the BluRay player. Yes, it will display in full HD, 60 frames per second. It's sweet, I have one at home. Conceivably I could have IMAX quality video on a DVD (all 3 seconds). I have to split it up over 2 disks, but the quality is pretty incredible considering how big the source material is (17GB), and what I've cut it down to; slightly less than 6GB. It's similar to the difference between a .wav file you would listen to on an audio CD, and a properly encoded .mp3 under a 256Kbit bitrate. To simplify, pretty damn comparable.
On a Mac, playback is possible with Perian, which will install the codecs for Quicktime to play back .mkv's. Again, minimum requirement for this would be an Intel Mac, since they're all dual core.
http://perian.org/
I don't have a particularly strong opinion one way or another but I think you are a cool and smart fellow.
Thank you sir. I have to confess though, the tools I use to make the videos have technology underneath the hood that I can't even begin to understand. This all started a few years ago when some coders got together to write something that would be extremely efficient, and have a very narrow userbase. Over time, it's grown a bit and become a bit more user friendly.
Some of the flame wars in the developer email list over years would put mgoboard to shame. Nothing quite like a scorned programmer with the disposal of tens of thousands of infected drone computers and a short temper.
VLC Media Player is the best IMO. It's free and will play MKV all on it's own.
that's what i use. never had a problem with any format
I'm living out of the country so I'll be depending on these mgovideo to watch (or rewatch if I'm able to find a live stream) most of the games.
Unfortunately, my computer can't handle 720p, as I just figured out when I downloaded a 720p torrent of the US v. Spain Confed Cup game, so I'd prefer the same format as last year.
Thanks for all the effort w/ mgovideo.
I'm just afraid with the larger file size that the download time will substantially increase.
It's possible to get an entire game onto one DVD in high definition as an mp4 file. I have downloaded HD hockey games that only take up about 1.7 GB. I wish I knew how to do this.
Any chance we can get the 97 blood brawl game between the Wings and Avalanche sometime in the future?
And the 98 game?
I assume that you are talking about the '97 game?
The site nhltorrents, I believe, already has that game uploaded.
Thanks
I downloaded the Capital One game but have now clue how to make the playback work. I have the folder with all the files and they have extensions but I'm not familiar with them.
I'm assuming you downloaded the DVD, in which case you probably have a bunch of files in a folder called 'video_ts'
You can use this software (http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download) to burn it.
Drag and drop the ENTIRE video_ts folder to be burned. It should recognize you're burning a DVD-Video and make the proper adjustments automatically.
Let me know if you have any other issues.