Topfield *.rec Files

[Dark Raven]

Hello VideoLAN Team,

is it possible for a next release, to enable playing rec Files from Topfield Harddisk DVB-S Receiver?

At the moment, i must convert this file with ProjectX to a mpeg File, before VideoLan Client can show it.

Bet Regards

[The DJ]

Where can we find more information about these files?
What are they, what do they contain?

[Guest]

There exists the OpenSource Programm "Project X" (http://www.lucike.info/ - the side is in german) to convert the rec. Files from a Topfield HD DVB-S Recorder into mpeg Files.

I Understand the Topfield Files to this: It is the complete Transponderstream with all Video and Audio Informations (also 5.1) and Videotext plus a Topfield Header.

With Project X, I can also convert MPEG Files to a Transponderstream (TS) with the Topfield Header.

Also, I can send you a small rec File from my Topfield per Mail or I can Upload it to an ftp Server.

So I hope, these Informations are helpful

[Dark Raven]

Uuups, the upper reply was from me, I've forgotten the login

[Guest]

Hi!

Are there any news about that?
I use the vlc for nearly everything and would also like to use it for my Topfield Rec Files.

Best,
Gerti

[The DJ]

samples can be uploaded here
ftp://ftp.videolan.org/incoming

report in the forum when you have done so, and report the filename.

[Guest]

Hi!

I have uploaded a short sample (9MB) of a Topfield Rec File.
The name of the File is "Topfield.rec".

It is a short clip from the Movie "Spiderman", including three sound streams. Two MPAudio Streams (german and english) and one AC3 Stream (german).

These information are shown, if I load the file in ProjectX.
Maybe it helps you a little:

---
=> File 0: Topfield.rec (9529344 bytes)

=> File is DVB/MPEG-2 TS (Video/Audio/TTX PES)

-> SID 0xA

-> PMT 0x65 refer to these Video/Audio/Text related PIDs :

< 0x1FF 0x200 0x203 0x201 >

!> missing sync. byte @ 0

!> found sync. byte @ 1316

--> PID 0x1000 (EMM) (0x69C #3) -> ignored

--> PID 0x1001 (ECM) (0xB04 #9) -> ignored

ok> PID 0x203 has PES-ID 0xBD (private stream 1) (0x2340 #42)

--> PID 0x65 (PMT) (0x2A98 #52) -> ignored

ok> PID 0x200 has PES-ID 0xC0 (MPEG Audio) (0x2F00 #58)

ok> PID 0x1FF has PES-ID 0xE0 (MPEG Video) (0x4C60 #98)

--> PID 0x0 (PAT or others) (0x6A7C #139) -> ignored

--> PID 0x1 (CAT) (0x71D4 #149) -> ignored

ok> PID 0x201 has PES-ID 0xC0 (MPEG Audio) (0x82B8 #172)

--> PID 0x1642 (ECM) (0x13C84 #425) -> ignored

--> PID 0x100A (ECM) (0x13D40 #426) -> ignored

--> PID 0x150A (ECM) (0x13F74 #429) -> ignored

-> video basics: 704*576 @ 25fps @ 0.7031 (16:9) @ 15000000bps, vbvBuffer 112
---

Thanks in advance,
Gerti

[Anil]

Hi!
I have uploaded a short sample (9MB) of a Topfield Rec File.
The name of the File is "Topfield.rec"

File available at
http://download.videolan.org/pub/videol ... pfield.rec

[Guest]

Hi!

I can now provide you with all necessary Informations about the stream...
Hope this helps to include the Topfield.rec Support:

http://work.irkudos.co.kr/data/product/ ... 02004).doc

Best,
Gerti

[Two Lenses]

I would also be interested in viewing Toppy files. Has there been any progress?

[Garyvx]

Hi All
I too have just starting to use this great product and instead of converting my .rec files to mpg it would be very handy for me to just open the files directly.
Is there any word on if this is going to happen?

Regards Gary

[The DJ]

I believe that because we lost all our samples in 2005, that we no longer have any .rec files to test against.

If you upload a new one to ftp://streams.videolan.org/incoming
then that would be very helpful.

[Garyvx]

I will record a short file tonight when I get home and I will upload it.
Thanks for the offer to look into it.

Regards Gary

[Garyvx]

Hi The DJ
I've uploaded a file and it's called Toppy test.rec
It should be finished uploading in about 1hr 30 min

Regards Gary

[nwhitfield]

I'd very much like to see this too; I'm just making a short recording too, called Topfield 5800 sample.rec, which I'll upload as soon as it's done.

The TF5800 is the UK version of the Topfield; it's pretty much the same - all the tools I've played with work just as well with TF5800 .rec files as with TF5000 ones - but it may be useful just in case, as the UK model has a few extra features, and a slightly revised header to accomodate them.

Nigel.

[The DJ]

Thank you for the upload.

This turned out to be a very simple change. Basically it's just MPEG-TS with a GIGANTIC (up to 2000 Bytes) private custom header in front of it. Normally VLC only evaluates the first 600 bytes to make sure it has a MPEG-TS file, which is of course too few in this case.

We now take the ID of the Topfield recording as enough insurance that this actually IS a mpeg-ts file, and it just works.

I also tried to support some of the fields in the header, but it doesn't seem very well designed (rather i call it a 14 years old kids hackjob). The documentation that they themselves made available is incorrect, incomplete and model specific (not even portable). I did my best, but after a couple of hours I decided that the little info that was there, didn't warrant anymore wasting of my time.

[Penguin]

It is true that header in beginning of Topfield/Procaster recordings is not portable. How ever it is not very complicated to parse for reading. My Topfield 5x00PVRt compatible Procaster VF PVR5102T saves 3760 bytes of proprietary header in front of transport stream. It can also play *.rec files saved with MPEG Streamclip having only 1316 bytes long Topfield header.

I have made some headers available in http://www.saunalahti.fi/~edelman/topfield/

You may read the information from headers with a short perl script I have written (originally for my personal use) to read and modify the Topfield header. That script (http://www.saunalahti.fi/edelman/recheader.pl) may help you understand Topfield headers. I am sorry the script does not have a proper documentation.

I hope these will help you develop better support for Topfield *.rec files.

[nwhitfield]

That's great news; thanks very much.

Now I can do some more work on my cunning plan, automatically archiving recordings from the Topfield onto the network.

Then all I have to do is set something up so they can be made available as VOD streams and I can view them wherever I want.

Nigel.

[Guest]

Thats great now I hope to be able to offload my .rec files to a main server and the rest of the family can watch them without me running them through Projectx.
I've just had a look at the 0.8.5-test3 beta release notes and I didn't see anything about .rec file support.
Any idea when this will be available?

Regards Gary

[Garyvx]

Sorry I forgot to login, the "Guest" post above was from me.

Thats great now I hope to be able to offload my .rec files to a main server and the rest of the family can watch them without me running them through Projectx.
I've just had a look at the 0.8.5-test3 beta release notes and I didn't see anything about .rec file support.
Any idea when this will be available?

Regards Gary

[louisjj]

I wish to buy a TF5500PVR. Can someone upload a Topfield registration (.rec file) please?
I have tried invain to download Topfield.rec.
I wish to see how conversion from .rec to mpeg works.
Thanks.

[nwhitfield]

The best way to find out is probably to download a copy of a tool like MPEG Streamclip from http://www.squared5.com

This can open MPEG transport and program streams, and one of the menu options is to save the file with a .rec header, which is compatible with the Topfield PVRs.

It won't be as complete a header as something recorded on the boxes, obviously, since it won't have the details of the programme, channel, and so on, but it will still play and should give you some idea of the format and how easy the conversion is.

Streamclip works on Windows and Mac; for other systems, Project X will do the trick.

Nigel.

[theJ0ker]

Hi, I have recently purchased a Topfield TF5800 which creates these .rec files, and I have found a problem with transcoding them to an iPod compatible format. I'm using VLC 0.8.6 which plays the files with no trouble, but when I try to transcode the stream to mp4 or h.264 video at 320 x 240 resolution, 128 bit 2 channel mp4 audio, it reliably fails on large files. It starts off OK, but about 1/2 an hour into it, the audio continues OK, but the video is about 20 minutes out of sync (it skips a large chunk of video and shows video from later in the stream). I can upload a sample file if required. The transcoded file plays incorrectly in VLC and on the iPod, and the original .rec file plays OK in VLC. Here are the settings I used:
%VLC_PATH% %FILE_TO_CONVERT% :sout="#transcode{vcodec=mp4v, vb=512, acodec=mp4a, ab=128, channels=2, audio-sync}:std{access=file, mux=mp4,url=%IPOD_COMPATIBLE_FILE%}" --sout-transcode-width=320 --sout-transcode-height=240 --aspect-ratio=width:height vlc:quit

(I also tried vcodec=h264 but with the same results)

[VLC_help]

Have you demuxed the file with projectX (and mux it together) and tried again?

[ragtime2]

We now take the ID of the Topfield recording as enough insurance that this actually IS a mpeg-ts file, and it just works.

I guess that's the reason why VLC does not play/recognize transport streams recorded with the Topfield TF4000PVR series!

At least the first bytes of the header are different... not starting with "TFrc5000" as for the 50xx models, but with some strange (but fixed?) numbers. Anyhow, maybe it's a better idea to extend the scan buffer to more than the mentioned 600bytes, since after the header part (3 packets?) a normal MPEG-TS is starting, AFAIK...?

Would be nice if this small issue could be fixed somehow in future releases... I uploaded a small sample recording to: ftp://streams.videolan.org/incoming/Top ... ertest.tts