Terrible FF and RW with mpg2 files

[PCKid]

I know I keep on banging the drum with this but it is really bad. I record all my TV on my PC with DVICO HD Tuner cards in mpeg-2. Either SD TV or HD TV. Either way fast forwarding and fast rewinding are all but useless. I can't be the only one doing this and having this issue. avi, mp4, m2ts are all reasonably good. But I rarely want to fast forward through a movie but tv sports on the other hand quite a lot. I find that 2x is reasonable. You need to always go much further than you need and it will then start where you want. For example at 2x if you want to fast forward 3 mins go to 6 mins and when you press play you might be at the 3 mins you wanted. The faster you go the worse it gets. At 8x it will probably be an hour out. Virtually useless. This HAS to be a priority surely. Or is the processor too slow to handle large mpeg-2 files. Let's face it even in SD a MotoGP race is till about 3GB and in HD about 6GB. I have 2 WD TV's and love them but my Friend has a Popcorn Hour and that has great fast forward and rewind. You just hold down the arrow and the timer accelerates and when you let go you start from exactly there. Yes, I know it's twice the price but I want something that works. This is my last rant on this till they either fix it if they can or I sell them both and buy 2 Popcorn Hours. But God they are ugly looking boxes.

[Starstream]

Hard to say really I haven't noticed anything like that myself, it could be the container or something in how the files are being authored.

If the files are just MPEG-2 in .mpg containers what you could try is placing them in an MKV container instead & see if FF/RW work any better. Download MKVtoolnix and use the MKVmerge app to generate a MKV video from the .mpg (just drag & drop) there is no encoding so the process should be pretty quick.

[PCKid]

I have a mac not pc so I could convert them to mkv or mp4 or avi easily with VisualHub. All takes time of course and usually I get up early and take my External notebook drive from the bedroom, plug it into the Media Centre PC in the lounge and transfer say the F1 or MotoGP or whatever I recorded while making breakfast. Even a 9GB file only takes a few minutes. then back to the bedroom to watch it. Having to get my wireless keyboard and sit down and convert it would take a lot of time. We're off to work by then.

[PCKid]

Hard to say really I haven't noticed anything like that myself, it could be the container or something in how the files are being authored.

If the files are just MPEG-2 in .mpg containers what you could try is placing them in an MKV container instead & see if FF/RW work any better. Download MKVtoolnix and use the MKVmerge app to generate a MKV video from the .mpg (just drag & drop) there is no encoding so the process should be pretty quick.

Sorry just re read your reply and am downloading it for my Media Centre PC in the lounge and see how quick it does it. Might be the answer indeed if a. it's quick and b. actually improves the ff and rw. Will elt you know if it works

[PCKid]

Hard to say really I haven't noticed anything like that myself, it could be the container or something in how the files are being authored.

If the files are just MPEG-2 in .mpg containers what you could try is placing them in an MKV container instead & see if FF/RW work any better. Download MKVtoolnix and use the MKVmerge app to generate a MKV video from the .mpg (just drag & drop) there is no encoding so the process should be pretty quick.

Thanks mate that worked a treat. I took a 3.16GB TV Show I'd recorded in mpeg-2 and dragged it into MKVMerge, it took 5 minutes to do and another 2.5 minutes to transfer to my notebook drive. Give or take a meg or two the size was the same in mkv. So very quick. Still within the making Brekkie time slot And the ff and rw was spot on. You have solved my problem and saved me money in not buying something more expensive. Having said that if Sony ever allow NTFS or HFS+ formatted drives I'll buy another PS3 for the bedroom. Their movie search function is awesome.

[Starstream]

There are semi-official OSX versions of MKVtoolnix you can find them listed under Mac OSX here.