I’ve been using MCE 2005 for a little while now, and I am smitten.
What’s more, my wife loves it too, and our MCE box has become one of
the most used pieces of electronic equipment in the house.
However, since I installed MCE, last April, I have never been able to
figure out how to dump recorded TV onto DVD – that is until now.
Until recently, I only saw the “Data DVD” option.
For those of you unaware, MCE likes to record TV in a bastardized form
of MPEG2, called DVR-MS. Microsoft never do anything just for the
fun of it, and I am certain that their decision for using a
non-standard media format has a lot to do with preventing users from
saving recorded TV to DVD, as well as to provide DRM ability. A native install of MCE will let you record the
DVR-MS files directly to a data DVD, to be played on another MCE unit, but not
as a DVD to be played on a standalone player.
Fortunately, there is a third party encoder, called Sonic Encoder,
which will stream DVR-MS direct to DVD in MPEG2 format, for playing
externally. A few OEM releases of MCE come shipped with this
encoder, but the rest of us using retail or developer versions have to
obtain the encoder via some other means. After doing some digging
on the web, I found the following link to a site that has sonicencoder.msi for download:
http://www.ukshazam.com/download/
I am doubtful that this link will remain active for long, in which case
drop me a friendly email, and I could be persuaded to send you a copy
(please try downloading from the link first, before contacting me).
As I write this post, I am in the process of writing an 1h25 minute
show to DVD. So far the process has been running for about 40
minutes and is about a quarter of the way through – a little slow, but
comparable to other media transcoder packages. The show is an XVID
file, stored on a network drive, which will cause a detrimental affect
on performance. I’ll see if regular DVR-MS to DVD is any faster later.
29 Comments
Hi;
<br>
<br> Once I save the sonicencoder.msi to on of my folders, what do I do to get it into the Windows Media Center Edition 2005? Is it possible to get a step by step procedure? I am not very familiar with what I do with this downloaded file. Is it a Zip File? Any hellp woild be greatly apprecaired,
<br>
<br>Ethan McKay emckay1@san.rr.com
Copy the MSI file to your MCE machine, and whilst logged on to your MCE, double click and it’ll install.
Rob;
<br>
<br> Thanks a million-I can now play the MCE discs on my home DVD players.
Thanks so much for all of this info! You are a bunch of people’s hero!
Hi,
<br>
<br>I have installed this and when i try and add a recorded tv program i get a messages the file type is not supported.
<br>
<br>Any ideas why?
<br>
<br>Sach
Have you tried rebooting your MCE? How about checking the event log? My installation went without any problems. Is it only recorded video that causes the error?
This is the event viewer log…
<br>
<br>Exception occurred:
<br>excp’n type: Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn.ListMaker.UnSupportedFileListMakerException
<br> excp’n msg: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Recorded TV\F1- Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Live_ITV 1_11_03_2006_10_28_02.dvr-ms
<br>No stack trace available.
<br>
I ahve the same problem, any ideas yet?
<br>
When I had the UFT error
<br>The fix was setting in the REGONAL SETTING in CONTROL PANEL to your country of origan and also set your MCE tv region t the same (or at least have them as th saE AS EACH OTHER.
<br>wORKED FO ME
<br>oTHES HAVE SAID TO USE NVIDIA PUREVIDEO DECODER
Thank you so much! I couldn’t really figure out why MCE user guide said I could burn to DVD for all players when the “Video DVD” option was missing. Now I know. The computer was from bought USA and I live in Norway. I guess the native MCE software would have given me the option to burn Video DVD.
Anywhoo… now I can :o)
Man! Took me very long to find this encoders!
Thanks!
Note: Burning DVR-MS is very slow here…
I can’t get sound on the DVDs I create usuing the sonic encoders. Is there something I might have missed?
Software absolutely brilliant, searching for it for a year, this guy is a genius!
THANK YOU!! The link with the encoder still works (27/11/2006), installed it in a second and suddenly everything is solved and I can burn video DVD’s within MCE, despite the silly dvr-ms format!
Thanks again
hi there, as every one else, getting computer rage, cant copy recorded tv to dvd, trying to get sonic encoder? do i pay for that or is it a free download (scratching head)
Sherryn,
Officially tou have to buy it.
R.
thank you for getting back to me quickly, good luck in the new job
Hi.
I’ve downloaded the file and installed both the files that came in the zip-file. When I started MCE again and chose to create a DVD, I did get the new choice of creating a Video DVD.
I chose the files I wanted to burn, MCE told me that in order for the files to fit it had to reduce the quality, I accepted and everything looked like I was set to go. But when MCE was supposed to start burning the files, it ejected the DVD and just told me an error had occurred. I’ve tried several types of DVDs now, but it’s the same result.
I know that the plugin worked somewhat, because now I’m able to burn data DVDs of my recordings, which wasn’t possible before. Any hints or help would be appreciated.
Oh god! thank you so much. I’ve been searching for the past hour for this encoder. This has been a lifesaver in my attempt to build a top-notch MCE system for a customer. Thank you thank you thank you!!
link still good. encoders work great. you are a legend!
Well, unfortanately, the link is dead. I have attempted to use the link from several different sites, and they all come up invalid.
Are there any other links to this that anyone knows of?
Thank You!
Hello,
The link is dead unfortunately :(
Would it still be possible to get the sonicencoder.msi from you? The link above is no longer active.
Any help is appreciated.
Hi Terri,
Can you send me an email via the contact me form?
Thanks.
R.
Would be possible to get the sonicencoder.msi from you? The link above is no longer active. Thanks for your time my e-mail andy_k@picknowl.com.au
Try this link to HP says for notebooks but worked on my homebrewed Media Center
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericSoftwareDownloadIndex?lc=en&cc=us&softwareitem=ob-30721-1
hi all. my toshiba laptop came loaded with xp media center. i tried deleting windows messenger from my system and windows deleted several components instead (including, alas, some sonic encoders). i reinstated games, paint etc, and edited the registry to get my cd/dvd rw drive icon back, but since then i can’t get my cd/dvd player to burn, it will only read like a dvd-ram. when i try reinstating sonic cd and dvd burning from the windows components add/remove box it asks for file authorscript.dll
can anyone here get me that file from your systems, please? since the computer came preloaded i can’t get the file from the xp disk. i’d be so grateful.
thank you!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alessandra
http://www.craigslisttool.info
Hi
Is there anywhere on sonic where I can alter the drive that is used to store data while it is making the disk? I suspect I have it going by default to a partitioned disk which I can not make a enough spare space on. I keep getting the message not enough space after a couple of hours. Any one know where/if I can reconfigure this? Cheers