Transcoding Topfield .rec files to DVD
I’ve read too many complicated guides about how to convert Topfield .rec recordings into DVDs. Many of them even re-encode the video. Recently I realized that mplayer nowadays supports .rec files, because they are simply mpeg transport streams dumped in a file. Now, how could I make mencoder transcode those into something DVD authoring software understands.
After some thinking, I came up with the following quick guide to encoding .rec files for DVD. No, I haven’t thought about how to handle subtitles (yet).
mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -o foo.mpg foo.rec- Take your favorite DVD authoring software, and burn away
Quite simple, wouldn’t you say? Yes, it will break if the frame size is not correct. Yes, it will probably break in other ways as well. But it works for me.