Hi, I hope this is the approrpriate place for these questions...
I am pulling content off my Sony HDR-HC3 in HDV format (1440x1080) which basically creates mpeg-2 files. Depending on the tool I use to do this, I can either get a normal MPEG-2 file (using ULead Video Studio) which strips out the timecode info on the fly. Or I use HDSPlit which instead creates true M2T (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) files. I prefer HDSplit so I get individual files to them further manipulate, vs a honking 12gig single MPG file.
OK, so to look closer into what filters are being used, I've been using tools like GSpot and GraphEdit; and in particular what splitter (Mux) is being used. With GraphEdit I can clearly see it is using the Haali Muxer. If I use GSpot I can't tell a whole lot of anything about this file. But I can click the "1" under MS A/V where I get text like this:
So the (A) above must be the splitter. So I right-clicking on the (A) that gets highlighted in Yellow, and select "Item Properties". I see that it uses a Media Type called "MPEG2_VIDEO". And right-clicking on that I see a whole host of filters that support it. The Haali Mux is listed, but there is no indication that this is what's used.
So then in GSPot I did System | List Codecs and Other Filters to bring up another table. In here I managed to find the Haali Mux. I right-click on this entry and choose "Item Details" I get this:
- - Type DSH
- - Function Other
DSH Friendly Name Haali Matroska Muxer
DSH DirectShow CLSID {A28F324B-DDC5-4999-AA25-D3A7E25EF7A8}
FIL File Description Haali Media Splitter FIL File Version 1.7.189.11
FIL Legal Copyright Copyright (C) 2004-2007 Mike Matsnev
FIL Product Name Haali Media Splitter
FIL Product Version 1.7.189.11
REG Driver File E:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\filters\haali\splitter.ax
REG Merit 0x00200000
Note the Merit is very low - in english speak "MERIT_DO_NOT_USE"
Well, that's interesting, it's not suppoed to be used but clearly, it is being using! At least as far as what GraphEdit tells me. So GSPot seemed rather useless for this particular task.
So, I am confused. How is it that the magic of all this DirectShow business has picked a filter that is marked as something that shouldn't be used? Will DirectShow still pick a "low" filter if no other "higher" filter exists? I haven't checked, but I'm sure I have more then one MPEG splitter although I'm not certain if I have one specific to .M2T files.
Anyone explain what's going on here?
It's frustrating that we have all these tools - but they don't exactly make it easy to answer some of the questions I'm trying to sort out. For example, How does one find all the Splitter filters for .M2T files on your system? GSPot shows them, but I have no way to filter down this list (pardon the pun) to only see "splitter filters".
I basically had to list them sorted by "merit" then scan the list for the purple entries, and then check what they split. A rather painful and extremely susceptible method for human error. Surely there must be a better way, or a better tool for the job?
