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MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 4:09 am
by Dan123
Hi,
I am using MediaMonkey to copy video files from my Panasonic hard disk recorder to my computer so that I can run recordings through Handbrake and save them on an external harddisk. I used to simply use MM to get an URL for a video files, paste the URL into a browser and then have the browser download the file. This works fine; I get the "raw" .tts files in the original resolution this way. The downside is that I can only download one file at a time and have to manually get the next URL and start a new download once the previous file is downloaded. I then tried using the Send to > Folder (Copy) command for a group of files (recordings) by right-clicking the folder containing the recordings in question in the Media Server view of MM (the Panasonic hard disk recorder can create folders to organize recordings in). When I do this, MM copies the whole group of files as expected, but it also downscales 1080 video to 720. I cannot figure out why or how to avoid this. I want to copy the files without converting them in any way. Can anyone help? Thanks!

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 10:07 am
by Lowlander
I doubt that MediaMonkey is downsizing them, instead I assume the Panasonic is doing this. Perhaps based on info that MediaMonkey provides. Are you accessing the device through DLNA (if so, have you tried right click > Download?)?

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 10:49 am
by Dan123
I doubt that it is the Panasonic doing this. It has the ability to compress files and to downscale from HD to SD, but it doesn't have the ability to downscale from 1080 to 720. Also, like I said, when I copy via a browser, no downscaling takes places - when using this method I get the video files in 1080 resolution (if recorded in this resolution) and with the exact file size shown in MediaMonkey (when downloading through MediaMonkey, the file sizes after download are smaller than indicated in MediaMoney, which is logical since the resolution is lowered from 1080 to 720). All this indicates that it is MediaMoneky doing it. As mentioned, it is indeed possible to download files without any conversion and in 1080 resolution as long as I do it via a browser, so I would like to do this via MediaMoney as well in order to be able to download whole folders with several video files in one go.
You ask if I download via DLNA and whether I have tried right-clicking. I am not sure if the technology allowing this file sharing is DLNA. What I can tell you is that the Panasonic appears as a media server in MediaMonkey - does this tell you anything? If not, how do I see if DLNA is being used? I do indeed right-click in order to start downloads - I right-click the file/folder in the Media Server view in MediaMonkey and choose Send To > Folder (Copy).
Thanks for your attempt to help - please let me know if I can give you any further information.

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 11:14 am
by Lowlander
Yes, that's DLNA. Still highly doubtful that MediaMonkey is doing any transcoding when downloading. Have you tried right click > Download instead of right click > Send To > Copy?

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 3:26 pm
by Dan123
Yes, I tried right-clicking and choosing Download as well, but that function only allows me to download one file at a time, so it does not offer any advantage over using a browser for the actual downloading. What I am hoping for is the best of both worlds, so to speak - the ability to keep the 1080 resolution which browser downloading gives me combined with the ability to set my computer to download a whole folder with many files on its own which MediaMonkey can (as opposed to downloading one file at a time via a browser, waiting for that download to finish and then manually add the next link etc.).

But I should mention that the links to the files on my Panasonic which MM displays look like this:
"http://192. 168.0.143:60001/AV-0-258445456-0-0-268446404-PARENT-1-18-164860200_BDY?CI=1&fmt=AVC_TS_MP_HD_AAC_LTP_T&bitrate=6000&resolution=720"
In other words, they contain the string "resolution=720", and when I download via a browser, I always remove everything after the question mark (that is, what I paste into the browser's address line is: "http://192. 168.0.143:60001/AV-0-258445456-0-0-268446404-PARENT-1-18-164860200_BDY" - I read in a forum that this is the way to do it). So perhaps you are right when you say that somehow MM "instructs" the Panasonic to send the files in 720 resolution. But if this is the case, why does MM do this - if I could get MM not to do this and so not add this part of the link, perhaps MM would also download the files in 1080 resolution. I don't suppose it is possible to somehow edit the links in MM by removing the parts after the question marks before asking MM to download the files? Or do you happen to know a download helper or similar where I could add a batch of links and instruct the program to only download one file at a time? I have tried a couple of download helpers, but they all try to download all links at once, and the Panasonic does not allow that, causing all but one download to fail.
Thanks again for all ideas you might have.

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Tue May 07, 2019 3:52 pm
by Lowlander
Have you tried a different DLNA client? This would confirm if only MM gets downsampled or that perhaps the Panasonic shares a downsampled link to clients over DLNA. Have you checked the settings on the Panasonic, as it may be set to do so.

I'm not aware of a user setting in MM that can be changed, so I'm not certain MM instructs DLNA Servers for lower resolution files.

Re: MM downscales video files from 1080 to 720

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 11:49 am
by Dan123
Lowlander, thanks for your input and your willingness to help. I found a solution which I want to share just in case anyone else can make use of it.

I continue to use MediaMonkey to get the URLs to the files on my Panasonic hard-disk recorder which I want to copy (from the Media Server view). In order to copy several files, I right-click the folder in question and select Copy. This copies the URLs for all files in the folder to the clipboard. I paste this into Notepad and remove the part of every URL after the question mark (including the question mark itself). I then copy all the edited links to the clipboard. For the downloading I use Free Download Manager Lite. After installing it, go to Options > Settings > Network and set Maximum Number of Downloads to 1 everywhere (to avoid that it tries to download more than one file at a time from the Panasonic, which will make the downloads fail). Obviously, you only need to do this once right after installing the program. To download the URLs in the clipboard, click File > Import > Import list of URLs from clipboard in Free Download Manager Lite. Voila! Free Download Manager will now download each file one by one in "raw" format without any conversion or downscaling. This way you can leave it to take care of its business, downloading lots of files without any intervention from you, eg. a whole series organized in one folder on the Panasonic, and then compress them with Handbrake or whatever you want to do.