Automated Cutting and Transcoding Guide Using Mencoder

[chemie]

OK. Noob who has read most of the 50+ pages in thread still can't get it to work.

I have following in postprocessing.bat
comskip %1
call transcode %1 %2

transcode.bat (version 0.5.5b)

SET mencoder_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\Third Party\mencoder\mencoder.exe"
SET mplayer_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\Third Party\mencoder\mplayer.exe"
SET comskip_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\comskip.exe"
SET recordings_path="C:\Documents and Settings\Family\My Documents\My Recordings\"
SET guide_mode=yes

The comskip runs but tanscode does not run. I did drop a file onto it and it ran fine but I was giving it entries...not sure what it used for transcode settings in batch mode?

Anyway, what am I missing to get it to run and what are default setting it is taking when run in batch mode?

Only thing I see is temp.txt in gbpvr folder which had the name of the recording correctly.

Thanks

PS I am running from postprocessing because I really could not get it to work on directory monitoring....maybe that is for another day. I ran it manually in c:\test and pointed it to c:\test\ which had a test.mpg in it but it did not find anything and waited for 30 minutes...

[-stattik-]

OK. Noob who has read most of the 50+ pages in thread still can't get it to work.

I have following in postprocessing.bat
comskip %1
call transcode %1 %2

transcode.bat (version 0.5.5b)

SET mencoder_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\Third Party\mencoder\mencoder.exe"
SET mplayer_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\Third Party\mencoder\mplayer.exe"
SET comskip_path="C:\Program Files\gbpvr\comskip.exe"
SET recordings_path="C:\Documents and Settings\Family\My Documents\My Recordings\"
SET guide_mode=yes

The comskip runs but tanscode does not run. I did drop a file onto it and it ran fine but I was giving it entries...not sure what it used for transcode settings in batch mode?

Anyway, what am I missing to get it to run and what are default setting it is taking when run in batch mode?

Only thing I see is temp.txt in gbpvr folder which had the name of the recording correctly.

Thanks

PS I am running from postprocessing because I really could not get it to work on directory monitoring....maybe that is for another day. I ran it manually in c:\test and pointed it to c:\test\ which had a test.mpg in it but it did not find anything and waited for 30 minutes...

At first blush, you need to make sure there are no spaces in the paths. These should be your paths:

Code:

SET mencoder_path="C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\Thirdp~1\mencoder\mencoder.exe"
  SET mplayer_path="C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\Thirdp~1\mencoder\mplayer.exe"
  SET comskip_path="C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\comskip.exe"
  SET recordings_path="C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyReco~1\"

That should work but you can verify by going into DOS and typing a dir /x

That will give you the current directory with the correct 8.3 names (IE: the names with ~1 or ~2 in them.

[chemie]

It has been many moons since my MS-DOS days but I thought by using quotes, I could use full directory names (and my usage did seem to work with the "drop" method...). In fact, I did not know how to use the 8.3 convention when there were spaces; seems DOS just ignores the space so I did as you said, removed the " " and used 8.3 format:

Changed to:

SET mencoder_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mencoder.exe
SET mplayer_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mplayer.exe
SET comskip_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\comskip.exe
SET recordings_path=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyReco~1\
SET guide_mode=yes

Still nothing; and no temp.txt file now.

[chemie]

Update. Instead of running comskip myself in postprocessing.bat, I turned that off and instead changed the flag in transcode to run comskip.

It did run so I know transcode.bat is running. It just does not transcode anything....only ran comskip and then quit.

??
My settings:
:: QUICK-START- The following settings are the minimal needed to get the script running
SET mencoder_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mencoder.exe
SET mplayer_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mplayer.exe
SET comskip_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\comskip.exe
SET recordings_path=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyReco~1\
SET guide_mode=yes

:: AUTO-TRANSCODE SETTINGS
SET directory_monitoring=no
SET individual_transcode_directories="Show 1" "Show 2" "Show3, etc"
SET recursive_transcode_directory=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyReco~1\
SET target_extension=edl
SET transcode_extension=mpg
SET secondary_transcode_extension=ts
SET script_wait=30
SET ptl_ext_check=.avi .mp4 .mkv
SET time_check=no
SET time_transcode_start=2200
SET time_transcode_stop=1800
SET date_check=no
SET date_transcode_days_old=1
SET space_check=no
SET space_trigger=100

:: GENERAL SETTINGS
SET file_delete=no
SET debugmode=no
SET logging=no
SET testmode=no
SET comskipmode=yes
SET noopendml=no
SET cleanup=no
SET move_dir=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyVide~1\
SET move_space_trigger=20
SET cleanup_extensions= "txt" "log" "csv" "dne" "edlp" "log"
SET reindex_file=no
SET profile=standard

[-stattik-]

:: QUICK-START- The following settings are the minimal needed to get the script running
SET mencoder_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mencoder.exe
SET mplayer_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mplayer.exe
SET comskip_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\comskip.exe
SET recordings_path=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\MyReco~1\
SET guide_mode=yes

Looks like you got some spaces in the mencoder(before the m in mencoder.exe) and mplayer(between m and p in mplayer.exe) path.

[-stattik-]

It has been many moons since my MS-DOS days but I thought by using quotes, I could use full directory names (and my usage did seem to work with the "drop" method...). In fact, I did not know how to use the 8.3 convention when there were spaces; seems DOS just ignores the space so I did as you said, removed the " " and used 8.3 format:

Quotes work in general in DOS but not for program paths.

[chemie]

Strange. If I look in the batch file (text editor), I do not see spaces.

If I paste into this post window, I do not see spaces.

Once I post, the spaces show up.

I have deleted everything....and re-typed. Every time I paste in this forum, spaces show up...are the "~" messing something up?

Tell me how to paste in a text window and I can do that.

Anyway, I am sure there are no spaces despite what you see above

[chemie]

Trying to figure this out, I created a small batch file to just call the mencoder using code from your batch file.

In postprocessing.bat, I call comskip and then this batch file

start /low /wait /min comskip %1
call testencoder %1 %2


Then in testencoder.bat I have:

SET full_name=%1
SET short_name=%~nx1
set name=%~n1
set filepath=%~dp1
Set Extn=%~x1
SET start_opt="%short_name% - stattik_transcode" /low /wait /min
SET channel=%2
SET mencoder_path=C:\Progra~1\gbpvr\ThirdP~1\mencoder\mencoder.exe
SET output_path=C:\Docume~1\Family\MyDocu~1\Myreco~1\
SET output="%output_path%%name%.avi"
SET edl=%filepath%%name%.edl
set general_settings=-edl "%edl%" -sws 9 -lavdopts threads=2
set video_settings= -ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=3:me_quality=6:chroma_me:noqpel:chroma_opt:vhq=4:bvhq=1:trellis:hq_ac:quant_type=mpeg:turbo:threads=2
set audio_settings=-oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128
set video_filter= -vf pullup,softskip,pp=ci,scale=512:384,hqdn3d=3:2:3:3
set input_fps=-fps 30000/1001
set output_fps=24000/1001

start %start_opt% %mencoder_path% %full_name% %general_settings% %video_settings% %audio_settings% %video_filter% %input_fps% -ofps %output_fps% -o %output%

So, if I drop an mpeg on the testencoder.bat, it runs. If I let GBPVR call postprocessing.bat, the comskip runs, but no conversion. Mencoder does not appear to get called.

Why?

(PS. Ignore the spaces in files names, they are not there in the notepad)

[-stattik-]

Trying to figure this out, I created a small batch file to just call the mencoder using code from your batch file.

Where is the transcode.bat file located? Have you tried the directory scanning since you changed the paths? If the automated directory scanning doesn't work, you can do this:

Change the first line in the script from "echo off" to "echo on".
Drop the transcode.bat file on the attached file which will save the output to file where you can upload it here.

[chemie]

First off, "Thank You" for all your help Stattik. I appreciate the time it must take.

I did so many things, I don't know what I did but I seem to have fixed it.

It will now run in postprocessing.bat . I "think" changing guide_mode=no fixed postprocessing but I can not say for sure. (It may also have been me switching to your batch file doing comskip versus a separate batch calling it first as I also think there was a problem with one not waiting for the other to finish with my misguided approach). Now, I put your code into postprocessing versus calling your code from it.

As I manually tried to run the script, I did find that Mencoder said there was an error in the -vf settings (I used "2,Y,1" to the prompts)...but it still semed to encode.

it had sent this:
-vf pullup,softskip,pp=ci,scale=512:384,hqdn3d=3:2:3:3

Now my questions:

When running as postprocessing.bat, is there a way to hide comskip and mencoder? I tried hiderun.exe but it did not "wait" for the program to finish (I assume because hiderun took over). Is there a "silent" option so I do not have MS-DOS windows in the program bar.

Monitoring is not working. I deleted the starting @echo off, dropped transcode.bat onto the logger, but nothing was created and it hung.

Thanks.