Automated Cutting and Transcoding Guide Using Mencoder

[firehorse]

Hi,

Something appears to be causing the script to stop.

I think it might be the ® in the titles.

I've attached the end of the log file.

Can you have a look at it please?

Thanks
Alan

[-stattik-]

Hi,

Something appears to be causing the script to stop.

I think it might be the ® in the titles.

I've attached the end of the log file.

Can you have a look at it please?

Thanks
Alan

You would be correct. Are you by chance using I-xmlTV or similiar program? That wouldn't be causing the problem but it could be a workaround.

[firehorse]

Hi,

You would be correct. Are you by chance using I-xmlTV or similiar program? That wouldn't be causing the problem but it could be a workaround.

I'm using Alan Birtles XMLTV GUI along with UltraXMLTV Enhancer.

I had ticked ® for repeated. I don't have that option switched on anymore.

I'll just rename the file to compress it.

Thanks
Alan

[-stattik-]

I-XMLTV gives you an option to replace ()'s with something else so ® would look like .R. I don't know if the apps you use can do that or not.

Since the script uses ()'s to process the files, it misinterprets them as part of the script. I'm exploring workarounds but there doesn't seem to be a easy way to do it.

[pastro]

The problem with skiptool seemed to be caused by this line
IF EXIST %~dpn1.srt SET sub=-sub %~dpn1.srt

Changed it to this and it worked ok.
IF EXIST "%~dpn1.srt" SET sub=-sub "%~dpn1.srt"

[-stattik-]

The problem with skiptool seemed to be caused by this line
IF EXIST %~dpn1.srt SET sub=-sub %~dpn1.srt

Changed it to this and it worked ok.
IF EXIST "%~dpn1.srt" SET sub=-sub "%~dpn1.srt"

That was the change I though I made to make the script work. I don't know how I ended up uploading the wrong one. Glad to see its working for you.

[-stattik-]

Here's the latest version. It will make it's way to the Wiki if I don't hear of any problems.

Here's the changlog:

0.5.6ar
* Metadata(if any exists) get copied when remuxing into mkv.
* Fixed a bug when choosing DVD language when ripping.
* Fixed a bug where multiple define profiles would stop the script.

0.5.6
* Added simple quality profiles. Now using Guided Transcode, you can select from three qualities. You may also change the quality profiles or assign certain shows to certain profiles automatically.
* mkv container support via mkvmerge.exe is supported. This will create Direct Show compatible MKV files. mkvmerge.exe is part of MKVtoolnix and can be found here: http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/ When enabled, the script creates an avi with a mkv extension (for database renaming purposes) and then uses mkvmerge.exe to remux it into a mkv container.
* Fixed a bug when moving a file that's larger than the move directory.
* Adjusted the pillarbox crop. The previous setting left a little black bar on each side.

0.5.5c
* Added vmq patches for cropping, full resolution, and accepting files with "&" or "^" in their names.
* Removed old PSP profile.
* Subtitles will be added if corresponding .srt file is found.
* Adjusted the x264 encoding parameters. It's slightly slower but with better quality.
* This version is using a better IVTC method for 60FPS material.

0.5.5b
* Tweaked autocrop settings for PAL material.
* PSP Profile now uses x264 AVC for video.
* When ripping anamorphic DVD's and choosing full resolution, you will get 848x480 for NTSC and 1024x576 for PAL.
* Added custom_crop option. (Thanks vmq) If you want all shows of a certain size (IE 720x480) to get cropped, set the custom variables to your liking. If you also set full_resolution=yes, make sure your final height and width are divisible by 16. The encoder likes that
* added custom_letterbox option to override script generated letterbox settings.
* croptop has been depreciated in favor of the custom_crop_top variable.
* MKV container support added. (Preliminary)

0.5.5
* Added support for multi-core CPU's. (mencoder needs to be compiled with xvid 1.2 or later)
* Added the ability to set what time range transcoding will occur during the day
* Added the ability to set how old the source files need to be before being transcoded
* Added the ability to set the threshold of free space before transcoding begins
* Added the ability to move the source files to a temp directory after transcoding
* Added the ability to set the threshold of free space before deleting files in the MOVE directory.(First in, first out)
* Added support for MP4 container (mencoder builds after Oct 7th support this)
* Added the ability to automatically determine if cropping is needed. (Need to edit you comskip.ini file. verbose=10)
* x264 encoding speed increased by about 60%. (Changed some encoding settings that didn't have a good speed/quality ratio.
* Added the ability to manually update the GBPVR database with the new extension if you're running in client/server mode. (works for files with ?'s in the name as well.)
* Added logic that allows the script to verify if a source file is being transcoded by another script/computer.
* Added option to re-index source file if needed before running comskip.
* The script should automatically disable IVTC if the source is PAL.
* The script will encode subtitles of DVDrips if set.

[cato]

I'm having a very odd problem. I have autocrop on, and the source is letterboxed and in regular 4x3 tv format. It tries to chop the top/bottom black borders (720x480 -> 720x368) and succeeds, but in the process the width of output is increased a good 100 or so pixels; even though the file says it's 720 it's really not.

My assumption is that the auto chopping is going awry somewhere along the line, but I can't see where from the code. I'm assuming that it's setting the aspect ratio based on the height and scaling up the width so that it's actually "proper", but I can't find where it would be doing that.

any ideas?

edit: ok, I've turned autocrop off and full_resolution on, but it's still stretching out the width. It's like it wants to make it 16:9 instead of putting it out as just plain old 4:3

[cato]

ok. quite the expedition. I've since discovered that the files themselves are fine, it was my renderer that was stretching them out for god knows why. I was using media player classic and had it set to the defaults for output (overlay mixer, render in 2D) which was apparently inconsistently deciding what to do (and making things look terrible in general)

However, I did uncover another problem that actually does seem to be a bug. You can see this clearly if you use custom letterbox crop. If you adjust the height (top/bottom) values at all, the output height doesn't change but where the image is cut is (eg say you want to add a bit of a black border, it'll have the same height but the image will have the border and image, but it will be scaled down to fit into that same height). This probably won't make sense unless you actually try it and view the difference.

This issue also seems to apply to non-custom crops. The vertical height will be correctly calculated, but the image will actually be scaled down a small amount. It's not nearly as noticable, but might be a rounding error or something.

[-stattik-]

Hi cato,

Would you be able to provide some short samples of this? I could take a look at it.