Automated Cutting and Transcoding Guide Using Mencoder

[DarkCanuck]

I have a AMD Athlon XP, 3000+ 2166 MHz. I am gunna try the different build and see how that goes right now. Will post back with results.

BTW - I was using the official build.

EDIT: Yah, WAY faster. About 3x as fast. Thanks for your help! I'm sure I'll be back once I start tweaking and getting myself in trouble. ;-)

[-stattik-]

I have a AMD Athlon XP, 3000+ 2166 MHz. I am gunna try the different build and see how that goes right now. Will post back with results.

BTW - I was using the official build.

EDIT: Yah, WAY faster. About 3x as fast. Thanks for your help! I'm sure I'll be back once I start tweaking and getting myself in trouble. ;-)

Good to hear. I'm not sure why the official build is so much slower.

[DarkCanuck]

1 last thing. After the transcoding is complete, I am left with these 3 files.

Z:\PVR\Ride Guide\Ride Guide_20070128_02300300.edl
Z:\PVR\Ride Guide\Ride Guide_20070128_02300300.mpg
Z:\PVR\Ride Guide\Ride Guide_20070128_02300300.avi

How do I setup the script to delete the original .mpg and .edl, and just leave the transcoded .avi?

EDIT: SET file_delete=yes

[-stattik-]

The edl file will get deleted the next time you run the script. When the script runs, if it doesn't find the mpg, the corresponding edl file will be deleted as well.

[psicotron3]

Is there a way I can set the batch to transcode all the files inside my Recordings folder, instead of adding the dirs one by one to the transcode_directories?

[-stattik-]

Is there a way I can set the batch to transcode all the files inside my Recordings folder, instead of adding the dirs one by one to the transcode_directories?

Sure, just add the recordings folder to the secondary_transcode_directory. By default, everything under the secondary_transcode_directory and all subfolders are transcoded.

[audioter]

I am a fairly new user. I have been using GBPVR for about 1 month. Just wanted to say GBPVR is awesome and I appreciate all the hardwork on the program by all involved.

The auto transcode cut script is great too, using it to transcode all my recordings. However I have been having a little bit of trouble with the auto transcode cut script. I think it may actually be a mencoder issue. After running comskip on mpeg file I calculated (from the .edl file) about 34 minutes of commercial in a 120 minute recording. I checked the mpeg in GBPVR after comskip at it looks like comskip found the right start and end points to skip. This should give an 86 minute cleaned recording. However after the autotranscodecut script runs I am left with a 60 min recording. It looks like a 26 minute chunk in the middle of the movie is gone. I ran throught the avi converted movie and looks like first three commercial segments were cut right but then something happened and I am missing a segment of the movie. I have noticed this problem (missing movie segment) with at least two of my recordings.

Has anybody else noticed this?
Is there a fix or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for any/all help.

[erik]

You can easily check if comskip did a good job.
Grab the comskip generate .txt file and drop it on comskip.exe.
This will open a window showing at the top the timeline of the recording with in black where the commercials are.
Click on the timeline to quickly go to that position in the timeline.
Use the cursor keys and page-up/down to reposition in the recording.
If you find comskip did a bad you job may have to tune comskip for your particular broadcast conditions.

[audioter]

Thanks for the response erik.

As I mentioned in the previous post I had checked Comskip by playing back the mpeg in GBPVR and checking the timeline (dark green = commercial). It looks like comskip is working correctly, discerning commercial and movie precisely and I don't think it is a tuning problem. That is I do not see a 26 minute dark green marked as commercial segment.

However, the problem comes once I transcode it using the script and the .edl file. I loose 26 minutes somewhere after the third commercial break. I narrowed it down to see if there is a timeline corruption or something that is throwing off mencoder. I checked this and there is no timeline corruption. Looks like mencoder is removing movie segments and connecting start and end of two incorrect comskip blocks.

Again here is the problem. I have 120 minute recording, comskip marks the following (below is from .edl file thus these are seconds)
0.03 66.07 0
1104.04 1470.54 0
2232.7 2518.78 0
3194.59 3537.97 0
4210.74 4507.8 0
5384.91 5709.24 0
6230.06 6526.22 0
7164.12 7265.56 0

This leads to 36 minutes commercial. Once cut should be an 84 min recording. After transcoding using mencoder to cut commercials (using script) I get only 60 min .avi. This is comprised of all the correct movie segments except mencoder seems to be removing from 3537.97s to 6526.22s. That is, removing three segments in the middle of the movie (segments 4, 5 and 6 or 3537.97-4210.74, 4507.8-5383.91 and 5709.24-6230.06) even though comskip correctly marks them as movie (not commercial).

Any thoughts? Any help would be really appreciated.
Do I need to demux and remux always before running mencoder (and comskip)? If so this is going to really slow down things.
I am having this problem with multiple movies/encodings

[-stattik-]

Hi audioter,

Here's a something you can check. When mencoder runs, it identifies the amount of edl actions if finds in the edl file. It's one of the last things listed before transcoding starts...

Code:

==========================================================================
MP3 audio selected.
Read 5 EDL actions.
VDec: vo config request - 1280 x 720 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.

In your case, you should have 8 edl actions.

I would also try out another version of mencoder to see if it makes the same errors.