Automated Cutting and Transcoding Guide Using Mencoder

[firehorse]

Hi Stattik,

There's a few builds of mplayer/mencoder that require pthreadGC2.dll

There's a few places you can get it. Here is one:

ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/pthreads-wi...eadGC2.dll

Drop it in the mplayer dir.

Thanks for that. It's all a bit overwhelming to get everything to work how you want it.

I'll have another go soon.

Thanks
Alan

[firehorse]

Hi,

Ok, I found the issue.

First set ptl_ext_check back to the original setting. This setting checks to see if a transcode is already done. (IE: If there already was a avi, mp4, or mkv file made) so you'll want to remove dvr-ms from that list or else nothing will transcode.

Code:

SET ptl_ext_check=.avi .mp4 .mkv

The part of the script that's dropping the dvr-ms file is the part where it looks for an associated EDL file. Most users run comskip on the file which creates an EDL file (by configuring comskip.ini). If you're not using comskip, you can set

Code:

SET target_extension=dvr-ms

The rest of your settings will be fine. One issue you'll run into in this situation is once the file is done processing, the script will run again, find the dvr-ms file again, and process it again, and again, etc. The solution to this is either to delete the original file after processing or have the script move it to a directory that doesn't get scanned. Obviously, I'd make a backup of the video file until you're happy with the output.


Hope this helps.

Thanks for your help.

The script (amazing piece of work!!!) is working.

If I understand correctly, there are two ways to do this.
1. Have gbpvr demux dvr-ms into mpg and comskip into avi -> then run stattik_transcode to compress (without using comskip)
2. gbpvr does nothing to the file but run stattik_transcode as postprocessing -> demux dvr-ms, runs comskip and compress.

What are the pro and cons of doing it either way?

Many thanks
Alan

[-stattik-]

Hi,
Thanks for your help.

The script (amazing piece of work!!!) is working.

If I understand correctly, there are two ways to do this.
1. Have gbpvr demux dvr-ms into mpg and comskip into avi -> then run stattik_transcode to compress (without using comskip)
2. gbpvr does nothing to the file but run stattik_transcode as postprocessing -> demux dvr-ms, runs comskip and compress.

What are the pro and cons of doing it either way?

Many thanks
Alan

Ideally the best way (provided it works), is to first run comskip on the file. Make sure it's identifying the commercials correctly, and then run the script on the dvr-ms file. The script should be able to process the dvr-ms file directly but only PAL/NTSC files. Hi-def dvr-ms files don't work currently and would have to be remuxed into a mpg file. You can run comskip while the file is recording, in the postprocessing.bat file, or directly from the script. I personally run comskip from the parallelprocessing.bat file so it's done when the recording is done.


Since you are from a PAL area, be sure to SET output_fps=auto.

[firehorse]

Hi,

Ideally the best way (provided it works), is to first run comskip on the file. Make sure it's identifying the commercials correctly, and then run the script on the dvr-ms file. The script should be able to process the dvr-ms file directly but only PAL/NTSC files. Hi-def dvr-ms files don't work currently and would have to be remuxed into a mpg file. You can run comskip while the file is recording, in the postprocessing.bat file, or directly from the script. I personally run comskip from the parallelprocessing.bat file so it's done when the recording is done.


Since you are from a PAL area, be sure to SET output_fps=auto.

Thanks for that setting.

I'm recording freeview digital broadcast in the UK, no hi-def on freeview yet.

So we have option 3. Let me just double check.

a) Let gbpvr run comskip using parallelprocessing.bat (need to look up how that works)
I assume tab misc - tick autoskip commercials
and tab processing - comskip from current directory, and tick run during recording
auto-convert dvr-ms - set to none
b) run script to extract dvr-ms and compress.

Thanks
Alan

[firehorse]

Hi,

[COLOR="Gray"]I've found out that running comskip in parallelprocessing.bat allows you to edit the bat file to exclude certain channels to be processed. In the UK, the BBC channels do not have commercials.

But ... if the script looks for edl in every case, does that mean I should run comskip for every recording to make sure the file is there so the script works properly?[/COLOR]

Scrap the above, I've just realised in this instance, the script is processing the dvr-ms after comskip has dealt with it, and won't be using the edl file.

Thanks
Alan

[tvshowman]

Hi

can you tell me how I can make the script move the newly encoded file to my movie directory and save the metadata as well?

I want to move it from say c:\record to c:\movies


any help will be greatly appreciated

cheers

[firehorse]

Hi,

Ideally the best way (provided it works), is to first run comskip on the file. Make sure it's identifying the commercials correctly, and then run the script on the dvr-ms file. The script should be able to process the dvr-ms file directly but only PAL/NTSC files. Hi-def dvr-ms files don't work currently and would have to be remuxed into a mpg file. You can run comskip while the file is recording, in the postprocessing.bat file, or directly from the script. I personally run comskip from the parallelprocessing.bat file so it's done when the recording is done.


Since you are from a PAL area, be sure to SET output_fps=auto.

Just digging into comskip.

At the end of the comskip bat file is comclean. If I use comclean3.bat which calls mencoder, then isn't that function covered in the Stattik script???

So can you confirm, I just need to run comskip in parallelprocessing.bat and then run the Stattik script, without needing comclean3.bat

And what settings do I need for that?

But then what about the channels that don't have commercials?

Thanks
Alan

[firehorse]

Hi,

I've set parallelprocessing.bat to run comskip.

I've set gbpvr to do nothing.

I've renamed the script to be postprocessing.bat

Comskip runs while the program is recording. Great.

But it seems to be generating a mpeg file. And then a _clean.mpg is generated.

Which upsets my previous assumption of dvr-ms files being generated and the script isn't being run.

Going round in circles here!!!

Does that mean the bat file needs to be set back to mpg if I'm using comskip?

Thanks
Alan

[-stattik-]

Hi

can you tell me how I can make the script move the newly encoded file to my movie directory and save the metadata as well?

I want to move it from say c:\record to c:\movies


any help will be greatly appreciated

cheers

The script only moves the original file after it's been transcoded. It doesn't have the ability to move the final file.

One option would be to move the file to the movie directory before it gets processed by the script. This could be done in the postprocessing.bat file.

Code:

copy %1 c:\movies\%~nx1

Because the directory is changed though, the movie will no longer be in the GBPVR database.

[-stattik-]

But it seems to be generating a mpeg file. And then a _clean.mpg is generated.

Which upsets my previous assumption of dvr-ms files being generated and the script isn't being run.

Thanks
Alan

The _clean.mpg file seems to be from comclean. What comskip.bat file are you referring to? You shouldn't need to run comclean with your setup.