Free alternative for Videoredo or Womble

[erik]

We are making slow progress here. The problem with the I,P,B frames is solved, there is an option you can set in the cpf that solves this. Comskip does that now.
There is still on minor problem I missed because I did not read well enough a mail from one of you so I will correct this today. You can expect something new later today.

[-stattik-]

Erik,

Have you ever looked into the EDL option in mencoder? It's realtively new. I know you created an mencoder plugin and this would seem to be a natural extension of that. Here's the info:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html

Assuming comskip could create the edl file, you would be able to transcode it and cut out what you don't want all in one step. In my limited testing the cuts seem clean.

[erik]

I forgot to post that all problems with cuttermaran are solved.
The generated cpf file can be used in a batch file invokation of cuttermaran and there is a zip file called comclean2 (See my server) that contains the demux, the mux and the batch file to tie it all together.
I will certainly look into the edl option of mencoder.
Unfortunatily for me my GBVPR server is so underpowered that I can not run mencoder at acceptable speed so it will be of little use for myself.

[pBS]

try using mencoder without recompression, only copyiing audio and video...should still do 'nice' cuts at a very rapid pace..

[erik]

I tried and indeed its rather fast and it works but I can't get it to generate an mpeg file, it always create an avi file (mplayer can play it but some others not)
Any suggestions?
Will add the edl output format to Comskip anyway because its nice for those that do both cutting and encoding.

[pBS]

ahhh, use -of mpeg and it should create an mpeg
the command lines for vlc and mencoder are quite cryptic but once ya get it figured out they can be quite usefull..
hope that helps...keep up the great work mon!

[pBS]

hmm,is the edl support in this new release? and, if i review the .txt file with comskip,can i output a edl file without re-comskipping the whole file?
or should i just do a comskiip with only edl out selected?

[erik]

Ok, it works.

The new version of comskip 0.77 build 77 has the ability to generate the mencoder edl file. Set
output_edl=1
in the ini file and comskip will generate the edl file require by mencoder to delete the commercials.

There are multiple ways to make use of this.
One is as an alternative for comclean. See comclean3.bat on my gbpvr directory (see below). This bacth file will use mencoder and the generated edl file to generate a cleaned mpeg.
You can also use the edl file to generate a divx or other avi format while at the same time cutting out the commercials.
Just add the -edl mpegbasename.edl parameter to the mencoder command you are using to encode.
A word of warnig. The mpeg generated by mencoder does have some strange format so not all players may be very happy with it.

[erik]

If you use comskip to review the txt file and hit the 'w' key also a new edl file will be written

So normal usage is to set output_edl=1 and run comskip on the mpg file.
If needed review by running comskip on the generated .txt file, if you are happy with the result hit 'w' and also a new edl file is generated.

Only if it would work.
It needs a little more testing, probably tomorrow......

[David]

Erik,

I really appreciate all the work you have been putting into new comskips; particularly to fix the timeline issue. I see versions to use mencoder and cutterman. Plus the timeline fixing program.

Which system do you think works the best at this point? I was hoping to play around a bit this weekend.