Help setting up Video compression

[abasu2003]

Up until now, I hadn't really tried doing this but then I realized how much space I was wasting for no real benefit when I saw my friend's transcoded video files on his Myth box.

I was trying to find a good starting point to set this up, and I looked at the "ffmpeg" thread but I couldn't figure out how to apply it to these custom STV's (like nielm's) that have it built in as a module. Can someone point me to a post or a wiki that will get me started.

(I'm not a newbie to sage but I suddenly feel like one)

[Enormous]

You're not alone there. I've also tried setting it up, but to no avail.

[abasu2003]

Ok. I finally scanned the right parts of the ffmpeg thread and found this:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showpost.php?p=55067&postcount=183

I'm testing transcoding right now. I have a few questions though about how this integrates with the newer STV's. For one, is there an option in the sage.properties file to delete the source recordings. How does this work exactly? It seems like all the STV does is create the jobs.xml file, no? Do I still have to run ffmpeg_convert myself or through a task?

EDIT: I just finished converting the files. I was wondering if there is a way to view the files in Sage. Ideally, they would show up in my Sage recordigns but that doesn't seem to be happening (maybe because they are in avi, instead of mpeg). I added the video target directory to the import files directory but it doesnt' show up under imported videos either. any help with this would be appreciated. thanks

[Enormous]

Thanks for the link. I had some trouble getting it set up, but its working now. My problems stemmed from the fact that I was trying to use the latest version of Java (1.5.0), but now I've got it set up using 1.4.2_05.

[abasu2003]

do you get the compressed video files to show up in sage and if so, are they in your sage recordings or imported video library?

[Enormous]

Yes, I got the compressed shows to show up, but not initially. The 'mlbdude/compress_target_root' directory that I specified in my Sage properties file was the same as the directory where the original file was stored. In Sage, this directory is specified as one of the "Video" directories. I found that if I moved the directory containing the new .avi file to a directory that was specified within Sage as a "Library Import Directory", then the video files showed up in Sage under the Imported Video files section.

So this leaves me with 2 options: change the 'mlbdude/compress_target_root' directory to one that is a Library Import directory, or specifiy the original video directory as a library import directory. (I have a feeling that this last option might mess things up though).

Hope this helps.

[Enormous]

Also, the video plays perfectly within Sage, a looks almost as good as the original. One problem that I did encounter is that it seems like the information in the .my file isn't being read by Sage (or at least the 2 STVs I tried).

One thing that would be cool would be if these recordings would show up in the place of the original under the Sage Recordings section, but that's a minor thing. This does seem like a great thing to use for shows that I'm not going to put on DVD. Cheers to all who contributed!

[abasu2003]

So this leaves me with 2 options: change the 'mlbdude/compress_target_root' directory to one that is a Library Import directory, or specifiy the original video directory as a library import directory. (I have a feeling that this last option might mess things up though).

I tried the second thing and it didn't work for me. I'll try saving it to a different directory.

I'm assuming that htere is no way to get the compressed files to be seen as a Sage Recording then, correct?

[nielm]

I'm assuming that htere is no way to get the compressed files to be seen as a Sage Recording then, correct?No, once you have changed the file name in any way it can no longer be seen as a Sage Recording

[abasu2003]

Is there some way to put the file into an mpg wrapper and preserve the file name (even if this means the time display will be wrong)?