Utility: MediaShrink v3.0 - An HTPC focused encoder

evilpenguin · #1 04-26-2010, 11:42 AM

(Starting a new thread because the older one had to much depreciated junk info)

What it is:
There are a lot of great encoding tools out there (ffmpeg, mencoder, handbrake, etc.) but none of them are really focused on the specific needs of HTPC users. So I decided to create mediaShrink as a CLI front end that automatically mixes and matches the best encoding tools to use depending on the type of content you're trying to encode.

Is your video telecined?
Is it Interlaced?
Does it have embedded subtitles?
Does it need to be cropped?

MediaShrink will automatically scan the video and determine those answers for you so you end up with a great looking encode no matter what. And if you aren't' satisfied with the defaults, you can easily modify the settings until you're happy with the results.

Working on backing up your DVD's? MediaShrink can help you there too. It'll scan the DVD and automagically encode the main movie, include the main audio as well as any commentary tracks, and attach the closed captioning as a subtitle track. Working with TV show DVD's? No problem there either. It'll automatically pick out all of the episodes on the DVD and encode each of them individually.

How To Use It:

There are a few different ways you can use MediaShrink depending on what your needs are.

First (and easiest), you can just manually drag and drop recordings/DVD's onto MediaShrink.exe and it'll automatically encode the videos using the default settings and place the encoded video right next to the original.
Second (and recommended for SageTV), you use the CLI switch /inPlace (can just be added to mediaShrink.bat that gets created after the first time you run MediaShrink) and then when do an drag and drop encode of a SageTV recording, MediaShrink will automatically replace the original video with the encoded version and Sage (after an hour or so) will detect it and seamlessly start using it.
Finally (and my personal favorite), you can configure Sage Job Queue (SJQ) to automatically encode your SageTV recordings in the background. See the 2nd post for my template SJQ server/client rulesets that'll get you going in no time

DOWNLOAD

Tools Used:
I can't take credit for much in this tool. 99% of of the work gets done by great tools written by other talented developers, I just wrote some perl code to get them all to play nice together.

Comskip - Used for detecting crop settings and generating EDL files for commercial cutting.
Mencoder - Used for detecting telecine, demuxing A/V, sampling DVD's to check for closed captioning, and encoding
Handbrake - Used for scanning DVD's for titles, detecting processor types, and encoding
ccextractorwin - Used for detecting/extracting closed captions embedded in recordings and DVD's
mkvtoonix - Used for muxing mkv videos
mp4box, mp4creator - Used for muxing mp4 videos
ffmpeg/sageTVTranscoder - Used for creating test clips and detecting video properties
And Lots More!

Known Issues:

evilpenguin · #2 04-26-2010, 11:42 AM

Code:

mediaShrink Readme -

Simple Usage: Drag and drop videos on MediaShrink.exe or MediaShink.bat 
CLI Syntax  : mediaShrink.exe [options] <File|Folder> <File|Folder>

### Basic Options-----------------------------------------------------------

    /help                   Show these options
    /saveLog                Save log file when complete (default)
    /saveAll                Save all temp files when complete
    /batch                  Run in batch mode, intended for Dirmon2/SJQ (default)

    /altLaunch             Use alternate launching meathod.  Should only be
                              used if you're having problems and I ask you to 
                              try it.

### Output Options-----------------------------------------------------------

    /inPlace                Replace the original video when complete
    /outputName <name>      Name for output file.  Default is same as original
                            with new extention.
    /outputDirectory <path> Directory to place encoded video.  Default is same
                            path as original.
                            
    /outputSubFolder <name> Create a folder next to the original file
                            and put the finished encode in there. 
                            
    /centralWorkFolder <path> Directory to do all temp work, useful if your 
                              videos are stored on a NAS or recording drive
                              that you don't want affected by encoding work.
                              Also needed if you want to process files straight
                              off of a DVD drive.
                              
    /container <container>  A/V container to use
                              - mkv : Uses mkv container (default)
                              - mp4 : Uses mp4 container

### Video Options ---------------------------------------------------------

    /vcodec <encoder>      Set the video encoder
                            - x264   : Uses x264 encoder (default)
                            - ffmpeg : Uses ffmpeg encoder, roughly divx
    
    /vbitrate <kbs>        Set video bitrate (Default 1500)

    /vProfile <profile>    Sets the video encoding profile
                             - HQ       : Slow and pretty
                             - MQ       : A nice mix of speed and quality (default)
                             - LQ       : Fast enough for slow machines
                             - custom   : Uses custom parameters from /x264opts
                             
    /handbrakeProfile <profile>  Use one of handbrakes preset profiles.
                           Note that you still need to specify /container mp4
                           for portable device profiles.
			   
			   Example: /handbrakeProfile "Universal" /container mp4
			   
    /handbrakeFullCommand <full CLI command>
    		           Used to specify a complete handbrake CLI and overide all of 
			   Mediashrinks settings.  NOTE: You still need to specify /container
			   

   /x264opts <options>     Sets custom x264 options
                             - ex: /x264opts "ref=2:bframes=2:subme=6:mixed-refs=0"
                             
   /onePass                Performs a one-pass encode (default)
   /twoPass                Performs a two-pass encode                         
                                 
   /xRes <###>             Scale video to ????x#### (Y Res is auto-calculated)
   /yRes <###>             Scale video to ####x???? (X Res is auto-calculated)
   
   /IVTC                   Uses Handbrakes variable frame rate encoding
   /noIVTC                 Blocks usage of IVTC by autoEncode
    
   /denoise                Uses Hanbrakes denoise filter
   /noDenoise              Blocks usage of denoise by autoEncode

   /decomb                 Uses Hanbrakes decomb filter (Selective Deinterlace)
   /noDecomb               Blocks usage of decomb by autoEncode

   /deinterlace            Uses Hanbrakes deinterlace filter
   /noDeinterlace          Blocks usage of denoise by autoEncode

   /autoCrop               Automatically crop videos to remove black bars
   /noAutoCrop             Disable Automatic Cropping
    
   /noSubtitles            MediaShrink will automatically attempt to attach
                            all subtitle/CC tracks it finds since its a pretty
                            harmless operation.  Set this if you want to disable
                            
### Audio Options --------------------------------------------------------------

    /acodec <encoder>      Set the audio encoder
                              - faac   : AAC codec (Default Stereo/SDTV)
                              - lame   : MP3 codec
                              - vorbis : OGG codec
                              - ac3    : AC3 passthough (Default HDTV)
                              - dts    : DTS passthough

    /abitrate <kbs>        Set audio bitrate in kbs (Default 160)

    /atrack <Track #>        Set audio bitrate in kbs (Default 160)

    Note: atrack, abitrate, acodec can take comma separated values to force multiple tracks
    
    /allAudio              Force mediaSrhink to encode all audio tracks    
    
    /preferDTS             By defrault mediashrink will prefer AC3 5.1 tracks, but settings
    			   this it'll force it to choose a DTS track over an AC3 one.  

### DVD Options ------------------------------------------------------------

    /subLang <lang Code|all>  Lets user specify the language code of the 
                              subtitles they want to extract (default: eng)

                              http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php

    /manualTitles           Prompts user to manually specify the DVD titles to encode

    /forceTitle <#,#,...>   By default mediaShrink will automatically attempt to 
                            detect which titles to encode, however, sometimes it
                            is impossible.  For those cases you can specify just
                            the DVD title numbers you want to encode sepeated by
                            commas.
                            
    /minDVDTitleLength <#>  Theshold for the minimum title time in minutes to 
                            inspect. Makes log much cleaner for commercial DVDs
                            which can have hundreds of short titles, but if you
                            have a home video DVD with a short title you may need
                            to customize this value.  (Default 5)
                            
### Commercial Cutting Options ------------------------------------------------------------
    REQUIRES VIDEOREDO TO BE INSTALLED
    
    /cutComm                Attempt to cut the commercials.  If no edl or vprj
                            file exists it will attempt to make one using comskip
    
    /onlyWhenVprj           Only cut if a vprj file already exists (default)

Also, for you SJQ users, here's my server/client configuration for launching it and its working great.

Server: Encode any mpg older than 30 days

Code:

# My Favorites to be encoded at the highest quality
if [IsObjMediaFile == true && $.IsTVFile{} == true && MediaAge > "30D" && Filename =$ ".mpg" && $.GetShowTitle{} =% "(Lost|Burn Notice|24|Dollhouse|House)"] 
{
   MEDIASHRINKHQ
}
# Hour long shows are usually more cinematic so give them more bitrate
if [IsObjMediaFile == true && $.IsTVFile{} == true && MediaAge > "30D" && Filename =$ ".mpg" && $.GetShowTitle{} !% "(Lost|Burn Notice|24|Dollhouse|House)" && $.GetFileDuration{} >= 1800000] 
{
   MEDIASHRINKMQ
}
# 30 Minute shows usually don't have a lot of action and can live with less bitrate
if [IsObjMediaFile == true && $.IsTVFile{} == true && MediaAge > "30D" && Filename =$ ".mpg" && $.GetShowTitle{} !% "(Lost|Burn Notice|24|Dollhouse|House)" && $.GetFileDuration{} < 1800000]  
{
   MEDIASHRINKLQ
}

Client: Run Monday-Friday 1 AM - 2 PM

Code:

MEDIASHRINKHQ
{
   :OFFHOUR "0-1, 15-23"
   :OFFDAY "1, 7"
   :MAX 1
   :RESOURCES 51
   "C:/Program Files/SageTV/SageTV/MediaShrink/mediaShrink.bat \"%c%\" /inPlace /batch /vprofile HQ /vbitrate 2500"
}

MEDIASHRINKMQ
{
   :OFFHOUR "0-1, 16-23"
   :OFFDAY "1, 7"
   :MAX 1
   :RESOURCES 51
   "C:/Program Files/SageTV/SageTV/MediaShrink/mediaShrink.bat \"%c%\" /inPlace /batch /vbitrate 2500 /onePass"
}

MEDIASHRINKLQ
{
   :OFFHOUR "0-1, 16-23"
   :OFFDAY "1, 7"
   :MAX 1
   :RESOURCES 51
   "C:/Program Files/SageTV/SageTV/MediaShrink/mediaShrink.bat \"%c%\" /inPlace /batch /vbitrate 2000 /onePass"
}

ohpleaseno · #3 04-26-2010, 11:59 AM

Great idea to start a new thread. I guess your "family" gave you some time to get back to Sage stuff.

(see what I did there?)

Why would recordings called through SJQ have a very high occorunce of "no audio or video" and fail to encode yet recordings sent to MS through drag and drop have almost none?

evilpenguin · #4 04-26-2010, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Islander

I am guessing that it is possible to have the files processed without so much (or any?) cropping because after seeing this issue and not knowing much I dl something called StaxRip and ran the same file through and the resulting file did not have the same issue as the pic attached. I rather use MS because it is Sage specific/related/whatnot so the question is how do I tell it not to autocrop? I have tried modifying the mediashrink.defaults but it seems that whatever parameters are in the auto encode override that.

The /noAutoCrop switch should do it. I'd love a test clip of that, think you could cut it down to 2 minutes and FTP it to me?

Quote: