STV Import: SageTV DVD Burning v2.0d (12/5/06)

[evilpenguin]

This plug-in is dead. I recommend using VideoRedo for all your DVD creation and burning needs.


*Note: This plug-in will only work under Windows*

What it can do:

• Create multi-Video DVD's with great looking menus
• Cut commercials using comskip .edl files

Installation:
1) Download SageMC Video Tools STVi (It has the stuff you need for the default STV also) (Must be opened with winRAR)(Don't use the alpha release), Dirmon2, and imgBurn.
2) Install Dirmon2 and imgBurn, but don't configure them, leave that for the setup script.
3)Completely shutdown SageTV and extract the STVi into your SageTV folder.
4)Run perl2dvdSetup.exe and follow its directions very carefully. The first thing it's going to ask you is what jobs that specific computer will be doing. If you only have one computer, select all 3, otherwise pick the ones that apply. Remember...

• Only one PC can transcode
• Only one PC can burn
• Unlimited PC's can scedule

5) Importing into the default STV has quite a few steps, so go here a nice set of instructions...

Usage:
Creating a video/data DVD-

1. In the 'Send To...' menu add the show(s) you want to the video/data DVD
2. In the 'Send To...' menu select 'Process multi-Video/Data DVD' to start the creation process
3. A picture with a yellow icon should appear in your Other Programs menu. This means that the qdvd file exists, but isn't processing yet.
4. Once dirmon2 starts processing the qdvd file, the yellow icon will turn blue. This indicates that the qdvd file is currently being processed and the videos are transcoding.
5. Once the qdvd file is finished processing the blue icon will either turn into a DVD indicating that it finished successfully and is ready to burn or red indicating that there was some type of error (more on that later).
6. Whenever you're ready to burn the DVD, place a blank DVD in your drive, and click on the DVD icon in the Other Programs menu. This will start imgBurn and possibly steal focus from Sage, however, once imgBurn is done it will give it back.

Note: The DVD does not get burned automatically, you need to initiate the process via the Other Programs menu

What to do if you have a problem\How to ask for help:
I've tested this plug-in as thoroughly as I possibly can, but that doesn't mean it works perfectly yet. So here are a few things to remember if you have trouble.

1. Everything works fine for me and a lot of other people so if your qdvd files aren't being created, Dirmon isn't processing, or the Other Programs menu isn't displaying anything then reread the documentation/ensure you're running the latest version of everything/revert back to a fresh STV .
2. If it still doesn't work and you need to ask for help on the forums please be as descriptive as possible. For instance...
   Do you have multiple Sage Machines? What Sage Machine is doing transcoding? Are any of your videos on network drives? Are you burning a DVD? Are you compressing a show? Is the show HD/SD? Is there AC3 sound? What recording quality are you using? Is a qdvd file being created? Does dirmon2 start processing? What compression profile are you using? What version of mencoder are you using? Does it work when you use one of the 'dragNdrop' batch files? What type of processor are you using? etc, etc, etc...

I know that's a lot of stuff, but fortunately, if your setup is mostly working, i.e. the qdvd files start processing, then 90% of this information is in the log files generated by the script. To have the script output .zip files containing all of the relevant log files, go into perl2dvd.advanced.pref and enable

General: Save work folder log files to zip (0 means false, 1 means true) =1

So in conclusion, posting "It doesn't work" = useless, but posting "It doesn't work" and one of these .zip files = very helpful.

How to test if it's working?
There are two major parts to this plug-in: the scheduling and the transcoding. To test see if the scheduling works, pick a show and send it to a single video DVD. If it's working correctly there will it will create a .qdvd file in your qdvd folder and a shortcut and a jpg in your sageOthers folder. If dirmon2 is working properly it should see the new qdvd file and start processing it, however, if it doesn't then there's either a problem with dirmon's setup or perl2dvd's setup. To test if perl2dvd is working, drag n' drop a sage recording on the "single_dvd_dragNdrop.bat" in your sageTV directory. If everything is setup correctly that should make a DVD image right next to the original video. If you can burn that image and it plays properly, then the problem is with dirmon. In that case I recommend rereading the dirmon setup instructions below to see if you missed something.

Links:

• General FAQ
• Configuring Dirmon2
• Creating your own encoding profiles

Notes:

• Sage v6 required
• Installing this plug-in has no effect on the stock compression. It will still work just fine.
• Both SA and comskp are capable of outputting .edl files
• If I haven't documented something good enough, let me know and i'll give it a once over

Thanks to...

• Flachbar for helping out a TON with my STV code. It was some ugly stuff before he got a hold of it.
• Mlbdude for his fantastic STV, without which I never would have bothered with any of this.
• All of the great images used in for menus are from the Media Portal project. They are already included in the SageMC 16x9 download.

Change List:
11/17/06 v2.0 - Initial Revision
11/20/06 v2.0a -

• Bugfix: (SageMC) Mencoder was crashing on some people’s computers. I swapped out mencoder with the new official build. If you want to try and use some optimized versions, you can download them here… http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/mplayer/ or http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php
• Bugfix: (SageMC) Audio size was being incorrectly estimated.
• Bugfix: (SageMC) Enabling/disabling features wasn’t working on SageTV Client or SageTV running as a service. This was a STVi issue so you’ll have to re-import.
• Bugfix: (SageMC) The hardcoded default encoding profile had some incorrect parameters.
• Bugfix: (SageMC) The 2-Pass Xvid profile included had some incorrect parameters.
• Bugfix: Wasn’t detecting invalid parameters soon enough.
• Bugfix: Removed old preference that enabled dirmon-less operation, this is no longer supported.
• Bugfix: DVD menu generation would always fail when you were using UNC paths for videos
• Enhancement: Added the option to use a centralized work folder rather than using the recording drives.
• Enhancement: Removed perl2dvd.pref and perl2dvd.advanced.pref from the download. These will automatically be generated by perl2dvdsetup.exe
• Enhancement: perl2dvdsetup.exe now makes a backup of your old pref files instead of just ovewritting them
• Enhancement: perl2dvdsetup.exe specifically asks you about a few important advanced preference items
• Known Issue – UNC paths break the iso creation for DVD’s

11/21/06 v2.0b -

• Bugfix: Fixed two more UNC issues

11/21/06 v2.0c -

• Bugfix: Fixed an issue where a file overwrite warning was hanging the process
• Enhancement: Added easy single video DVD creation, check out the single_video_dvd.batch for an example.

12/05/06 v2.0d -

• Bugfix: Fixed an issue where a file overwrite warning was hanging the process
• Bugfix: Fixed some lazy code when looking for the preference file
• Bugfix: Removed some unnecessary file deletes
• Bugfix: If video bitrate is to high, force it to transcoded
• Bugfix: Estimated encode size is now more accurate
• Bugfix: Detect if DVD image is unexpectedly small
• Bugfix: Fixed thumbnail generation
• Bugfix: Deleting logfile wasn’t working properly
• Bugfix: dvdList.log is overwritten instead of appended to prevent it from getting too big
• Enhancement: Added easy mutlti video DVD creation and improved easy single video DVD creation. See included example batch files for details.
• Enhancement: In case of error, all relevant batch files will be zipped and placed next to the .qdvd file. This way, when you have a problem, just post the zip file on the forum.
• Enhancement: Added profile option to specify an output folder for compressed videos. When you use this the originals will not be deleted
• Enhancement: Added option to specify qdvd folder in perl2dvdsetup

[larryf]

Evil,

will set this up this weekend, glad now that I bought the V6 upgrade....

Noticed the 'faq' link is asking for a password, can you fix please?

Thanks again evilpenguin!

[evilpenguin]

FAQ link fixed, thanks for the heads up

[BruenerXII]

I'm trying to get this working with the dirmonless option enabled. (all the recording, burning, scheduling is done on a single machine) but I keep getting "Failed to create batch file!" at the end of my dvdList.log.
The .qdvd is created fine, the jpg and shortcut are in my shortcuts dir. but no batch file.
Using sage 6.13, latest java build.. any idea's?

[evilpenguin]

Opps, I completely forgot that I removed all of the dirmon-less operation code. Is there any particular reason that you can't/don't want to use dirmon?

[BruenerXII]

Well I did try it with dirmon enabled (followed your insructions word by word) but it didn't seem to be working either. i just got a shortcut with a yellow icon, but it just sat there after that. checked my task manager and there was no perl2dvd running or sagetranscoder...
Maybe i need this new "perl2dvd.mencoder.profiles" that you uploaded?

[larryf]

Tried installing this weekend, but had problems... Many were my own doing by not reading the instructions Note to self: perl2dvd is not spelled pearl2dvd

I did notice that perl2dvd would never start until it had an edl file in the directory, so it's best to get edl files working first... Also noticed the 'auto setup' of dirmon2 didn't seem to work if you had the GUI up (you coudn't just stop the process). Once I finally got everything set up, mencoder would crash. I may try again later this week, I think I had a corrupt recording that was causing that.

Tried the sagemc install but had the same problems as in that thread, so may try that fix later this week. I really like the sagemc interface, but dislike the way the mouse does not work on some screens (I don't have a remote, would rather use the mouse for everything).

This will be well worth it when it's all set up, I consider it the most useful plugin for sage. Does BTV really charge $40 for theirs?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by larryf

Tried installing this weekend, but had problems...

Yikes, sorry you had so much trouble. Would you mind posting the log file for the qdvd file that crashed mencoder so I could take a look at it?

[jbarr]

Evil,

I set things up, selected a show to burn, and the .qdvd file got created, but nothing happens after that. I did notice that the last line of the perl2dvd.pref.log file has a bad path, so it failed.

Any suggestions?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Evil,

I set things up, selected a show to burn, and the .qdvd file got created, but nothing happens after that. I did notice that the last line of the perl2dvd.pref.log file has a bad path, so it failed.

Any suggestions?

It looks like dirmon2 is kicking off the process wrong. Can you post your dirmon2.ini file for me?

[BruenerXII]

Good news!
I got it to work!

Bad news!
I dont know how!

I did set wait for EDL file in the advanced.pref to 0 as larryf pointed out that perl2dvd wouldn't start up unless you had EDL working (havent tried any of this EDL stuff yet)

Also I might have just been impatient waiting for DIRMON to do its scan? its set to poll 600sec (10 long minutes) by default? It almost seems to me though that DIRMON running in service mode doesn't pick it up maybe.. but when i launch the GUI it goes. I don't run sage in service mode either.

[jbarr]

Here's the full set of logs and files. I did correct an issue with DirMon2's user settings in the Global Settings...

[BruenerXII]

Oh, and another thing i noticed is that it always does all the work.. (enocoding, converting to dvd, making the img file) in the same folder as the video file. I have set the 'work folder' to D:\DVDWORK in the .pref file
but it does all the work in H:\SAGE VIDEOS where all my recordings are stored.
I did leave the store multifile dvdlists files in the qdvd folder.

[evilpenguin]

That's actually working correctly. In this version, all of the processing should be getting done in work folders inside your recording directories. The work folder is now just for the log files. I think it's just easier that way, but if you want I can put an option to do it the old way.

[perfessor101]

I noticed that on a client install perl2dvd setup tries to put the otherPrograms directory in sage.properties instead of SageClient.properties, but I'm not sure if that matters.
The packaged version of mencoder consistently crashed on my system at the end of file and I couldn't track it down so I downloaded the latest Mplayer and copied mencoder from it, which seemed to help, now it's just tripping up somewhere past that.


Thanks for your time,
Bobby

if possible I second a vote for all dvd temp folders to be in the work folder ... easier cleanup with four recording directories as I keep the temp files around in case the DVD image is too big and then I just run DVD SHrink or Nero Recode on them to burn them.

[BruenerXII]

Ahh ok... Well then SWEET! everythings working as it should be then. BTW good job and thanks for this kick ass plugin evilpenguin!
But ahh I actually would prefer if there was an option. Just for the sake of having less reading/writing going on on my recording drive.. less fragmentation and chances of dropped frames and what not.. my cpu will still reach 100% while ffmpeg is working.. If its not to big of a deal.

Thanks again

[JREkiwi]

evilpenguin, FYI, with Notify on Errors turned on I'm getting this message when importing

Evaluation Error: Error in method reflection of RemoveWidget of java.lang.NullPointerException
Expression: RemoveWidget(main)

I've got the same block of code in all of my imports and it works OK. I can't see the difference in yours. It doesn't seem to cause any problem, as I'm not ending up with any ghost main menus, but thought I'd let you know.

John

[larryf]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yikes, sorry you had so much trouble. Would you mind posting the log file for the qdvd file that crashed mencoder so I could take a look at it?

I deleted everything and started over before I tried the sagemc version, so the logs are gone... If this happens again I will save the log file. In hindsight, I really think the mpg test file I was using was corrupted (I kept starting/stopping the sage service while it was being created). I am doing this on a test box before setting it up permanently.

Hopefully will resume testing again soon.... should I also use the 2 files you put in the other thread?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by larryf

I deleted everything and started over before I tried the sagemc version, so the logs are gone... If this happens again I will save the log file. In hindsight, I really think the mpg test file I was using was corrupted (I kept starting/stopping the sage service while it was being created). I am doing this on a test box before setting it up permanently.

Hopefully will resume testing again soon.... should I also use the 2 files you put in the other thread?

Nope, those only affect SageMC people. That's why I split this into two threads so SageTV people wouldn't have to worry about SageMC issues and vice-versa.

I've had another report of mencoder crashing, and I think its just the non-official build version I'm including. I'm gonna update the download tonight with the latest official build and see if that fixes people's problems.

[jbarr]

Evil,

OK, things seem to be working up to a point: I get files in the c:\sageOthers directory (see dir listing attached), I get files in my work directory M:\DVDWork (see dir listing attached), and a subdirectory of my Recordings directory (S:\Recordings) gets created for the recording I selected (see dir listing attached). In THAT directoy I see 14 files created including .MPG files, .JPG files, and some log, batch, and info files. So far, so good.

In SageTV under Other Programs, the status screen shows "Red", or error.

It appears to not be making it past the "menugen" part. I watched the directory, and hundreds of .png files were created (presumably having something to do with an animated menu?) and then they disappeared. I expected that at that point the menuBackground.menu.mpg file would be created, but apparantly it was not.

I attached logs and some other files if you care to look....