SageMC Video Tools 2.5 Alpha (need testers)

[evilpenguin]

Well, it only took two months, but I finally finished my new and improved encoding engine. The only problem is that to support it I have to completely redo the STVi portion of the plug-in. So while I'm working on that, it'd be really great if I could get some people to hammer on the video encoding to see how its working.

To use the plug-in as a standalone encoding tool…

1) Download SageMC_VideoTools_2_5alpha.zip from sourceforge.
2) Unzip it into its own directory, NOT the SageTV directory. (In fact you don't even need to have SageTV on the computer you do this on)
3) Run perl2dvdSetup.exe and answer all of the questions to get setup.
Note: Pick the directory you just extracted everything when asked for the directory containing perl2dvd.exe.
Note: When it asks you what parts of the DVD creation process this computer will be doing, pick all three: "123"
4) Next, run profile2bat.exe to generate handy batch files for drag n' drop encoding of videos.
5) Try stuff out. By default, everything will be encoded right next to the original video so you don't have to worry about anything getting overwritten.

The two things people will probably want to try out are the videoDVD_dragNdrop.bat for making video DVD .img files and all of the batch files in the encodingBatch folder for compressing videos using the encoding profiles. All you have to do is select one or more videos (up to 9) and drop them on the batch file and the script will take care of the rest.

So once again, just to emphasize: this is just for manual video encoding and DVD making and there is no SageTV, Dirmon, or imgBurn interaction yet.

Let me know if anyone has any problems or questions!

[nyplayer]

EP,

The profiles are working great as far as encoding... I do not have some of the devices to test if it will play on them.

I tested the DVD portion and that worked great... It created the Image with menu etc... and that worked. I have one question I am not sure how you encode the Audio but there was no sound in Sagetv unless I switched to the PowerDVD audio decoder.

I was not able to test multiple files to DVD.... Do not know how.

Some of your profile have the "-ofps 25" hard coded.

Other than that No problems I will continue Testing.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

EP,

The profiles are working great as far as encoding... I do not have some of the devices to test if it will play on them.

I tested the DVD portion and that worked great... It created the Image with menu etc... and that worked. I have one question I am not sure how you encode the Audio but there was no sound in Sagetv unless I switched to the PowerDVD audio decoder.

I was not able to test multiple files to DVD.... Do not know how.

Some of your profile have the "-ofps 25" hard coded.

Other than that No problems I will continue Testing.

I found a few bugs with the DVD encoding profiles as well as some issues in the script with the nested profile conditionals statements so I'll be posting a new build tonight.

Yeah, I ripped those encoding commands straight from MediaCoder including the "-ofps 25" so I don't really have a good reason for it to be there. If taking it out produces better results then I'm all for it.

Thanks for taking to time to try it out

[nyplayer]

EP,


-ofps 25 is the framerate for Pal

29.976 is the framerate for NTSC. If you leaver it off then it will default to the framerate of the input file.

[evilpenguin]

Well, my justification for keeping it was because most of the videos that I download off the internet are 25 fps encodes of 29.97 or 60 fps source material. I would imagine that its a compromise between smooth looking video and best utilization of the available bitrate by distributing it among fewer frames.

Oh, I also just uploaded a new build, It should fix some issues with the DVD encoding profiles. If you want to see the kind of crazy stuff you can do with conditional statements in the encoding profiles, take a look at "All to DVD.profile". I combined all three of my previous DVD encoding profiles into one just to see if I could

[nyplayer]

EP,

I tried your allDVD with a 5 minute clip. It did the cut an all but then failed.

See console window below. Also log attached if you need it.

+ Parsing CLI switches
- /workdir: Using CLI supplied sageDir: C:\SageMC_VideoTools_v2_5alpha_3
+ Num Parameters = 2
+ Sagedir = C:\SageMC_VideoTools_v2_5alpha_3

+ Staring in easy compress mode
- Video[0] : C:\tmpEncode\StarTrekVoyager-RealLife-2602343-0.fixed.mpg

+ Profile[0] : All to DVD

* Sage Directory = C:\SageMC_VideoTools_v2_5alpha_3
* Setting logfile = C:\tmpEncode\StarTrekVoyager-RealLife-2602343-0.fixed.mpg.co
mpress.log

WARNING: OUTPUT FILE FORMAT IS _AVI_. See -of help.

1 duplicate frame(s)!

1 duplicate frame(s)!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!

Skipping frame!
Illegal division by zero at script/perl2dvd.pl line 1739.
Press any key to continue . . .

[evilpenguin]

Good find, I never intended those DVD profiles to be used for standalone compressing, should be an easy fix. It'll still work for making DVD's though.