STV Import: SageMC Video Tools v3.0

[Arioch5]

This has likely already been said, but it's worth repeating. If using Directory Monitor to clean up your EDL files like I'm sure most people are. Don't forget to tell it not to delete them until there is no mpg OR avi file of the same name. Took me a few encodes to notice that was happening. Now I've got my commercial skipping and compressed files

One more question about the two encoders. Is there a link somewhere that tells me more about the two, their differences, advantages, etc. What I'm noticing is handbrake is faster than mencoder (I think). However, the default mencoder settings seem to keep my aspect ratio where as the default handbreak is changing it in some way. Currently I'm just letting mencoder do my compressions, but if I start compressing more shows that's not going to be an option. It would be processing all day. Since I use a dual core processor I'm guessing handbreak takes advantage of that and mencoder doesn't.

Not a huge issue, but now that it's working well I'm ready to read up a little more on the details of what I'm getting with all these nice options

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Jetracers

Hey so i updated to version 3i and now when using the autoencode profile my videos are compressing in Mkv format instead of Avi, can someone tell me is there some type of advantage to this format over the h.264 that i have been using

With the mkv container I can compress the 5.1 AC3 audio in HDTV shows into 5.1 AAC. However if the HDTV show only has 2 channel AC3 should then I compress it to mp3 in an avi container.

Originally Posted by Brent

I've had success compressing some files with this plugin, but I was wondering if there is a way to change the output folder (where the newly compressed file goes) to another folder? Is this possible?

By the way, amazing work here. Love the plugin!
Thanks

Currently the only option is to do a non-in-place recompress which won't replace the original recording in the Sage Library. Recently i've been thinking that I do need to add an option to put compressed videos in a different Sage Recordings Folder and still delete the original. Hopefully it will make it into the next version

Originally Posted by Arioch5

This has likely already been said, but it's worth repeating. If using Directory Monitor to clean up your EDL files like I'm sure most people are. Don't forget to tell it not to delete them until there is no mpg OR avi file of the same name. Took me a few encodes to notice that was happening. Now I've got my commercial skipping and compressed files

One more question about the two encoders. Is there a link somewhere that tells me more about the two, their differences, advantages, etc. What I'm noticing is handbrake is faster than mencoder (I think). However, the default mencoder settings seem to keep my aspect ratio where as the default handbreak is changing it in some way. Currently I'm just letting mencoder do my compressions, but if I start compressing more shows that's not going to be an option. It would be processing all day. Since I use a dual core processor I'm guessing handbreak takes advantage of that and mencoder doesn't.

Not a huge issue, but now that it's working well I'm ready to read up a little more on the details of what I'm getting with all these nice options

I tried as a hard as possible to match up both Handbrake and Mencoder so that the same options would produce roughly the same encodes, so aside from spead and compatability there really shouldn't be any differences quality wise. I remember that there used to be an issue where my Handbrake settings were messing up the Aspect Ratio, but I thought I fixed it. Obviously not, i'll take a look at it. Out of curiousity, is there any reason you're not using the AutoEncode profile?

[Jetracers]

EP,
i just noticed that all of my encodes that are mkv format dont show in sage anymore is this normal? i also have no audio when i play them on other players such as VLC media player

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Out of curiousity, is there any reason you're not using the AutoEncode profile?

It's simply because of the change in aspect ratio. I was testing on a SD feed (I'm not compressing HD at this time) I took a few episodes of Mythbusters and did an Auto/Hand/Mencod to see how they all looked. With the Mencode version it was identical to original, couldn't tell the difference. With Handbrake the cropping was cutting off a noticeable amount, text on the bottom of the screen such as "this show also offered in HD" was cut in 1/2. Finally, Auto didn't cut the boards like Handbreak was, but the aspect looked different. I think it was squished a little? I'm honestly not exactaly sure what the difference was, but playing it back to back with the Mencoder episode showed a clear difference.

If it helps I can turn off my auto-encode and when I get a few more episodes do a run with the auto and one with Mencoder. I guess VLC or something could tell me the exact stats of the video to describe what I'm seeing different.

If ya want me to do that just let me know. It's not a problem.

[xj-boonie]

So I got this installed and working after updating to SageTV to 6.3.5 and SageMC to 6.3.6b. I had a small problem with Dirmon2, but had given it the wrong user name/password. But I've got a few questions:

In the status menu, I don't get a list of finished conversions, is there spose to be one?

Also, and I don't know if this is related to this plug-in, the newest version of SageTV, or SageMC, or that I also installed Handbrake, but when watching either downloaded, xvid/divx shows, I've noticed that the picture is not as crisp as it was, and that the Divx symbol that shows up at the beginning of the show is also quite pixelated. But when I watch the same show using Windows Media player, it's crips and the symbol is not pixelated. What would cause this?

Thanks,
Mike

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

Also, and I don't know if this is related to this plug-in, the newest version of SageTV, or SageMC, or that I also installed Handbrake, but when watching either downloaded, xvid/divx shows, I've noticed that the picture is not as crisp as it was, and that the Divx symbol that shows up at the beginning of the show is also quite pixelated. But when I watch the same show using Windows Media player, it's crips and the symbol is not pixelated. What would cause this?

If I understand how this works properly (someone more knowledgeable might correct me) this mod doesn't affect the video decoder being used. My guess is you had ffdshow or some other video decoder installed which was used by default. When you re-installed sage the "newest" video decoder on your system switched to the Sage decoder. I'm not sure if the basic Sage decoder works on Divx/Xvid but my memory of setting up my client says it does.

Now how do you go about getting your old video decoder to be the highest priority? Um... I know you could simply re-install it to make it the 'newest' one, but there's a better way that I have long since forgotten. Maybe someone can point you in the direction of one of the programs that allows you to set the video decoder priority. You might also be able to set which decoder is used in the video settings (I know you can do that for mpg2 content), but I'm not at home so I can't check.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Arioch5

With Handbrake the cropping was cutting off a noticeable amount, text on the bottom of the screen such as "this show also offered in HD" was cut in 1/2. Finally, Auto didn't cut the boards like Handbreak was, but the aspect looked different. I think it was squished a little?.

When it croped the show, did it just crop the black bar off from the top and bottom or did it cut more/less?

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

So I got this installed and working after updating to SageTV to 6.3.5 and SageMC to 6.3.6b. I had a small problem with Dirmon2, but had given it the wrong user name/password. But I've got a few questions:

In the status menu, I don't get a list of finished conversions, is there spose to be one?

Also, and I don't know if this is related to this plug-in, the newest version of SageTV, or SageMC, or that I also installed Handbrake, but when watching either downloaded, xvid/divx shows, I've noticed that the picture is not as crisp as it was, and that the Divx symbol that shows up at the beginning of the show is also quite pixelated. But when I watch the same show using Windows Media player, it's crips and the symbol is not pixelated. What would cause this?

Thanks,
Mike

Nope, finished compressed jobs are automatically removed. I personally don't want to see them there, but if you feel strongly about clearing them out manually, It should be an easy change.

As for the picture crispness issue, that's not something SageMC or my plug-in could be causing. First thing to check woudl be that your mpeg-4 playback is set to directshow and not sageTVplayer in the settings. Also, and this is just personal preference, I don't like the divx decoder (its unstable and puts that stupid divx logo on th bottom right) so I uninstalled it and just let the xvid decoder handle all of my mpeg-4 playback.

[Jetracers]

hey EP all my compressions are working so far since the update to 3i however there is one file that refuses to compress, which i have attached the file below

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Jetracers

EP,
i just noticed that all of my encodes that are mkv format dont show in sage anymore is this normal? i also have no audio when i play them on other players such as VLC media player

Looks like Sage doesn't support MKV and AAC 5.1 as well as I had originally thought. I may change that in the next version.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Jetracers

hey EP all my compressions are working so far since the update to 3i however there is one file that refuses to compress, which i have attached the file below

Looks like its having an issue with creating a work folder, is "\\JABELGAMEMACHIN\qdvd Folder" on a networked machine?

[Jetracers]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Looks like its having an issue with creating a work folder, is "\\JABELGAMEMACHIN\qdvd Folder" on a networked machine?

yeah that must be an old debug file, now that im looking in the qdvd folder it still thinks its working on the file, though nothing is going on, and it hasnt created a zip file to attach so i've attached my own

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

When it croped the show, did it just crop the black bar off from the top and bottom or did it cut more/less?

It cropped more. It was defiantly cutting into the actual video on the bottom, possibly other sides as well. Thing is I kind of want it to leave the black bars because if it doesn't the video gets stretched to full screen. Which I'm not fond of. The Auto option didn't cut the boarders (which I like) but as I was saying seemed to squish the video from the left and right sides --> <--

Playing around some more the other night I noticed I don't have a setting for "wait for EDL file" which I saw on the install instructions. Is that still present? I can try re-loading the import if it should be there, but it's working good enough now so I figured I would wait until the next release.

[xj-boonie]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

As for the picture crispness issue, that's not something SageMC or my plug-in could be causing. First thing to check woudl be that your mpeg-4 playback is set to directshow and not sageTVplayer in the settings. Also, and this is just personal preference, I don't like the divx decoder (its unstable and puts that stupid divx logo on th bottom right) so I uninstalled it and just let the xvid decoder handle all of my mpeg-4 playback.

I think I've got it set to directshow (I'll have to check) but how do I ensure it's using the xvid decoder rather than the divx one? Do I just reinstall the xvid so it's more "recent"?

Thanks,
Mike

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

I think I've got it set to directshow (I'll have to check) but how do I ensure it's using the xvid decoder rather than the divx one? Do I just reinstall the xvid so it's more "recent"?

Thanks,
Mike

Ahh here's the link I was telling you about earlier. This should show you the priority of your directshow decoders and let you change the order of preference. This about taps my knowledge of the situation.

http://www.softella.com/dsfm/index.en.htm

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

I think I've got it set to directshow (I'll have to check) but how do I ensure it's using the xvid decoder rather than the divx one? Do I just reinstall the xvid so it's more "recent"?

Thanks,
Mike

I just uinstalled Divx completely, then reinstalled the lastest xvid (1.1.3). It fixed quite a few hanging issues I was having on my Sage Client.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Looks like Sage doesn't support MKV and AAC 5.1 as well as I had originally thought. I may change that in the next version.

A little update, I just got an email from Sage Support saying that they're going to add support for mkv for in-place recompression. Currently it only works on mpg, ts, avi, mp4.

Originally Posted by Jetracers

yeah that must be an old debug file, now that im looking in the qdvd folder it still thinks its working on the file, though nothing is going on, and it hasnt created a zip file to attach so i've attached my own

I don't see any reason why it should have stopped working in the log file, and you say that other shows are currently working?

Originally Posted by Arioch5

It cropped more. It was defiantly cutting into the actual video on the bottom, possibly other sides as well. Thing is I kind of want it to leave the black bars because if it doesn't the video gets stretched to full screen. Which I'm not fond of. The Auto option didn't cut the boarders (which I like) but as I was saying seemed to squish the video from the left and right sides --> <--

Playing around some more the other night I noticed I don't have a setting for "wait for EDL file" which I saw on the install instructions. Is that still present? I can try re-loading the import if it should be there, but it's working good enough now so I figured I would wait until the next release.

Hmmm, I did all of my AutoCrop testing with Mythbusters episodes so i'm surprised its giving you trouble. I'm not currently running this plug-in (been to lazy to set it up since the holidays ) but I plan on getting it going again this weekend. Hopefully, i'll be able to reproduce and fix this stuff.

By default I have the AutoEncode profile AutoCrop the video but I really should add an option to disable it.

As for the Wait For EDL option, its currently MIA because I forgot to tell Dirk that I had some SageMC changes that needed to be committed to the full STV before the release of the last version. This time i'm on the ball and those options should magically appear when the next version of SageMC comes out.

[mp328]

hey EP,

i have another question for ya, just wondering how hard would it be to include a % indicator of how far the conversion is? i take it not that easy since u cant get the real values from anywhere.

thats the only thing that's bugging me these days, wondering how much longer till the conversion is finished.

other then that mine is working perfectly

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mp328

hey EP,

i have another question for ya, just wondering how hard would it be to include a % indicator of how far the conversion is? i take it not that easy since u cant get the real values from anywhere.

thats the only thing that's bugging me these days, wondering how much longer till the conversion is finished.

other then that mine is working perfectly

Short answer: never

Honestly, I love watching %'s go up as much as the next guy but the amount of time and effort I'd have to spend to add something that's, lets face it, purely cosmetic just wouldn't be worth it.

Glad to hear you've got stuff working, don't hesitate to let me know if you've got ideas or suggestions

[Jetracers]

yeah all my other files compress correctly just this one is giving me trouble and it doesnt create any debug files saying why its not compressing, just moves on to the next compresssion, and sage thinks its still working on the compression.

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Hmmm, I did all of my AutoCrop testing with Mythbusters episodes so i'm surprised its giving you trouble. I'm not currently running this plug-in (been to lazy to set it up since the holidays ) but I plan on getting it going again this weekend. Hopefully, i'll be able to reproduce and fix this stuff.

By default I have the AutoEncode profile AutoCrop the video but I really should add an option to disable it.

As for the Wait For EDL option, its currently MIA because I forgot to tell Dirk that I had some SageMC changes that needed to be committed to the full STV before the release of the last version. This time i'm on the ball and those options should magically appear when the next version of SageMC comes out.

Sounds good. I'm subscribed to this thread so when there's a new version to check you can bet I'll be here

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Jetracers

yeah all my other files compress correctly just this one is giving me trouble and it doesnt create any debug files saying why its not compressing, just moves on to the next compresssion, and sage thinks its still working on the compression.

I think one of the tools that I use has charactor limit for the input file and that really long episode name is screwing everything up. You could try moving your central work folder to the root of the drive.