STV Import: SageMC Video Tools v3.0

[evilpenguin]

When I was writting that it occured to me that setting the central work folder through the STV is a bit confusing/misleading. Either its local and you have to do it on the machine that'll be doing the encoding or its networked which means you need to share the central work folder.

I think i'll just make a new .exe that lets you pick a folder (like the old perl2dvdSetup) that you run only if you want to use it. I mean, you're already at that computer with a keyboard/mouse since you're setting up Dirmon2 so it shouldn't be an inconvience.

[toricred]

If I want to set it manually, what file would I edit?

[evilpenguin]

Create the file "perl2dvd.advanced.pref" next to "perl2dvd.exe" on the machine that will be doing the encoding and add this line...

Use specified work folder for all processing =C:\Path\To\Dir

[toricred]

Do you mean perl2dvd2.advanced.pref?

[evilpenguin]

Nope, "perl2dvd.advanced.pref".

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

3) REVERSE TELECINE. The is the main reason I decided against using the Sage Transcoder.

Ditto!

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I've found no reliable, automatic way of detecting whether a program is 24fps or not. To manually find out, simply framestep by hitting pause in SageTV. You should see a clear 2:3 pattern in 720p, and 1080i if you have decoders that perform IVTC.

I do the same. But for that purpose I use a simple decoder that doesn't do any fancy stuff like IVTC -- then the pattern is most visible.

Originally Posted by lobosrul

For 720p use -vf decimate=2:1000:1600:.001. Do this before cropping and scaling. Also add -ofps 23.976*

For 1080i (and 480i) use -vf pullup,softskip again before cropping and scaling. Also add -ofps 23.976*

It is interesting that you'd use decimate on some occasions. For me, the pullup filter has always done the best job on all my videos.

Why are you so concerned that the cropping be done after the IVTC? The pullup filter is not impressed by the cropping. In fact, it does a better job (and faster) if you do the cropping before it.

Typically, my mencoder filter chain would look something like this:

-ofps 24000/1001 -vf crop=704:464:8:8,pullup,softskip,hqdn3d=3:2:4

As for the scaling you mentioned, I strongly believe that scaling, if any, should be done at playback, and not during the encoding. (Unless of course you are encoding for something like iPod.)

-=patilan=-

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Patilan

As for the scaling you mentioned, I strongly believe that scaling, if any, should be done at playback, and not during the encoding. (Unless of course you are encoding for something like iPod.)

I actually think the opposite. Just in my testing on my 42" 1080p HDTV, at the same bitrate the prescaled videos look much better then its unscaled counterpart. Now, I realize I could just raise the bitrate of the unscaled videos FTW, but i'm pretty happy with my size/quality ratio. But hey, that's why scaling is an option and not mandatory

[CadErik]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Nope, "perl2dvd.advanced.pref".

Should I take it that there is a way to burn dvds with this version???????
This would lower the chaos here if this was true :-)

[Alfiegerner]

I have a question about the 'All to DVD' feature.

I have two video files in 'My Videos' that I'd like to be able to put on one DVD - can I do that using this?

Say if they were tv recordings rather than video files, could I use this to add more than 1 file to a dvd?

Thanks,
Alex

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by CadErik

Should I take it that there is a way to burn dvds with this version???????
This would lower the chaos here if this was true :-)

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

I have a question about the 'All to DVD' feature.

I have two video files in 'My Videos' that I'd like to be able to put on one DVD - can I do that using this?

Say if they were tv recordings rather than video files, could I use this to add more than 1 file to a dvd?

Thanks,
Alex

Nope, I still don't have any DVD disc related functionality in yet. Perl2dvd is just the name of the tool I use behind the scenes and the All To DVD profile will just compress your video into a dvd compliant format with the maximum bitrate.

[Alfiegerner]

Thanks for letting us know.

[evilpenguin]

A word of warning, the autocrop setting doesn't work in ffmpeg and is incredibly unreliable everywhere else. I don't recommend using it right now

[dflachbart]

EP, do I need to extract the whole package to the client from which I want to do the scheduling, or are the files in STVs\SageTV3 sufficient ?


Dirk

[evilpenguin]

Right now clients just need the STV, JAR, and encodingProfiles folder.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Right now clients just need the STV, JAR, and encodingProfiles folder.

Thanks. The docs mention a "encodingProfiles" property for a single server-side location, but I can't find it in the options menu.

Also, is the "setupCentralWorkFolder.exe" needed (I can't find it anywhere) ? I created the advanced prefs file (perl2dvd2.advanced.pref) from the UI on my client, and copied it to my server (into the SageTV directory), but the log file shows

+ Looking for advanced preference file...
! Failed, can't open Advanced Preference File, using defaults

and so it started using the temp work folder in the file location instead...


Thanks,
Dirk

[toricred]

That's probably the same problem I had. it should be perl2dvd.advanced.pref.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Thanks. The docs mention a "encodingProfiles" property for a single server-side location, but I can't find it in the options menu.

Also, is the "setupCentralWorkFolder.exe" needed (I can't find it anywhere) ? I created the advanced prefs file (perl2dvd2.advanced.pref) from the UI on my client, and copied it to my server (into the SageTV directory), but the log file shows

+ Looking for advanced preference file...
! Failed, can't open Advanced Preference File, using defaults

and so it started using the temp work folder in the file location instead...


Thanks,
Dirk

Originally Posted by toricred

That's probably the same problem I had. it should be perl2dvd.advanced.pref.

Opps, I've been updating the docs but I haven't been releasing any releasing any updated code I'll get something out tonight or early tomorrow. I was holding out to see if I could fix the autocrop, but that looks like a lost cause for now.

Oh, and that stupid 'perl2dvd2.advanced.pref' is a type in the STV, the 2nd '2' shouldn't be there.

[toricred]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Opps, I've been updating the docs but I haven't been releasing any releasing any updated code I'll get something out tonight or early tomorrow. I was holding out to see if I could fix the autocrop, but that looks like a lost cause for now.

Since the instructions are already updated, why don't you just release the import too?

Edit: Oops, I guess I didn't read that first sentence well enough.

[evilpenguin]

SageMC Video Tools v3.0d:

Note: I've included a modded full version of SageMC to enable some new features. Please start with SageMC_169_ep.xml before you import SageMCVideoTools_v3_0.xml.

Change List:
* Added creation and deletion of custom profiles
* Added setupCentralWorkFolder.exe for people who want to use this feature
* Added new video filtes: Reverse Telecine, Denoise, and Vertical Scale
* Made qdvd/status folder a server property so it only needs to be entered once.
* Added preference for using a single encodingProfile folder for multiple computers.
* Added "Wait For Watched" option in auto compressing favorites.
* Removed autoCrop as it was too unstable. I'm hoping to bring this back asap.
* Removed ffmpeg profile as it didn't work very well before and I won't be supporting it in the future. (Note: You'll need to manually remove ffmpeg.profile from your encodingProfiles folder)
* Completely reworked the encoding profiles system to support more reusable code

What still isn't included:
* Anything having to do with DVD's
* Commercial cutting

[derringer]

Evilpenguin:

Just wanted to thank you for working on this, as it is a great idea and a great project.

In the meantime, can you tell us with the new settings you added, what your now using for 'optimal' settings for encoding SD & HD, like you did in your initial post?

Also, if I might ask, what are using as a H.264 codec?

Thanks again for working on this project. I'm trying to catch up on how handbrake and mencoder work so I could help in the future (I did many a perl project in College, and will be trying to learn more about the Sage STV writing process.)