STV Import: SageMC Video Tools v3.0

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Yeah, I am in the process of scripting the shortcut creation now. Not sure why the OtherProgs couldn't just look for an executable or batch. I think I almost have it.

Well, I've got it working pretty well now, with the status icons and everything! I am not resizing the icons so they look a little distorted, but no biggie. That's what you are using gm.exe is for right?

[rsagetv99]

Hey EP, now that I put in all of this work to get your plugin working in the default STV, I am still having the issues where the DVD is not formatted correctly. Were you able to find the problem?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Hey EP, now that I put in all of this work to get your plugin working in the default STV, I am still having the issues where the DVD is not formatted correctly. Were you able to find the problem?

Hey, sorry I've been sorting out some compression issues the last week or so and haven't had a chance to look at it. I'll try burning a DVD again this weekend and see how it goes.

[rsagetv99]

Sent you a PM.

[toricred]

EP,

Any news on the problems encoding HD? I can get anything else to encode, but nothing in HD will encode and be watchable. I'm using the HDHR with the latest firmware and drivers for capture and two different HD extenders for playback. Any help would be appreciated.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by toricred

EP,

Any news on the problems encoding HD? I can get anything else to encode, but nothing in HD will encode and be watchable. I'm using the HDHR with the latest firmware and drivers for capture and two different HD extenders for playback. Any help would be appreciated.

I've been encoding 1080i and 720p HDTV for the last few days without any issues. Are you 100% sure this is happening to all your HDTV and that the source videos didn't have any jumping or pixelation issues? I know mencoder is pretty good at handling errors but there has to be a certain point where it just can't do anything about it.

Also, weren't you able to encode HDTV before, when did it stop working, after the firmware update?

[toricred]

The source is perfect. I've checked the same video before and after compression on several videos. It ends up heavily pixelated, audio out of synch (one specific problem is that the video for commercials is removed, but not the audio).

I think it might have been the firmware upgrade, but I'm not sure. I believe it is also the same time I upgraded to version k of your tools, but I'm not positive. Every once in a while it would compress fine, but I've disabled the HD compressions for now since it was to the point of being about 1 video in 20 that would compress correctly.

Could the firmware cause a problem that the details of the video aren't being detected properly, but it will play fine through Sage?

[toricred]

I reverted to the j version and it works perfectly now. It definitely looks like something that changed with the latest version.

[evilpenguin]

Looks like its the commercial cutting causing the problems, it may be the updated version of mencoder in k that's the culprit. I'll play around with it some more.

[toricred]

I manually updated mencoder to the latest (1.1rc2 I think) with both and it works fine with j.

By the way, version j also fixes my problems encoding movies and shows longer than 1 hour.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by toricred

I manually updated mencoder to the latest (1.1rc2 I think) with both and it works fine with j.

By the way, version j also fixes my problems encoding movies and shows longer than 1 hour.

I did a ton of digging on this over the weekend and it sounds like the issue is with the original encode rather than the commercial cutting. The x264 code in the updated version of mencoder i'm using must have something strange going on. I may have to revert to an older one in the next update.

Edit: Wow, what timing, the website I generally use for stable mencoder binaries hadn't had an updated one since February, but they just uploaded a brand new one yesterday. Can you download this version and try it?

[hammondr]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I did a ton of digging on this over the weekend and it sounds like the issue is with the original encode rather than the commercial cutting. The x264 code in the updated version of mencoder i'm using must have something strange going on. I may have to revert to an older one in the next update.

EP, do you think this will also fix the problems reported back in post #603 (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ostcount=603)?

[toricred]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I did a ton of digging on this over the weekend and it sounds like the issue is with the original encode rather than the commercial cutting. The x264 code in the updated version of mencoder i'm using must have something strange going on. I may have to revert to an older one in the next update.

Edit: Wow, what timing, the website I generally use for stable mencoder binaries hadn't had an updated one since February, but they just uploaded a brand new one yesterday. Can you download this version and try it?

This helped some, but now the timeline seems to be messed up because if I try to skip forward it moves forward, but Sage's time goes right back to the beginning. If I let it just run, it works OK.

[evilpenguin]

So a few weeks ago my 2TB system started getting full and I decided it was time to just go ahead and just compress *everything* I had which included ~150 HDTV and ~200 SDTV shows. Well, my Q6600 has been encoding almost non-stop for the last two weeks and so far I've managed to free up 400GB+ of recording space without deleting a single show If I keep this up I'll be able to finish the TV season without deleting any prime time content.

Why waste money on more hard drives when you can just use the ones you own more efficiently ?

[xj-boonie]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

So a few weeks ago my 2TB system started getting full and I decided it was time to just go ahead and just compress *everything* I had which included ~150 HDTV and ~200 SDTV shows. Well, my Q6600 has been encoding almost non-stop for the last two weeks and so far I've managed to free up 400GB+ of recording space without deleting a single show If I keep this up I'll be able to finish the TV season without deleting any prime time content.

Why waste money on more hard drives when you can just use the ones you own more efficiently ?

Are you using the Autoencode option? With or without commercial cutting? Just curious.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

Are you using the Autoencode option? With or without commercial cutting? Just curious.

Yep, I have all of my favorites setup with the vanilla Auto Encode profile w/o commercial cutting.

[gveres]

Hey EP,

Any eta on the new version that installs itself properly into placeshifter?

I am still having the issue of it not starting the encodings. Any suggestions on what I should look at?

Thanks
Greg

[evilpenguin]

Sorry, no ETA.

I'll be crazy busy these next few weeks trying to buy my first Condo, but once that's over I'll lock myself in my dev closet (my office is *literally* a walk-in closet ) for a weekend and knock out all of the half finished code I've been sitting on for a while.

[gveres]

Congrats on the condo. No problemo on waiting. I will just do the workaround I listed a number of posts back. Go a deal with the real world for a while.

[gtdave]

I'm having the same problem with my favorites--the .autoCompress files are created, but nothing in the qdvd folder. If I start a compress job manually using the "Send to" menu, the job works perfectly whether it's a HD or SD show.

Rebooting did nothing for me.

I have each of the favorites set to autocompress after the edl files are created. I'm not cutting out the commercials--we just like being able to skip 'em while watching.

Any other ideas/thoughts on how to get the autocompress going? Or is this one of the issues EP will be tackling in his new condo/closet?

Thanks!
Dave