SageMC Video Tools 3.5 (Development Thread)

[evilpenguin]

Wow, thanks for the investigating, i'll take a look at that tomorrow.

Also, I figured out the green bar, its an issue in 1080i IVTC content. I'll update that file tommorow.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Wow, thanks for the investigating, i'll take a look at that tomorrow.

No problem, thank you for all your hard work. I really want to figure this out so I can stop gobbling up GB's on my server, so anything I can do to help debug the issue I will do.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Also, I figured out the green bar, its an issue in 1080i IVTC content. I'll update that file tommorow.

Excellent.

[evilpenguin]

Ok, I think i've narrowed down the issue to splinting the audio/video for packing into mkv container. If you look though the log you an see that the "Dump Audio" the time it reports is shorter than the time of the avi output by mencoder.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Ok, I think i've narrowed down the issue to splinting the audio/video for packing into mkv container. If you look though the log you an see that the "Dump Audio" the time it reports is shorter than the time of the avi output by mencoder.

OK, I think I see what you are talking about... in the autocompress vanilla log CLI#30/33? It reports the wrong time. I looked in the dumpAudio.log and it was skipping a bunch of frames. Is this normal? Also, the wav, ac3 and aac audio files are all the wrong length (59s vs 1m05s video length).

To compare, the dumpAudio.log for the autoencode with mp3 switch does not show any dropped frames.

So perhaps this is what's causing the issue? for some reason when mencoder is re-encoding the audio it is dropping frames. but it doesn't do it when reencoding to mp3, that's the weird part. I would think it would either do it all the time or none of the time, independent of what the final format is.

Anyway, I uploaded all the logs created during the compression for the vanilla autoencode test and autoencode with mp3 test. The zips contain all the files in the work folder minus the intermediary video/audio files.

.

[evilpenguin]

Hmm... I still need to do some more investigating on this. I think the problem might even go further back to the mencoder IVTC encodes.

I've got other IVTC methods I can compare to see if they exhibit the same issue.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Hmm... I still need to do some more investigating on this. I think the problem might even go further back to the mencoder IVTC encodes.

I've got other IVTC methods I can compare to see if they exhibit the same issue.

IVTC=inverse telecince, correct?

One of my test encodes was with reverse telecine disabled. For what its worth, that test had the same result (missing audio) and is displaying skipped frames in the dumpAudio.log. I attached all the log files for the no reverse telecine autoencode test.

When i get home tonight i will try to force handbrake to do the encode with ac3 audio and reverse telecine enabled.

Have you been able to reproduce the issue at all? The test file I have been working on is 125 mb and should be able to upload it somewhere for you to take a look at if you want, just don't know where

[perfessor101]

Hello, EP ...
just downloaded the lastest Developement.tar.gz and tried an autoencode
Worked great all the way through to the Subtitles processing and then 'stopped'.
(to my knowledge I am not recording subtitles with my Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE)

The system I was encoding on is a SageTVClient system with SageMC installed.
(the latest of both available to the general public)

I expanded Developement.tar.gz into C:\testing\EP

I am using UNC (SageTV Server) paths with Mapped drives common amongst all computers in my home network.

When I checked the WorkFolder (V:\Webdreams-5579766-0.mpg.Auto Encode.compress.WorkFolder) there was a valid mkv file that played well in Mplayer (beginning to end ... but unable to seek within file) SageTV will play it beginning to end but will stop play immediately if I try to seek within the file.

At the end of the encode I got this error
Error: The output file '//sagetvserver/tv6/Webdreams-5579766-0.mpg.Auto Encode.compress.WorkFolder/Webdreams-5579766-0.2_auto_encode.0.28.add_subtitle_track.main.mkv' could not be opened for writing (Invalid argument).

//sagetvserver/tv6 is mapped to network drive v:\

the complete logs are attached

Thanks for your time,
Bobby

[Jetracers]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Ok, I think i've narrowed down the issue to splinting the audio/video for packing into mkv container. If you look though the log you an see that the "Dump Audio" the time it reports is shorter than the time of the avi output by mencoder.

So quick question if we were not to pack it into mkv container would that eliminate the audio issues?

[Jetracers]

For EP,
So i've been trying to debug the audio issue here is what i have come up with.
I have a small clip of House I sent it through the mencoder.bat and looked at the log for the second pass. Video=25.108s Audio=24.360 diff=.748s.
Next i sent the same clip through quickstream_fix.bat clip was shortened to 23.4s long, then sent it through mencoder.bat and the result. Video=23.373 Audio=23.448 diff=-.075 not sure what this means but hope this helps

[evilpenguin]

We may be in luck, Handbrake just released a new version (9.3) and its handing 1080i/720p IVTC content very well. If this doesn't exhibit the audio loss and looks just as good as the mencoder encodes I may switch over to using it.

You can try it out by downloading the Windows GUI. For primetime HDTV shows (like Knight Rider) set the framerate to 23.976 and turn on the decomb filter.

[jelwood]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

We may be in luck, Handbrake just released a new version (9.3) and its handing 1080i/720p IVTC content very well. If this doesn't exhibit the audio loss and looks just as good as the mencoder encodes I may switch over to using it.

You can try it out by downloading the Windows GUI. For primetime HDTV shows (like Knight Rider) set the framerate to 23.976 and turn on the decomb filter.

Just an FYI... I've been using the latest version of Handbrake that you mentioned for a few days and it re-encodes the HD-PVR files really well. I've done encodes for the IPod touch (H.264, AAC, in a m4v container) as well as the Blackberry (Xvid, AAC, in a MP4 container) and it has been working great.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

We may be in luck, Handbrake just released a new version (9.3) and its handing 1080i/720p IVTC content very well. If this doesn't exhibit the audio loss and looks just as good as the mencoder encodes I may switch over to using it.

You can try it out by downloading the Windows GUI. For primetime HDTV shows (like Knight Rider) set the framerate to 23.976 and turn on the decomb filter.

So I just got a chance to test out the new Handbrake GUI... I was traveling for thanksgiving and was away from my computer and email... To summarize, I got a good encode with audio all the way to the end.

Here are the settings I used:

AC3 Audio

Start with "Basic Normal Profile" and change the following:
Format: MKV
Filters - Detelecine
Filters - Decomb
Deinterlace - Slow
Video Framerate to 23.976
Audio Track to AC3

AAC Audio

Start with "Basic Normal Profile" and change the following:
Format: MKV
Filters - Detelecine
Filters - Decomb
Deinterlace - Fast
Video Framerate to 24
Audio Track to AAC, 6 channel discrete

With both settings the audio was good and played all the way to the end. Also there were no green bars across the top of the video. I've attached both Handbrake logs for your perusal. Let me know if you want me to run any other tests.

Thanks

[Jetracers]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

We may be in luck, Handbrake just released a new version (9.3) and its handing 1080i/720p IVTC content very well. If this doesn't exhibit the audio loss and looks just as good as the mencoder encodes I may switch over to using it.

You can try it out by downloading the Windows GUI. For primetime HDTV shows (like Knight Rider) set the framerate to 23.976 and turn on the decomb filter.

Is it possible to use this version in the current release of your plugin without changing much? or will the AutoEncode (or handbrake) profile kick it to mencoder automatically?

[Brent]

EP,
Just so you know, my wife is anxiously awaiting the UI update to your plugin. I told her we had to wait for this brilliant guy who was updating VideoTools to get the many features she wants. Mind you I know I can do much of the things this tool does manually, but I'm managing her tech-support questions and keeping her HTPC-related requests down to things already built-in to our SageTV HTPC setup.

So every week or so she asks when the brilliant guy is going to release the VideoTools update I'm looking forward to it too, but love to see here excited about new plugins

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Jetracers

Is it possible to use this version in the current release of your plugin without changing much? or will the AutoEncode (or handbrake) profile kick it to mencoder automatically?

I am also curious about this... also could we use the current handbrake (9.3) with videotools 3.0 (assuming that 3.5 UI development is on hold until Sage fixes things on their end)? I stopped automatically compressing shows with 3.0 because of the audio issue so i've been gobbling up gigabytes on the server.

[Jetracers]

EP,
Hey I downloaded your latest revision of Vid tools rev 513. The Handbrake is working well encoding my HD content except that it is encoding the audio to Stereo. I don't think this occurs if I use Handbrake GUI (but ill verify this and repost) so just thought you may want to take a look at it. Thanks in advance.
Jet

[evilpenguin]

Hey, just a quick update:

I finally tracked down the exact cause of the missing audio problem to mencoder's AC3 encoder which I use to make 5.1 AAC audio. This means i've got some options now...

1) Just use Handbrake and encode directly to 5.1 AAC.
* Pros - Great A/V sync and better deinterlacing
* Cons - I'm still not sure about their IVTC for HDTV and it can be slower than mencoder.
2) Use the original AC3 audio track when encoding to 5.1 AAC.
* Pros - Still can use mencoder for video which is much faster for HDTV
* Cons - Potential A/V sync issues when the video and audio don't get encoded at the same time.
3) Don't do 5.1 AAC
* Pros - 95% of what we record doesn't really use 5.1 anyway.
* Cons - Lose out on the few shows that do use it i.e. Lost, 24.

I think for now i'll go for #1 and in the future i'll look for a way to try and automatically detect shows that make good use of the 5.1 track and do a hybrid of #1 and #3..

[Brent]

I like #1 as the primary option. # 3 as a secondary option.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by Brent

I like #1 as the primary option. # 3 as a secondary option.

+1

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I finally tracked down the exact cause of the missing audio problem to mencoder's AC3 encoder which I use to make 5.1 AAC audio.

When I forced the autoencode profile to encode the original AC3 to a new AC3 stream the audio problem was there. (I just ran another test to make sure because I couldn't remember exactly). So is it safe to say the problem is not mencoder's ability to make AAC but with its ability to decode the original AC3?