Utility: MediaShrink v3.0 - An HTPC focused encoder

[nethead]

Originally Posted by BKeadle

Well, I took a leap and just replace HandBrake 9.4 with HandBrake 9.5 and I see MediaShrink picks it up and uses it without incident - sa-weet!

Anyone aware of a reason *NOT* to do this?

Just started using MediaShrink, it was taking 4hours per 1hour on an i7(8 cores)

I tried the same replacement with HandBrake 9.6, it took 3hours per 1hour(Saving an HOUR!), but because the final HandBreak output uses a diff text string, so MediaShrink saw it as a failure

Looking forward to an update to MediaShrink, a great tool, but saving an hour per convert, would be nice.

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by DVBtCi

Hi all,
I'm trying to convert a recording from HD-PVR (file is *.TS) to a MKV format.

When i play it with GOM or WinMediaPlayer, in action scenes, the moving object/portion of the image with have lines just as in a low quality movie.

In the conversion process, i do not want to reduce the size of the TS file but only convert it to an other format and MediaShrink does a great job. I always had problems using other tools to convert TS files.
...

I too would like to do this. Anyone figure out how to get it to switch the containers without a re-encode? (reason: My Samsung TV doesn't like .TS containers!)

[phelme]

Originally Posted by nethead

Just started using MediaShrink, it was taking 4hours per 1hour on an i7(8 cores)

I tried the same replacement with HandBrake 9.6, it took 3hours per 1hour(Saving an HOUR!), but because the final HandBreak output uses a diff text string, so MediaShrink saw it as a failure

Looking forward to an update to MediaShrink, a great tool, but saving an hour per convert, would be nice.

Last I read EvilPenguin no longer has a working development PC, so couldn't fix it if he wanted to. Which is unfortunate because it seems like half my recordings that go through MediaShrink these days fail.

Maybe we need to take up a collection for EP.

[nyplayer]

You just need to make a small change to the profile.

MediaShrink\mediaEngineProfiles\encodingProfiles\Handbrake.profile
make this change

Encode CLI #1 =?>!(>prevExeLog=~Rip done!<)<:>/ERROR "Handbrake encode didn't finish properly"<?

to
Encode CLI #1 =?>!(>prevExeLog=~Encode done!<)<:>/ERROR "Handbrake encode didn't finish properly"<?


also if you want to use ffmpeg it is now ffmpeg4
/vcodec ffmpeg4

[Thron]

You should look at mcebuddy http://mcebuddy.com It does everything media shrink does, but its all gui and will read your existing EDL file. It can also be scheduled to shrink files.

[BKeadle]

I once had/saw a document that listed/explained the available metadata properties of recordings, such as $.GetFileDuration{}, but I can't seem to find it. Can someone point me in the right direction where this information is provided?

Thanks.

[BKeadle]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

You just need to make a small change to the profile.

MediaShrink\mediaEngineProfiles\encodingProfiles\Handbrake.profile
make this change

Encode CLI #1 =?>!(>prevExeLog=~Rip done!<)<:>/ERROR "Handbrake encode didn't finish properly"<?

to
Encode CLI #1 =?>!(>prevExeLog=~Encode done!<)<:>/ERROR "Handbrake encode didn't finish properly"<?


also if you want to use ffmpeg it is now ffmpeg4
/vcodec ffmpeg4

Thanks NYPLAYER for finding and sharing this!

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by BKeadle

I once had/saw a document that listed/explained the available metadata properties of recordings, such as $.GetFileDuration{}, but I can't seem to find it. Can someone point me in the right direction where this information is provided?

Thanks.

http://download.sage.tv/api/index.html

Look under AiriingApi
MediafileApi
ShowApi

[BKeadle]

Thank you very much. However, this doesn't look familiar for SageTV v6. Is it different?

[perfessor101]

Hello,

Does anyone have mediashrink working with MPEG-TS Transport stream files using x264 video and AAC audio?

General 
ID : 1 (0x1) 
Complete name : E:\mediashrink.testing\MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.ts 
Format : MPEG-TS 
File size : 976 MiB 
Duration : 16mn 57s 
Overall bit rate mode : Variable 
Overall bit rate : 8 041 Kbps 

Video 
ID : 4113 (0x1011) 
Menu ID : 1 (0x1) 
Format : AVC 
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec 
Format profile : High@L4.0 
Format settings, CABAC : Yes 
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames 
Codec ID : 27 
Duration : 16mn 57s 
Bit rate : 7 450 Kbps 
Width : 1 920 pixels 
Height : 1 080 pixels 
Display aspect ratio : 16:9 
Frame rate : 29.970 fps 
Standard : Component 
Color space : YUV 
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 
Bit depth : 8 bits 
Scan type : Interlaced 
Scan order : Top Field First 
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.120 
Stream size : 904 MiB (93%) 
Color primaries : BT.709 
Transfer characteristics : BT.709 
Matrix coefficients : BT.709 

Audio 
ID : 4352 (0x1100) 
Menu ID : 1 (0x1) 
Format : AAC 
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec 
Format version : Version 4 
Format profile : LC 
Muxing mode : ADTS 
Codec ID : 15 
Duration : 16mn 57s 
Bit rate mode : Variable 
Bit rate : 192 Kbps 
Channel(s) : 2 channels 
Channel positions : Front: L R 
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz 
Compression mode : Lossy 
Stream size : 23.3 MiB (2%)

Here's the tail end of my log file ...

  - Getting Video Info: (E:\mediashrink.testing\MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.ts)(998926.80078125)
  - Getting Handbrake info: "c:\testing\mediashrink.testing\mediaEngineBins\HandBrake99\HandBrakeCLI.exe" -i "E:/mediashrink.testing/MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.ts" -t 0 2>&1 (q:\transcoding\MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.workFolder\MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.HandbrakeInfo)
      + [10:26:21] file is MPEG Transport Stream with 188 byte packets offset 0 bytes
      + [10:26:21] Found the following PIDS
      + [10:26:21]     Video PIDS : 
      + [10:26:21]       0x1011 type H.264 (0x1b) (PCR)
      + [10:26:21]     Audio PIDS : 
      + [10:26:21]       0x1100 type AAC (0xf)
      + [10:26:21]     Subtitle PIDS : 
      + [10:26:21]     Other PIDS : 
      + [10:26:21] stream id 0x1100 (type 0xf substream 0x0) audio 0x1100
      + [10:26:21] scan: decoding previews for title 1
      + [10:26:22] scan: audio 0x1100: aac, rate=48000Hz, bitrate=181125 Unknown (AAC) (2.0 ch)
      + 
      + Scanning title 1 of 1, preview 2, 20.00 %
      + Scanning title 1 of 1, preview 5, 50.00 %
      + Scanning title 1 of 1, preview 8, 80.00 %
      + Scanning title 1 of 1, preview 10, 100.00 %[10:26:22] scan: 10 previews, 1920x1080, 29.970 fps, autocrop = 4/2/0/2, aspect 16:9, PAR 1:1
      + [10:26:22] stream: 37 good frames, 0 errors (0%)
      + [10:26:22] libhb: scan thread found 1 valid title(s)
      + + title 1:
      +   + stream: E:/mediashrink.testing/MikeMolly-S03E11-FishforBreakfast-14838393-0.ts
      +   + duration: 00:16:56
      +   + size: 1920x1080, pixel aspect: 1/1, display aspect: 1.78, 29.970 fps
      +   + autocrop: 4/2/0/2
      +   + chapters:
      +     + 1: cells 0->0, 0 blocks, duration 00:16:56
      +   + audio tracks:
      +     + 1, Unknown (AAC) (2.0 ch) (iso639-2: und)
      +   + subtitle tracks:
      + 
      + HandBrake has exited.
        - Handbrake Autocrop:            + autocrop: 4/2/0/2
        - Handbrake Audio #1:            + 1, Unknown (AAC) (2.0 ch) (iso639-2: und)
        - Setting Handbrake Audio Options if /allAudio
          + Handbrake Settings (ALL) : -a 1 -E faac -B 160
  ! Unable to detect video info, skipping to next video

and I've attached the logs of mediashrink running with handbrake 9.4, along with a log of mediashrink running with NYPLAYERS above suggested changes(*.testing.txt)

Thanks for your time,
Bobby

[phelme]

Anyone use this anymore? Run into a problem with HD-PVR 2 recordings where the mkvmerge step says the audio track is malformed and punts. This is probably because I'm using "acodec copy" because I haven't figured out another way for AC3 5.1 tracks to be downsampled to 2 channels. When there is only an faac track available sometimes the "copy" mismarks the track ID so mkvmerge fails.

What I really want to know is if there is a way to force mediashrink to add the -6 option (6 channel) to the handbrake CLI *without* having to roll my own entire command line. if I do that, then there isn't much reason to use MS at all.

[coppit]

Hey evilpenguin,

Can you share the secret to getting SageTV to replace the mpeg file with the mkv one? I'm using HandBrake-CLI under Linux to encode the movies, but SageTV isn't correlating them to the recordings. Instead it's treating the new .mkv or .mp4 file as a new imported video.

Also, does anyone know if it's safe to delete recordings on the disk, then wait for SageTV to rescan and figure out that they're not there any more? I don't want to create a bunch of cruft in the SageTV DB for missing recordings over time.

[wayner]

I have a routine where I copy files from my TV directory to a video library directory and then I transcode to MP4 using Handbrake CLI for Windows. I then delete the original TV file with a Java delete command. I may rename the file but I keep the ShowID number in the filename. I then touch the file to give it the same date/time modified as the original file, but this doesn't always work.

This creates a couple of minor issues - usually the deleted original file still shows up in recordings for a while, like until Sage is restarted. And sometimes when the touch doesn't work the timeline for the file is screwed up.

Now that I think about it I probably should delete the file using a Sage API command rather than a Java File IO command.

Hope that helps.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by coppit

Hey evilpenguin,

Can you share the secret to getting SageTV to replace the mpeg file with the mkv one? I'm using HandBrake-CLI under Linux to encode the movies, but SageTV isn't correlating them to the recordings. Instead it's treating the new .mkv or .mp4 file as a new imported video.

Also, does anyone know if it's safe to delete recordings on the disk, then wait for SageTV to rescan and figure out that they're not there any more? I don't want to create a bunch of cruft in the SageTV DB for missing recordings over time.

Isn't the secret to simply add the InPlace cli command to mediashrink. That does the touch deletes the old etc... /inPlace Replace the original video when complete... since you are on Linux and probably not using mediashrink you need to follow Wayner's suggestions.

PS you need to keep the original filename as is except for the extension. It needs the fileid at the end of the file for guide metadata.

Another thing I would do is install the CMT plugin and create .properties files for all recordings. It comes in handy when moving files etc... because it contains all the metadata.

[coppit]

Well, I decided to just use MediaShrink in Windows. My strategy is to have a bat script find the oldest recording and attempt to convert it. Then I'd set up a scheduled task to run every 2 hours, since encoding a 1 hour show takes about that long on my hardware.

Below is the bat file I wrote. It seems to work fine in the command shell, but as a scheduled task it hangs on the call to MediaShrink.exe. I can see the echo output in the log file, but there's no MediaShrink process in task manager, and no MediaShrink output goes into the log file. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?

@echo off

NET USE \\192.168.1.100\Recordings privacy /USER:privacy

set RECORDINGS_DIR=\\192.168.1.100\Recordings\SageTV
set WORK_FOLDER=C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaShrink\temp

rem We keep a record of the previously processed files in WORK_FOLDER. This prevents us from re-processing
rem files that had problems before. It also prevents multiple overlapping runs of this script from working
rem on the same file.

rem We also restrict processing to files whose last written timestamp is from the day before. That prevents
rem us from accidentally processing a file that SageTV is currently writing

for /f "tokens=2 delims= " %%a in ('date /t') do set TODAYS_DATE=%%a

FOR /F "tokens=1,5 delims= " %%a IN ('dir %RECORDINGS_DIR%\*.mpg /tw /a-d /o-d ^| find ".mpg"') DO (
  if not exist "%WORK_FOLDER%\%%b.processed" if not "%%a"=="%TODAYS_DATE%" set OLDEST_MPG_FILE=%%b
)

if "%OLDEST_MPG_FILE%"=="" goto :END

rem "Lock" the file now
echo "" > "%WORK_FOLDER%\%OLDEST_MPG_FILE%.processed"

echo ========================================================= >> "%WORK_FOLDER%\log.txt"
echo start "MediaShrink" /B /LOW /WAIT MediaShrink.exe /batch /inPlace /yRes 720 /acodec lame /vbitrate 2500 /vprofile HQ /decomb /centralWorkFolder "%WORK_FOLDER%" "%RECORDINGS_DIR%\%OLDEST_MPG_FILE%" >> "%WORK_FOLDER%\log.txt"
start "MediaShrink" /B /LOW /WAIT MediaShrink.exe /batch /inPlace /yRes 720 /acodec lame /vbitrate 2500 /vprofile HQ /decomb /centralWorkFolder "%WORK_FOLDER%" "%RECORDINGS_DIR%\%OLDEST_MPG_FILE%" >> "%WORK_FOLDER%\log.txt"

[coppit]

Duh. I need sleep. I had to specify the full path to MediaShrink.exe.

Well, it's running now. Let's see how well it does overnight. I hope that script is useful to folks.

[VCRUser]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Isn't the secret to simply add the InPlace cli command to mediashrink. That does the touch deletes the old etc...

My practice has been to use the standard Sage conversion process (which usually includes a slight time-cropping to remove any padding) to shrink my recordings (to "good" non-interlaced AVI format). I have one drive to which I record, and others for the smaller conversions. After converting, I check the result before deleting the original. That's because I might have made a mistake in my cropping-specs, or sometimes the audio comes out wrong, and I have to first convert to a less-shrunk format). So I don't want to use in-place, but do want to have the metadata copied to the converted file.

The downside is that the built-in converter takes quite a while on my hardware (compared too Handbrake, which I've tested on an admittedly faster piece of equipment), and seems like it's heating up my computer & thrashing the drives around. Would Mediashrink operate faster, and allow the metadata to link with the new file, while also allowing me to QC before deleting the original?

[coppit]

Dang. MediaShrink converted and replaced 4 shows last night, but SageTV isn't replacing them in the TV Recordings list. i.e. When I try to play the show, it says the file is no longer on disk.

I tried enabling advanced_file_recovery, but that just removed the entries from the recordings and put the *.mkv files under the Videos section.

I could have sworn that this used to work, but I was using SJC before. Is *that* the secret? I was hoping to avoid that since it's such a hassle to set up, and would often get stuck on a conversion. (With the task scheduler I can set it to kill the task after a while.)

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by coppit

Dang. MediaShrink converted and replaced 4 shows last night, but SageTV isn't replacing them in the TV Recordings list. i.e. When I try to play the show, it says the file is no longer on disk.

I tried enabling advanced_file_recovery, but that just removed the entries from the recordings and put the *.mkv files under the Videos section.

I could have sworn that this used to work, but I was using SJC before. Is *that* the secret? I was hoping to avoid that since it's such a hassle to set up, and would often get stuck on a conversion. (With the task scheduler I can set it to kill the task after a while.)

After converting you need to refresh the media library. You can download wget and refresh the library via the web browser. Add it to the bottom of your batch job.

wget.exe" --delete-after --tries=1 "http://user:Password@servername:8080/sage/GlobalCommand?command=UpdateMediaLibrary"

[coppit]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

After converting you need to refresh the media library. You can download wget and refresh the library via the web browser. Add it to the bottom of your batch job.

wget.exe" --delete-after --tries=1 "http://user:Password@servername:8080/sage/GlobalCommand?command=UpdateMediaLibrary"

Questions:
- that's equivalent to using the "rescan imported media" menu item under setup, right?
- it also requires that I install jetty or one of the other plugins, right?

I manually did the "rescan imported media" and still ended up with my encoded recordings moved from the recordings section to the videos section.

I think I figured it out. I did an experiment where I did this:
- I copied the file, changed the extension to mkv, then used "touch" to make sure it had the same timestamp.
- I copied the file, changed the extension to mkv, used "touch" to make sure it had the same timestamp, removed the show ID, and inserted spaces between the words in the name.
- I put the letter "s" in the middle of the show ID in name of the original mpg file.

All three worked, so apparently the timestamp is what SageTV uses to identify the recording.