How To: In-place recompression of Sage Recordings

[thborchert]

Originally Posted by nielm

This probably happened because the cut file has exactly the same name+ext as the original, so sage does not bother rescanning it to re-dertermine its length...

When I started playing with this, I renamed one file and Sage completely kicked it from its database. So I stopped doing that. I will try it again.

Thomas

[nielm]

Firsty, only rename files when sage is shut fully shut down (step 7), otherwise sage will think that they have been deleted.

Secondly, making sure that the second part of the filename contains the airingID ie showname-xxxxxxx-0.mpg (Steps 4 and 10 ensure this), otherwise when Sage is restarted, it will not be able to match the renamed file with the show in it's DB.

[thborchert]

So "showname" is part of the airing ID? If so, that was my mistake. So I could add a letter in front of the old filename to force Sage to rescan the filee length, for example?

Thanks!

Thomas

[nielm]

well, the quickest+easiest way to rescan length is just edit-show-info in the webserver

If you had (say) Star Trek Enterprise episode Marauders, with internal AiringID 123456, then the filename should be:
StarTrekEnterprise-Marauders-123456-0.mpg

You could rename this (whilst Sage was shut down) to
Star_Trek_EnterpriseMarauders-123456-0.mpg
and Sage should rescan it and keep it as a Sage recording.

So, yes, adding a letter at the front (whilst Sage was shut down) would force a rescan...

[thborchert]

Originally Posted by nielm

well, the quickest+easiest way to rescan length is just edit-show-info in the webserver

If you had (say) Star Trek Enterprise episode Marauders, with internal AiringID 123456, then the filename should be:
StarTrekEnterprise-Marauders-123456-0.mpg

You could rename this (whilst Sage was shut down) to
Star_Trek_EnterpriseMarauders-123456-0.mpg
and Sage should rescan it and keep it as a Sage recording.

So, yes, adding a letter at the front (whilst Sage was shut down) would force a rescan...

Ok, I played some more. First, ANY change to the file name while Sage is shut down will - in my installation - force Sage to delete the file from the database AND delete the .mpg-file from the hard disk upon restart. Even name changes in the form you suggest lead to total data loss.

OTOH, using the web server works real well. One caveat, though: An edit of the detailed show info after setting the start time offset to zero will force a recalculation of the length in Sage. However, if at the same time the show length in the detailed info is not adjusted manually to coincide with the real length of the file, Sage will classify the file as a partial recording. This means not only that it is "up for grabs" when more space on the disc is needed, but also that it will not be flagged as a "normal" archived recording. This, in turn, leads to the show not being listed in Sage recordings when using your "include archived" STV-plugin. They will also not be listed in the web server show listing.

In short: If you cut padding from a show, the only thing you have to edit in detailed show info on the web server is the start time offset - set it to zero. If you cut advertising, too, that changes the show length, so you have to change that in detailed info, too.

BTW: In my webserver, there is no search option showing at all. Where should that show? I found it by guessing the URL and entering /Search.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by thborchert

BTW: In my webserver, there is no search option showing at all. Where should that show? I found it by guessing the URL and entering /Search.

Menu: Program Guide/Search EPG (unless you have modified menu.properties)

The same search page can get triggered by an 'Additional Airings' search.

[thborchert]

Originally Posted by nielm

Menu: Program Guide/Search EPG (unless you have modified menu.properties)

Ah, so that's why the EPG search is really the file search

[abasu2003]

Can you go over this again, nielm.

Right now, after editing out commercials, I have gotten tot eh point where there is a red bar at the beginning of the airing. I then use your webserver to set the File Start Time to 0 seconds later in Edit Show Info->Airing Information, but the Airing ID automatically changes to something different, also changing the suffix on my avi file, but then the show is no longer in my Sage Recordings.

So the question is, is there a way to get rid of the red bar

EDIT: I just now somehow got it to use 0 seconds later (no idea how) so now the red bar is at the end of the show instead of the beginning. but again, if i use Edit Show Info to change the file duration, I end up changing the AiringID and sage can't find the file. seems like using Edit Show Info automatically changes the AiringID to something else

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by nielm

...use my webserver to edit show info...

I'm not seeing this in your main list for stuff that works with 3.0

[nielm]

Originally Posted by abasu2003

show is no longer in my Sage Recordings.

Look in Archived Sage Recordings (this is mentioned by the webserver)

seems like using Edit Show Info automatically changes the AiringID to something else

At the moment, yes it does, even if you do not change the airing info...

[slamduncan]

Maybe I'm missing something and this a) wasn't a problem or b) was known already or alternatively I've just discovered a new way to do in-place recompression without restarting Sage. Lets see... perhaps someone can try this out and see if I'm missing something. What I've done is:

1. Setup automated recompression of all new recordings (used DIRMON and mencoder with an Xvid format but you can do this whichever way you prefer)
2. Name the new files with the same filenames as the orginal Sage file but with a .AVI extension.
3. Put the new .AVI files in the same directory as the original .MPG files
4. Finally, delete the recording through the Sage front-end.

What happens on my machine is that the delete seems to complete successfully and the .MPG file is really deleted from the filesystem. But then a few seconds later the recording re-appears in the Sage front-end but when you drill-down into the recording information it's associated with the .AVI file. Operation after that seems to be normal - you can play etc.

If I'm not going crazy then all I need to do is work-out how to initiate the Sage deletion of the recording from a command line and add this to the DIRMON processor script, which shouldn't be that difficult.

Make sense?
D.

[flashbacck]

Slamduncan,
What version of Sage are you doing this with?

[slamduncan]

Sorry, should have put in original post - I'm still on version 2.1 of Sage - absolutely vanilla, no modifications, hacks or STVs applied to the product here. I'm not running in Server mode - just the default setting that comes out of the box, if that's important.

Should have also said that once the .AVI is hooked up with Sage, if you press the GUI delete button again then the .AVI gets deleted. Just as you'd expect really.

I'd be interested to hear if this behaviour changes with the subsequent releases.

D.

[flashbacck]

I'll see if I can test this later tonight. I don't have any recompression software or dirmon installed, but I should be able to just makeup a file with notepad and try to reproduce what you're seeing. I'm running Beta 3.0.11.

[eventerke]

I tried this (in place recompression to AVI then delete MPEG in the interface) with 3.0.11 today and it worked. I did forget to touch the file date, but it looks like there's a pretty simple process that can take place - I bet this could be rolled into neilm's(sp?) web interface and a modification of ajuhawk's SageEncoder to make something pretty slick.
Personally I'd rather manually select what to convert rather than having all files converted.
What do most people prefer for the AVI encode? Virtualdub, mencoder, AutoGK?
If I didn't have to do some server work tonight I'd try to throw something together right away. I'll play with it this week and see what I can come up with.

[eventerke]

Whoops - SageEncoder doesn't work with the latest webserver. I guess it's either wait for ajuhawk's latest version, or learn a little java programming .

[Necro]

Has anyone tested SlamDuncans process to see if it works? Curious, as I'd like to get this working (or some kind of recompression) without losing show data.

[eventerke]

Originally Posted by Necro

Has anyone tested SlamDuncans process to see if it works? Curious, as I'd like to get this working (or some kind of recompression) without losing show data.

I'm trying it again, but I'm going to use the webserver to force a rescan on the compressed file and see if that works. Sage showed the recompressed AVI the first time I tried it - but the start/end times were screwed because I didn't rescan or use touch to copy the file date/time. I'll report back.

[eventerke]

Here's what I did that works:
- Confirm that I could run DivX files in the video library (I had to change my audio decoder settings)
- Run AutoGK to re-encode a program to DivX
- run "touch -r show.mpg to show.avi" to change the file date/time to the original file
- Delete the show in the Sage UI - it will reappear from the AVI file.

Would be nice to make it more automated - but at least I'm saving some disk space.

[flashbacck]

Been a while since this topic has come up...

Has anyone come up with a more integrated way to do inplace recompressions?