automating editing and compression with mencoder

[bluenote]

So I've been working on making my use of mencoder, video redo as automated and easy as possible.

I've created a couple of batch files that so far seem to be making the tasks about as easy as I can make them.

Please don't use these if you don't understand them. While I've tried to make them easy to understand and configurable, I still don't have the confidence that they are bullet proof. I'm including them so that perhaps other people here who have helped me can benefit, and perhaps give ideas to others.

A word on the assumptions:

They are configured for having 3 sage recordings directories, this can easily be changed.
They are setup to utilize malore's awesome STV and malore's & Jere Jones comskip. I use the STV "create xml" function as a trigger to mark recordings that either need to be edited, or need to be compressed or both. The logic is, nightly (or more often) a "cleanup orphan" batch runs, which cleans up any xml vprj or txt orphans. It then looks for XML files, any XML files that exist, it then checks for VPRJ files -- if there are vprj files, it creates a shortcut to the MPG and puts it in my editing directory. If there is no VPRJ, it adds the mpg file to my compression queue file.

My xcompress file operates in two ways. in "Queue" mode, it checks the queue file sequentially, then checks for a duplicate in the compress directory (ie: has this file already been compressed somehow) , it then checks for a duplicate in the compress log file (has this file been compressed but I've already moved the file out of the compress directory). If neither are true, it runs a two pass mencoder job on the file, wherever it resides, with a target of the compress dir.

One note: the shortcuts work well, BUT, if you use video redo to open the project file, the path is wrong (since I use two computers, and the path is a drive letter...). This could be adjusted for one by using UNC paths for all video directories I think. It is easy enough to use the shortcut to open the project file, then say Ok to video redo to find the file yourself.

I think that's it. This version does not delete any mpg files, but it does delete orphans, and I recommend anyone go through just to make sure as I've been working on this so much I'm a little punchy at this point.

Shortcut.exe is a resource kit tool, and mencoder is a file you can get from the mplayer project.

One last thing. There's a funny feature of dos that makes environment variables be evaluated at read time if they are in a code block. I have set my registry to include this "delayed evaluate" setting. I believe this can be set locally in a batch by the command:

setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
I run XP on both machines, I am not 100% certain that all features exist in all other versions of DOS so YMMV.
mencoder.exe is not included because it is above the file size compressed for the forums. I also assume comskip.ini contains:
output_default=1
output_videoredo=1

which makes comskip output both vprj and txt files. This takes advantage of malore's channel ignore feature, essentially, movie channels without commercials go straight to compression, and TV shows go for editing.

Cory
Here they are:

[dooferlad]

Which version of mencoder are you using? I am having trouble with large files crashing during the recompress.

[bluenote]

1.0pre7-3-4-2, if I remember correctly I pulled it out of the mplayer distrib.

I do have a small problem with random files that dont like being played back in WMP, but zoomplayer takes them fine. I havent actually spent the time to track this down, but I believe the problem resides in my codecs, not anywhere else. Since I end up playing my compressed stuff from my DVD player (which works fine) I haven't gone any further.

I seem to recall something about file size crashes a while back, but its so hazy Im not sure if it was ffmpeg or mencoder. Im game to help if I can, anyways.

Cory

[dooferlad]

I appear to have found a build that is a bit happier. It was going crazy because the official mplayer build for mingw didn't have large file support enabled, but I have found one optimised for my system that does. Good thing too - the build process is a bit painful!