Automated batch encoding?

[chip douglas]

Im new to SageTV and was wondering if its possible to do realtime XviD batch encoding?
Example:
Splits live stream into 5 minute segments
Does 1st pass on segments untill last segment
Then combines segments and does 2nd pass

[evilpenguin]

The SageMC STV has a feature where it will automatically encode a show for you once its done recording. That's kinda close.

[rickgillyon]

See my mad postings here:
Overnight Conversion MPG to XviD

Works perfectly for me.

[chip douglas]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

See my mad postings here:
Overnight Conversion MPG to XviD

Works perfectly for me.

That would be good for recording and letting it encode overnight, but what im trying to do is encode 2 pass XviD close to realtime encoding.It would be impossible to do realtime without an XviD hardware decoder/encoder(If they even exist)And that can only be 1 pass cbr encoding.So my theory is splitting the recording into (example) 5 minute files.Single pass encoding those files as they are created.Once you are done recording,and single pass encoding is done to the last file,they get combined, and 2nd pass encoding starts.

[rickgillyon]

Wow, you're even crazier than me...
Don't even want to think about that one, but I suppose you could have something running every five minutes to chop the file etc. I suspect you'll be on your own though.

[lobosrul]

In reality two pass encodes are done in real time... sorta. Try doing a 2 pass encode, wait a few seconds, then open the output with VLC player. You will get (crappy looking) video and sound playback. Then wait until the 2nd pass has started, and you will see much better quality video. Dont even try this with WMP it will say the file is in use.

But, your way better off just doing a failry high bitrate single pass.

[roxy99]

Originally Posted by chip douglas

That would be good for recording and letting it encode overnight, but what im trying to do is encode 2 pass XviD close to realtime encoding.It would be impossible to do realtime without an XviD hardware decoder/encoder(If they even exist)And that can only be 1 pass cbr encoding.So my theory is splitting the recording into (example) 5 minute files.Single pass encoding those files as they are created.Once you are done recording,and single pass encoding is done to the last file,they get combined, and 2nd pass encoding starts.

Even if it were possible, and theoretically there is no reason why it wouldn't be, you would have major sound sync problems. Audio streams and video are seperate streams and each segment introduces small variations in synch that over an hour would be impossible to manage. Basically you need a frameserver to pass video segments to the media player in a way that the media player thinks its just one file, but in reality its seperate AVI chunks. With a fast enough CPU, you can conceivable do it except I am sure the audio synch will be a challenge.

Get a seperate computer on your network, even a cheap lowend PC and let it run off you network. It doesn't need to be realtime since it doesn't have to compete for processing power. Once you archive your AVI you can watch it later. If you're in a hurry to watch the TV show realtime, then watch the uncompressed mpeg2 and compress it later for archiving. I don't see the point behind real-time conversion.

PS- Lobosrul is right that there is nothing wrong with CBR 1 pass, as long as you don't mind having a larger file size.