STV Import: Video Editing for Sage

[BobPhoenix]

This plugin can be downloaded here. Version history will be in the second post to this thread

This plugin will allow you to tweak the output from ComSkip, ShowAnalyzer or VideoReDo AdScan as well as starting from scratch. All from the SageTV interface with a remote. There are two versions included - one for the Default STV and one for SageMC. You will need to use the Dynamic Menu import in the Default STV in order to make use of this if you don't want to use Studio to map the "Video Edit Menu" to an existing menu. You need to map to this menu in SageMC as well but the dynamic menus are built in there. This plugin was developed with SageTV 6.0.x and was not made to be backwards compatible so you will need to upgrade to SageTV 6 to successfully import it.

Note: this is just a preliminary version of the documentation I will be including a more complete version as a PDF later. So if you have questions you can post them to this thread and I will answer them. Any that are answered here should also eventually find there way into the PDF later.

NOTE#2: This is a cut point editor. What you are marking are the sections of the video to remove and NOT the segements to keep.

NOTE#3: This plugin currently requires that the Vprj files have the absolute path to the .mpg files in it. I am working on eliminating this requirement but until I do you can just save the Vprj from the "Save Cuts" menu to get the absolute path written. You don't have to save all of the formats you can just save the Vprj file only. Also you must have VideoReDo version 2.5.2.491 or later for this to work - I need to find out how to get a version number and put up a warning if it isn't new enough - just haven't had time.

NOTE #4: I suggest that if you use this plugin to switch to Overlay or at least disable FSE mode before trying to use VideoReDo to process files. VideoReDo appears to need to grab DirectDraw even in silent mode so if Sage has this locked with VMR9/FSE the VideoReDo job will die. NIELM found a setting in VideoReDo that will allow this to work. You need to press shift while selecting the Tools>Options menu in VideoReDo and set the following to true:

First I need to explain the remote commands available while displaying this menu. All the standard transport commands work. FF/Rew, FF2/Rew2, Stop, Pause (which also functions as the frame advance command) and record which functions as the "Set Cut Point" command. However if you have the onscreen controls displayed you may need to press FF/Rew and FF2/Rew2 more then once because the first reaction will likely be to move the cursor to one end or the other of the on screen controls. This means in windowed mode you should probably not use FF/Rew and FF2/Rew2 as much as the on screen controls. In full screen mode you need to press the info command to bring up or dismiss the on screeen controls. They will not automatically disappear like in the normal media player screen. However if the controls are not visible then any remote command defined in this plugin will bring up the timeline only but that will disappear after the OSD timeout expires. You can also use the TimeScroll command for advancing like you can in the regular media player. Left/Right and Custom4/Custom5 take you to the previous/next cut points respectively but function best when in a paused state. Up/Down, Channel Up/Down, any number key, the select key and the previous channel key all just display the time line and do nothing else. The aspect ratio toggle command has been defined in this menu and functions the same as in the regular media player. You can toggle through the aspect ratio modes with a single button this way. The options command will bring up the options menu for this screen. Also new for version 0.2 is the use of the numbers to select some of the menu choices (most useful while in full screen with the controls hidden). You can use the following numeric buttons: 0-Save/Load cuts, 1-Toggle screen mode, 2-VideoReDo Menu, 3-Convert Menu, 4-Skip to Start, 5-Clear all cuts, 6-Skip to End, 7-Previous cut with option to pause, 8-Clear or Set a cut point *same as record button, 9-Next cut with option to pause.

Note the operation for buttons 2 and 3 may change for version 0.3 as I will be changing to TOOLS and QUEUE for menu items instead of VideoReDo and Convert. The Tools menu is where you will go to setup the operation on the file (VideoReDo QSF, Edit or AdScan, Convert the file with SageTV Transcoder and edit file name and add things like channel # to the file name) The QUEUE menu will allow you to change the order of the queue, delete, modify etc.


Lets get right too it with a view of the initial screen when loaded:


SageMC looks like this:

As you can see there are options for Opening and Closing a file as well as saving the cuts. You also have a VideoReDo menu, a Conversion menu, switching to full screen, an Options menu and going back to the previous menu. You will not see the VideoReDo option until you bring up options and tell the plugin where you have installed VideoReDo.

The options menu looks like:

From it you can specify your display options in another popup menu, the broadcast type for TXT format cut lists, custom skip times in yet another popup menu, the VideoReDo program location, switch to full/windowed mode and lastly configure the Open File popup options.

The display configuration popup looks like:

From this menu you can switch your Aspect Ratio mode, MPEG2 decoder filter, the Skipping Method used, either "End of File Padding" or "Play Timeout", the Windowed mode menu color and transparency, and the Video section of the screen background and transparency. The Aspect Ratio mode and MPEG2 decoder will be changed only as long as this menu is displayed. Any time you go to another menu these will be changed back to what you have defined for the regular media player OSD. The color and transparency settings only apply to windowed mode not to full screen mode. I have added to version 0.2 the ability to configure the time bar colors and in the case of the progress indicator the height as well. The screen looks like:

Note that the buttons are in the color of what they change. Red for the cuts and green for the saved areas. The progress buttons all have the progress color as well as and it will only cover as much of the button as the defined height (from the top).

While programming this plugin I found that with the MVP you could not just skip ahead or back while the screen is paused on the MVP and have the display change. So I developed another method that starts the media player playing back the video then waits a configureable amount of milliseconds and then pauses to make the screen change.

The on screen controls have 7 possible skip values for each direction with 5 in each direction that can be configured by the user with the following popup menu from the options menu of this plugin:

The first 3 of each direction can hold 1-59 seconds each and the last two of each direction can hold 1-59 minutes each.

The Open File Options popup menu looks like:

On it you can configure the highlighting options of the open file popup menu. A highlight is favorite/manual/don't like highlighting of the file name similar to how the Sage Recordings menu highlights recordings. You can also specify the width of the groupings section of the open file popup menu in percent of the horizontal screen for both with and without imported videos. The last option controls whether Imported videos will be displayed in the open file popup menu. A new option for version 0.2 is the cut file preference the default is EDL but you can change it to TXT or Vprj if you want and when you open a file it will look for that file to read the cuts from. NOTE if the file does not exist then no cuts are read. But you can then go to the Cut Files menu and try one of the other types.

That was the options from the Options menu and it's submenus. Now I will go thorough opening and processing files.

To select a file for editing you must select Open File from the windowed menu (If you do not have a file open you cannot switch to full screen mode). When you select this menu item a popup menu will apear that will look something like this:

As you can see the left side is the category grouping and right side contains the files in that category. If you include imported videos the left side will contain the directory path of the videos and the right the individual files in that directory. Which might appear similar to how the following appears:

As you can see from the above displays the current category is highlighted as well as the file currently selected. You have but to press the select button to load it into this plugin. If you have highlighting enabled for the file open popup your display will look something like this:



Once a file is selected it is loaded and the first frame of the video is displayed - or at least as close as Sage can get to the first frame in a paused state anyway. It will then look something like this:

Actually if you look at the above display and the timeline you will see that this wasn't actually at the first frame of the video I had actually advanced it to the first Cut point. As you can see above each cut point is clearly defined and current position is indicated both with a highlight along the top of the timeline as well as the exact position in hrs:min:sec.milliseconds format in the middle of the timeline. The total length of the file is indicated on the right and the starting position (always zero) on the left of the timeline. You can also see all of the transport controls above as well. You can skip to the begining or end of the video, to the next/previous cut point and up to 5 configurable skip amounts in each direction. These were all designed to operate when the video is paused but they do work while the video is playing as well. You do need to remember that while the video is playing the current time is always changing so skipping back may not take you exactly where you expect.

Now in the next screen I have switched to full screen mode:

You can see that the same controls are available except for the open file command. Also displayed is the current volume level. You can make the controls disappear by pressing the info command but if you press any of the other transport commands while the controls are hidden you will get a display similar to this:

Where the only thing showing is the volume controls and the timeline. NOTE I did not update the full screen graphics so the cut colors are the old ones.

When setting cut points you need to remember that they come in one format only. There is no begining or ending cut point - a cut point is a cut point. What this means is that the first cut point will be the begining of a cut section and the second cut point will be the ending of a cut section. To quickly invert your cut points you can set or clear a cut point at the very beginiing of the video and swap all of your cut points. You will also see this when you start editing a file from scratch as the first cut point defines the rest of the video as being cut out until you define a second cut point and so on as you define them. You may clear a cut point now with the Record command as long as you are directly over an existing cut point. This was added for version 0.2.

When you are done setting your cut points you need to save them. You can just try to close the file with the close file menu item or you can press the stop button. When you do this if you have made changes to the cut points or added new ones a popup menu will be displayed asking if you would like to save them. You can save to TXT format, EDL format or VideoReDo Vprj format or all of them or any mix of them at one time. This option look like this:

You can also save them at any time by just selecting Save from the Cut File menu. Which looks like this:

Notice that on this menu you can reload your cuts if you want to start from the last time you saved them or if you want to use a different format. You can save them in any of the formats just like the popup menu when you close the file. And last you can delete the cut files if you don't like what you saved. BIG NOTE: what ever format you have selected at the top will be loaded, saved or deleted. The load option will warn you if you have multiple selections and the Save and Delete will launch a confirmation popup when selected.

Once saved you can use VideoReDo to process the cuts - assuming you saved a Vprj format anyway. NOTE you must have VideoReDo version 2.5.2.491 or later to successfully get this to work. When you select the VideoReDo menu item you will get the following options available:

Where you can specify output options (if you are not replacing the original file). Or you can select to replace the original file in Sage with the edited version. I should pause here to thank Nielm for the detailed instructions on how to replace a video in the Sage database from within Sage - Thank You. You can also add the current video to a queue of other recordings to be processed by VideoReDo. You can display the list of Queued videos where you can clear the whole queue or just individual members - or just exit from the queue list. You can also specify the VideoReDo mode - AdScan or Edit. If you have specified output options or if you have decided to replace the original file you will then get the option to process the files. That option will always be available if you have a video in the queue. NOTE this menu has not been updated for version 2 but will have significant changes for version 0.3.

The queue list will look something like this:


The output options menu looks like the following:

Where you can select the output type, output file name and output directory. As well as clearing all options and closing this menu. When you return from this menu the VideoReDo options menu will have changed to look something like:



When you are ready to have VideoReDo process your file(s) you need to select "Start VideoReDo Processing File(s)". Then one by one (if you have queued up multiple files) your files will be processed by VideoReDo. While processing a file you will see something like the following if your SageTV window on your client or Server is not Full Screen:

NOTE for version 0.2 a popup dialog is now presented that explains about the .OLD file processing. The only thing you see is the tool tip above and a system tray icon - nothing else. Sorry I can't get rid of this tool tip - it just isn't possible. However when in Full Screen mode I don't think you will see this this. I didn't in my testing anyway but you can follow the tip from svalmorri in this post to eliminate them. Also like mentioned above in Note#4 VMR9/FSE mode may cause you problems so you should make the change before submitting anything to VideoReDo. Once you select OK you will be presented with a screen something like this when you do NOT have a video loaded:

If you look at the menu name at the top you will see that it has changed color. This will flash from normal to orange in a user configurable amount of time - You can also turn off the flash by setting the time to zero. One other thing to notice about the above graphic. The VideoReDo options menu is no longer available but a new Cancel VideoReDo option is available. The cancel will affect all processing after the currently executing VideoReDo system tray icon has finished by clearing the queue and stoping the replacing of any further videos in the SageTV database. But it will not kill the current VideoReDo task in task manager. You will have to do that yourself if you want. But DO NOT Cancel VideoReDo before using the Cancel option here. If you just cancel VideoReDo from the system try the code in this plugin cannot tell when VideoReDo has been cancelled or just ended normally so it will just continue on a possibly replace your existing video in the Sage database with a partially completed file. This is why I recomend that you backup the unedited files and the Wiz.Bin file until you are comfortable with this plugin.

When VideoReDo processing completes you will get one of the following popups telling you that processing is complete - depending on if you are processing a single file or multiply queued files:

or:

I didn't update the multi file graphic but it has a similar option allowing you to delete the .OLD files now or wait until the SageTV GUI is exited. Also on the single file format I arranged the text to display the directory separate from the file name to - hopefully - keep each on a single line and make it easier to read.

When you play your edited file in the regular media player you will be able to tell that some of the file is missing because the start of the file is listed as missing like the following display:


Step by Step instructions on submitting a file to VideoReDo batch mode are contained in post#1 and post#2. Just follow those and you will get your videos replaced when VideoReDo is finished editing them.


This plugin can be downloaded here. Version history will be in the second post to this thread


BobP.

PS here is a MenuItemLet for the dynamic menus:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE sageMenu PUBLIC "-//NIELM//DTD SAGEMENU XML 1.4//EN" "http://sageplugins.sourceforge.net/nielm_modules/dynamic_menu/sagemenu_1_3.dtd">
<sageMenu version="1.4">
    <internalScreenMenuItem screen="Video Edit Menu" title="Video Edit">
        <evalExpression> </evalExpression>
    </internalScreenMenuItem>
</sageMenu>

[BobPhoenix]

Version 0.2.10 made compatiblity changes

• made this version compatible with SageTV 6.2.10 Default STV
• made this version compatible with SageMC 6.3.4a+

Version 0.2.9 added new feature September 2 2007

• added ability to generate Thumbnails at any point in the video and replace the existing thumbnail

Version 0.2.8 fixed previous release March 28 2007

• fixed code so that you can save your cuts again - was broken in 0.2.7

Version 0.2.7 added code from 0.3 March 27 2007

• Added the open file dialog from version 0.3 to give better file displays and grouping/sorting choices

Version 0.2.6 added a few new features March 24 2007

• Added ability to put the missing segment at the beginning (new default) or the ending of the video when VideoReDo is called - in the VideoReDo options menu
• Added airing start / end times so that you can see where the padding starts - this is fully customizable (Color - default yellow, Alpha - default 255, and width - default 2 pixels)
• Added warning when you've edited the file and you haven't saved your modifications when you execute VideoReDo or add it to the VideoReDo queue - not sure how I missed this one
• Fixed the top row of buttons to be compatible with 6.1.4 while in full screen mode - but wasn't needed if you updated to 6.1.6 anyway so almost didn't mention it.

Version 0.2.5 fixed compatibility issues with SageTV 6.1.4 - your buttons should have text now only thing changed March 14 2007

Version 0.2.4 simple additions but no bug fixes Feb 11 2007

• Added an option to the options menu (Display options) to hide the controls when toggling to full screen mode
• Added menu item to the OSD menu to goto the VideoEdit menu with the currently playing video as the selected menu
• (SageMC only) Added menu item to the SendTo menu to go to the VideoEdit menu with the currently selected video.

Version 0.2.3 bug fixes Jan 23 2007

• Fix bug with dirty flag 3rd attempt. Missed a section in previous release.
• Fix bug where Cut- wouldn't skip to first cut point.

Version 0.2.2 bug fixes and new feature Jan 9 2007

• Fix bug when opening a file and the cut file isn't read - Think I have this fixed this time. This also fixes the dirty flag so that you are not constantly nagged when opening new files.
• Enhanced fix for time/cut bar so that it is able to display an odd number of cut points instead of dropping the last one. It now creates an artificial cut point at the end of the video if there is an odd number of cut points so that from the last cut point to the end will be removed - which was already done when you saved the cut points to a file anyway. Now the display works the same way.
• Enhanced the code so that the pause function when skipping only works on the numeric keys. Left/right/custom4/custom5 all just jump to the cut point but continue playing.

Version 0.2.1 bug fixes and one new feature Jan 7 2007:

• Fix error on Display Options Screen - it should read Flash Menu Title Timeout since it is the title that flashes not the cancel button. I needed something that wasn't going to change in a future version like I have planned for the menu in version 0.3. Opps.
• Added alon24's mouse options to the timeline - Single left click will advance you to that position in the video, Double left click will set/clear a cut point at that location on the timeline.
• Fix bug when opening a file with the new code sometimes the cut file is not read - added missing refresh()'s which should take care of the problem.
• Fix bug on imported videos. The title above the video in windowed mode displays the entire file name and path instead of just the file name.
• Fix icon placement for the muted symbol in full screen mode
• Fix the end time on the time bar for imported videos
• Fix problem with a couple of themes so that it displays the popups for some confirmations correctly or at least using what I expected not the defaults.

Version 0.2 fixes and additions Jan 1 2007:

• Fix Alternate Skip bug so that you can set cut points as well as other problems skipping on the MVP. Think this plugin should now work alot better on an MVP.
• Fix bug so that when you change MPG decoder the media player is loaded again
• Fix bad error message that erroneously lists a file .new.mpg as not being replaced
• Fix bug when odd number of cut points causes NullPointerExceptions by not displaying the last cut point
• Change the color on the cut points in the time bar to red
• Change the progress indicator to be a little more visible
• Add the ability to customize the timebar colors and transparency
• Add status message to to display for VideoReDo processing - with configuration option to turn off the flashing of the menu name in windowed mode if desired
• Add management options for ".old" files when VideoReDo processing is complete
• Add code that will allow a VideoReDo QuickStreamFix - please read this post on the VideoReDo forums to see why you might still want to do it directly in VideoReDo
• Change the stop button to display a save cuts/discard cuts dialog when cuts have been changed. (Dirty flag)
• Changed the Save Cuts menu item to Cut Files to more accurately reflect it's function now since you can re-Load your cuts, Save the cuts or Delete the cut files now with this option.
• Add menu options to the numbers buttons (0-Save/Load cuts, 1-Toggle screen mode, 2-VideoReDo Menu, 3-Convert Menu, 4-Skip to Start, 5-Clear all cuts, 6-Skip to End, 7-Previous cut with option to pause, 8-Clear or Set a cut point *same as record button, 9-Next cut with option to pause)
• Add start/end skips to the down/up arrow command respectively when in full screen mode
• Add option for default selection on the Save Cuts popup menus
• Change code for SageMC version to use left_as_back property this should work but let me know if it is still not working correctly. Did not add this to the default STV since it always has this "Left as Back" ability.
• Add code to Record command so that it either sets or clears a cut point as noted above

The todo list for future version with expected version implementations:

• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add code that will allow altering show data so that the show length reflects the new edited length (I.E. no RED in the timeline) - Thanks to some code provided by alon24
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add code that will allow the user to change the name of any recorded file in the sage database and still keep the show info - Thanks to the same code by alon24
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code that will allow segmented videos to be processed
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code to join sections of videos with true cut and paste functionality
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code to allow an undo option - this will only work since the last launch of the GUI
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add code to check for absolute path in Vprj files and if it doesn't exist rewrite that line in the Vprj file since I can't get VideoReDo to work without absolute paths
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add code for a reverse Frame advance this will be at best a hack since Sage doesn't have this as a native function like the forward advance
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add option to regular media player to go to full screen mode at the same location in this plugin
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add option to detailed info to go to this plugin in full screen mode
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code to highlight nearest cut point
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code to delete the nearest cut point when you select "delete cut point"
• (Version 0.4 or 0.5) add code to move the nearset cut point to the current location
• (Version 0.3 or 0.4) add true queue functionality to the plugin that will be able to contain different types of actions - this will require a rewrite of existing VideoReDo code but I think it is necessary since I am implementing the queue functionality

The following should be available in current versions but was reported as needed:

• The ability to press the frame advance button and get a continuous playback. I tried this and it appears to work so not sure what is really needed for this.
• Add code so that there are always an even number of cuts generated probably by adding it to the end of the video - Have already tried this and what I added prevented the removal of the ending cut points so may not be able to do it here. I could also add code to ensure this when the cuts are saved but I believe that it is already doing this just haven't checked it out yet.

[Jynxed]

Thanks a million Bob. I've been looking for something like this for a while. I'm sure lots of other are also. I'll load this up on the weekend and post some feed back. Thanks again!

[Armondole]

Looks great Bob, I'm looking forward to trying this one.

[BobPhoenix]

The Alternate skip code and/or MVP specific code needs some more work it doesn't appear to be working correctly. So for now try it on an MVP with the expectation that the editing (setting cut points) does not work.

It appears to work fine on a regular client or Server as far as I can tell but this needs more testing. That is why I uploaded it now. I really need more testers on this.

Please treat this a early beta code when testing and report all error please.

I forgot to mention this in the first post. When using VideoReDo please set up a Batch job in VideoReDo with BatchManager and make sure it works in SilentMode. If it works with BatchManager then it should work with this plugin. If however you can't get SilentMode to work with VideoReDo in standalone mode then it will not work with this plugin either.

Thanks.
BobP.

[Armondole]

I'm not sure I follow you on how to install this?

[jbarr]

Excellent plugin!

I installed VideoRedoPlus, imported the Video Editor .stvi, selected a recording, set the cut points, initiated VideoRedo Processing, and voila, a new, nicely cropped file...almost.

I found some "issues" while trying out this plugin. Definitely nothing serious:

1. This is "cut point" editing, not "save content" editing
The first time I edited, I accidentally had the cuts "inverted" thinking that I was marking "content to save" as opposed to "content to cut". It was a simple mistake, and the resulting .mpg file was a nice, seamless string of commercials with no show content! After realizing what I did wrong, I re-cut, and I was able to create a commercial-free file. Just understand that you are setting the start and end points of content to cut out. You are not marking in and out the areas you want to save. Definitely not a plugin problem, just a misunderstanding on my part.

2. Different colors for content on the time bar
Related to this, you might want to consider changing the colors of the time bar, or at least make them user-definable. Currently, the colors are bright green for saved content and dark green for cut content. It is intuitive, but I got them reversed the first time. Consider maybe changing the default to something like bright green for saved content and some shade of red for cut content.

3. Make progress indicator more visible
On my TV, the "progress indicator" along the top of the time bar that shows where you are in the content appears as a pale gray/white bar along the top of the time bar. It was difficult to see on my TV. (maybe I need to tune my TV's colors better.) I had to adjust the "Video Backgrnd Alpha" down to "100" to make it more visible on my TV. Consider making it a brighter white or maybe a contrasting yellow (or again, user-definable.)

4. Add a "status" message.
Like the DVD Burning plugin, lots of stuff is happening outside of SageTV that cannot directly communicate back to SageTV. This ultimately leaves the user potentially unclear as to what is happening. When you initiate the VideoReDo processing, consider adding a status message in the main screen area (that currently reads "Please Load A File To Edit") with a simple message like "VideoReDo is processing..." or something like that. Yes, the "VideoReDo" option does change to "Cancel VideoReDo" but that's the only indicator that something is happening in the background.

5. Managing ".old" files
After processing, I am left with a ".old" file which obviously is the original file. Is there a facility to remove these from within SageTV? Certainly not a big deal, but these do take up space, and when I am satisfied with the "final cut", I woudl like to be able to remove these. Simply opening up the containing folder is a solution, but it would be nice to be able to do this from within SageTV.

6. The show length is incorrect.
Once I create the final file, when I play it back through SageTV, SageTV's time bar shows that it is an hour long when it is in fact now only say, 40 minutes long. It shows a "red" area at the beginning. I absolutely understand what's happening, bit the idiosyncrasy is that if I burn the resulting file with the DVD Burning plugin, it thinks the file is 1 hour long, instead of the actual length. Again, not a big deal.

Overall, this is an excellent plugin, especially considering it's a beta first release. This is another wonderful example of the extendibility of SageTV, and this plugin really adds a feature that brings SageTV out in front of the competition.

Thank you so much for your tremendous effort! I look forward to any changes, updates, and improvements you make!!!

[alon24]

This looks like a very nice Stvi and I have been meaning to do it myself a long time now.

Some additions:
1. VideoRedo has a Quick stream fix (I think its called), could you add a way to do it from sage? its helped me lots of times. (this file should replace the current file).

2. Join parts, at least for the end result.

3. recreate the file info after cutting so that time is displayed correctly, this is easy to do, and actually I have code I can email/pm you that does this.

4. Add a change file name to the interface, so that we can tidy things out. changing the file name is part of SageMC but not of the regular stv, and would fit nicely here with your stvi.

Thanks,
Alon24

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Excellent plugin!

I installed VideoRedoPlus, imported the Video Editor .stvi, selected a recording, set the cut points, initiated VideoRedo Processing, and voila, a new, nicely cropped file...almost.

I found some "issues" while trying out this plugin. Definitely nothing serious:

1. This is "cut point" editing, not "save content" editing
The first time I edited, I accidentally had the cuts "inverted" thinking that I was marking "content to save" as opposed to "content to cut". It was a simple mistake, and the resulting .mpg file was a nice, seamless string of commercials with no show content! After realizing what I did wrong, I re-cut, and I was able to create a commercial-free file. Just understand that you are setting the start and end points of content to cut out. You are not marking in and out the areas you want to save. Definitely not a plugin problem, just a misunderstanding on my part.

Correct. I will add a comment above to that effect.

2. Different colors for content on the time bar
Related to this, you might want to consider changing the colors of the time bar, or at least make them user-definable. Currently, the colors are bright green for saved content and dark green for cut content. It is intuitive, but I got them reversed the first time. Consider maybe changing the default to something like bright green for saved content and some shade of red for cut content.

In theory the colors are the same as in the comskip display imports for the regular media player. But making them configurable is a great idea - next version.

3. Make progress indicator more visible
On my TV, the "progress indicator" along the top of the time bar that shows where you are in the content appears as a pale gray/white bar along the top of the time bar. It was difficult to see on my TV. (maybe I need to tune my TV's colors better.) I had to adjust the "Video Backgrnd Alpha" down to "100" to make it more visible on my TV. Consider making it a brighter white or maybe a contrasting yellow (or again, user-definable.)

I was afraid of that. I was trying not to make it overpower the colors of the cut points but it is too light - will make this configurable as well as being 1/2 rather than just 1/4 of the bar in height. Next version.

4. Add a "status" message.
Like the DVD Burning plugin, lots of stuff is happening outside of SageTV that cannot directly communicate back to SageTV. This ultimately leaves the user potentially unclear as to what is happening. When you initiate the VideoReDo processing, consider adding a status message in the main screen area (that currently reads "Please Load A File To Edit") with a simple message like "VideoReDo is processing..." or something like that. Yes, the "VideoReDo" option does change to "Cancel VideoReDo" but that's the only indicator that something is happening in the background.

Good idea although I might put it someplace else since you could have the next file for editing loaded and it would be covered up there.

5. Managing ".old" files
After processing, I am left with a ".old" file which obviously is the original file. Is there a facility to remove these from within SageTV? Certainly not a big deal, but these do take up space, and when I am satisfied with the "final cut", I woudl like to be able to remove these. Simply opening up the containing folder is a solution, but it would be nice to be able to do this from within SageTV.

They are not deleted right away as a security feature. They should be deleted like the Yahoo Videos are. When the GUI is exited they should be deleted. I did it this way so that if you had a problem you could rename the .old file back to .mpg, exit SageTV and copy your Wiz.Bin back from the backup copy made before you started this and you are back to where you started. I don't feel comfortable just changing it to delete. But I can add an option to make it configurable - instant delete or delayed. Next version.

6. The show length is incorrect.
Once I create the final file, when I play it back through SageTV, SageTV's time bar shows that it is an hour long when it is in fact now only say, 40 minutes long. It shows a "red" area at the beginning. I absolutely understand what's happening, bit the idiosyncrasy is that if I burn the resulting file with the DVD Burning plugin, it thinks the file is 1 hour long, instead of the actual length. Again, not a big deal.

Unfortunately I don't know of a way to reduce the length and still keep the show info. I could change this so that the "red" area is at the end instead of the beginning of the time line. Will see if I can add an option to configure this but it may not make the next version.

Overall, this is an excellent plugin, especially considering it's a beta first release. This is another wonderful example of the extendibility of SageTV, and this plugin really adds a feature that brings SageTV out in front of the competition.

Thank you so much for your tremendous effort! I look forward to any changes, updates, and improvements you make!!!

Thanks. I'll see what I can do about your suggestions on the next version. Still have to fix the bugs mentioned above but suggestions 2-4 should make the next version as well. Suggestion 1 will be finished later today as I can add a comment to the description from work.

Thank you for the great suggestions. Keep them coming if you think of anything else.

BobP.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Armondole

I'm not sure I follow you on how to install this?

This is a plugin so you go to Detailed Setup> Advanced> Import STVi plugin. Then once you are returned back to the main SageTV menu you need to use the Dynamic Menu plugin to create a link to this menu. Look for "Video Edit Menu" when adding an "Internal Screen" to your dynamic menu system. Note the dynamic menus are another plugin that must be installed if you are using the default STV.

BobP.

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

They are not deleted right away as a security feature. They should be deleted like the Yahoo Videos are. When the GUI is exited they should be deleted. I did it this way so that if you had a problem you could rename the .old file back to .mpg, exit SageTV and copy your Wiz.Bin back from the backup copy made before you started this and you are back to where you started. I don't feel comfortable just changing it to delete. But I can add an option to make it configurable - instant delete or delayed.

Great point. For me, beacuse I have other computers on the network, and because I keep SageTV's drives shared, it's a very simple matter of just opening the recordings folder and deleting whatever needs to be deleted. My philosophy is that if I can help it, I try to never mess with the SageTV client. (Keeps the WAF high!)

Also, I think it's important to point out to users that if they have any desire to "revert" back to the original version, they must first save the Wiz.bin file (presumably, requiring an exit of SageTV--I haven't done this.) It would be great if someone could come up with some sort of a "refresh" or "re-build" plugin that would rebuild the metadata for an .mpg file for instances like this. If you simply delete the cut version and rename the old version, when you play back, SageTV doesn't "see" it as a full show.

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I could change this so that the "red" area is at the end instead of the beginning of the time line.

You have my vote for that. I think from a usability perspective, it would make more sense.

Thanks!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by alon24

This looks like a very nice Stvi and I have been meaning to do it myself a long time now.

Some additions:
1. VideoRedo has a Quick stream fix (I think its called), could you add a way to do it from sage? its helped me lots of times. (this file should replace the current file).

Just clear all your cut points and save to a Vprj file only then submit it like any other job. Doing that you get the same thing as a quick stream fix.

edit: If you try this and it doesn't work let me know as in theory it should work that way but I can add in a separate option for this in a future version.

2. Join parts, at least for the end result.

I'm not allowing segmented videos to be processed so until I do I didn't see a need for this. I was planning on adding this for segmented files but it will not make the next version. If you mean joining completely separate recordings together then I could look at this but that would definately be in a much later version as it would require a major addition to handle choosing which set of program info to keep, allowing ordering of the segments, etc.

3. recreate the file info after cutting so that time is displayed correctly, this is easy to do, and actually I have code I can email/pm you that does this.

Actually I thought I did that already. When you look in the regular media player when you have this in replace mode you see that the beginning of the timeline has a "Red" missing area. However I will PM you my email address shortly as Yes I would be interested in seeing your code to see what I may be doing differently.

4. Add a change file name to the interface, so that we can tidy things out. changing the file name is part of SageMC but not of the regular stv, and would fit nicely here with your stvi.

Thanks,
Alon24

This is available now but only if you do not replace the video. I think I need to keep the airing ID in the name and I took the easy way out and only allowed changing the name when not replacing the original video. I will look at this for a future update. It may or maynot make the next version but definately the one after that.

BobP.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jbarr

You have my vote for that. I think from a usability perspective, it would make more sense.

Thanks!

OK I will look at this. I took the easy way out when coding this which puts the missing area at the beginning. I'll change this to put it at the end of the video it just takes a little more work with Sage since you have to know the duration of the video to calculate the file time stamp to put on it when adding it back to the SageTV database. My way I just had to set it to the end time of the show. Oh well next version - unless that one becomes a bug fix only version.

BobP.

[alon24]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I'm not allowing segmented videos to be processed so until I do I didn't see a need for this. I was planning on adding this for segmented files but it will not make the next version. If you mean joining completely separate recordings together then I could look at this but that would definately be in a much later version as it would require a major addition to handle choosing which set of program info to keep, allowing ordering of the segments, etc.

I meant 2 things:

1. yes before handling a multipart recording, infor the user that it is a multipart and runa batch to join all the parts in sequence (from my tests, VideoRedo, only allows joining of 2 files at a time, so this may take some time, and iterations.

2. the second option, is to cut a file and add that cut to another file.
this is helpfull if you recorded 2 shows i sequence, and the notorious tvguide was not correct.
So you are left with 95% of the first show and the other show is 5% previous and 100% of the later show.
I think that adding an option to cut and paste would be gr8...

Alon24

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by alon24

I meant 2 things:

1. yes before handling a multipart recording, infor the user that it is a multipart and runa batch to join all the parts in sequence (from my tests, VideoRedo, only allows joining of 2 files at a time, so this may take some time, and iterations.

Strange. I'll have to experiment with this!!! As yes that will add complications. When I was going to add segemented files together I figured I would just add them all at one time. Thanks for the info.

2. the second option, is to cut a file and add that cut to another file.
this is helpfull if you recorded 2 shows i sequence, and the notorious tvguide was not correct.
So you are left with 95% of the first show and the other show is 5% previous and 100% of the later show.
I think that adding an option to cut and paste would be gr8...

Alon24

All good ideas. Will look at this for a future version but it is more than I want to add to the next version. I have a couple of bugs that I have to fix first. But version 0.3 or 0.4 are a possiblity for this - will see what I can do.

[bcjenkins]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for doing this! Can I run this from a client machine and have the server do the processing? Is there a job manager running on the server or is it local machine only?

TIA

B

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Hi Bob,

Thanks for doing this! Can I run this from a client machine and have the server do the processing? Is there a job manager running on the server or is it local machine only?

TIA

B

This runs from whatever machine you install it to. The only part that is done on the Server is if you choose to use the SageTV Transcoder to convert your video to another format. In order to do this on the Server I will need to know a lot more about Java than I currently do since I am just doing this from within Studio and I couldn't rely on a Server always having a GUI running.

BobP.

[ChePazzo]

Do the remote control commands work from the MVP?

[Enormous]

Just wanted to say thanks for this! I was just thinking yesterday how cool it would be to have something just like this! Great work, and I can't wait to load it up!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by ChePazzo

Do the remote control commands work from the MVP?

They do - but did you have a specific remote command in mind because I tried to get them all from the regular media player screen but I could have missed some.

BobP.