STV Import: SageMC Video Tools v2.0.1a (2/02/07)

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Re-reading it, you might be right. Awww, I was getting excited.

Yeah, there's no smarts involved. I just read your comskip file and cut those sections out. So if you have it set to auto-compress and you commercial detecting gets it wrong then that section of show is sent to bit heaven.

I recommend only setting shows you don't really care about to auto-convert (like re-runs and stuff) and compressing your first-runs manually after you've watched 'em once and know you're happy with the comskip.

A good feature in the future would be to be able to opt out of cutting commercials from the STV, instead of having it be cut every show or cut no shows.

[JDizzy]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, there should be some pictures popping up for you too. Go ahead and look in your Other Programs folder (C:\sageOthers by default) and see if there actually any images in there. If there aren't, but there are shortcuts and batch files, then post your dvdlist.log and a .qdvd.log file on the forum for me to check out.

I checked that folder and yes, the colored icons I was speaking about are there,,,but, they do not show up via the Other Programs menu...Only the background (placeholder) and name of the file I am compressing show up on the screen...

[mickp]

Thanks EP. I'm sure that there's something that I'm missing here.

I've taken the step of uninstalling the sage client from my pc, removing the original sage directory, installing SageTVClient_V6_0_14Setup.exe, installing the new base sagemc and copying/installing the latest dev sagemc. A few things that weren't working before such as dynamic menus (they were blank previously if I tried to use them) and the recording indicator are now working.

I then followed the install instructions step by step but have no new send to options.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

#1 - Go to your settings screen and make sure your SageMC version is 6.3.0. I know a lot of times i'll upgrade, but forget that the upgrade only overwrites the SageMC.xml file, but i'm using a SageMC-X.xmi. I know for a fact this won't work in any previous version of SageMC.

This reads;

Software Version: SageTV V6.0.14.112 - Client
Java Version: 1.6.0-rc
SageMC STV Version: 6.3.0

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

#2 - Make sure you go to the SageMC Options->Extras and enable what you want, and if you want to try my compresion also go to the SageMC Options->Main->Use Default Compression and disable it.

In the SageMC Options/Extras menu I have;

Enable DVD Burning : Enabled
Enable Video Compression : Enabled

In the SageMC Options/Main screen I have Use default compression set to Disabled.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

If you've done all of that and it's still not working, you can check to see if it linked properly in Studio by opening it up (ctrl+shift+f12) and opening up "SageMC Video Tools" hook and seeing if my code is actually linked. If you look in the tree you'll see a lot of lines like "REM Added code..." and if they are successfully linked, they'll be in bold.

I think this looks correct. Here's a picture;

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

If none of this is successful, go ahead and quit Sage, Open Sage, reimport the plug-in, quit Sage again, and then zip up sagetv_0.txt and the stv the import created (SageMC-X.xml) and post it on the forum for me to check out.

I've done this and attached both of these files. Hopefully you will be able to see what's going awry.


Mick.

[evilpenguin]

Thanks for the very detailed response I'll take a look at the logs tomorrow.

Just for sanity's sake, does anyone out there (besides me ) actually have this working right now?

[JDizzy]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Just for sanity's sake, does anyone out there (besides me ) actually have this working right now?

This is where I am at with this plugin:

It installed fine and I followed directions as they were laid out.
I can choose a recording and flag it to compress.
A work directory is created in my 'capture' directory
Dirmon finds the flagged file and starts the process.

Looking at it with the Other Programs menu there is a greenish colored icon type square with the name of the file to compress on it. Clicking on the icon does nothing other than highlighting it.

There are also some files generated in the 'qdvd' folder

I have the file flagged to compress as a 2 pass divx file.

I am ending up with a bunch of files in the created work directory ( 2 batch files, 2 log files, 2 mpg files, and a txt file) but not seeing the final divx file, which should be a .avi file (unless it is sent to another unknown directory).

So far, I don't think it is working although I see it going through the motions.
Lastly, there seems to be a lot of clutter left behind by this (directories with leftover work files), unless this cleans up after itself once finished...
I can cleanup with Dirmon but am curious as to if this cleans house by itself.

-JD

[evilpenguin]

Yeah, a lot more should be happening than that. Are you sure the video's are done processing? There's a good period of time where it looks like nothing is happening because the video is on the first pass and i'm throwing away that data. However, if dirmon says its done processing there is most likely a problem. Can you zip up and post a few of your log files from the "SageTV\SageTV\qdvdFolder"?

As for the images not showing up, that's a bit of a mystery. If the the .bat, .jpg, and shortcut files are there and named exactly the same then the images should be showing up. Can you zip up your sage.properties file and post it also?

As for the clean up, when the video is done processing it's switched out with the original recording and then all of the temporary files should be automatically deleted.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mickp

I've done this and attached both of these files. Hopefully you will be able to see what's going awry.

I looked at the log file and tryed out your STV, and it appears that everything imported correctly and working correctly leading me to believe that there's a problem with the preference file. Can you zip up your sage.properties and sageClient.properties post them?

[mickp]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I looked at the log file and tryed out your STV, and it appears that everything imported correctly and working correctly leading me to believe that there's a problem with the preference file. Can you zip up your sage.properties and sageClient.properties post them?

Sure thing.

Mick.

[JDizzy]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, a lot more should be happening than that. Are you sure the video's are done processing? There's a good period of time where it looks like nothing is happening because the video is on the first pass and i'm throwing away that data. However, if dirmon says its done processing there is most likely a problem. Can you zip up and post a few of your log files from the "SageTV\SageTV\qdvdFolder"?

As for the images not showing up, that's a bit of a mystery. If the the .bat, .jpg, and shortcut files are there and named exactly the same then the images should be showing up. Can you zip up your sage.properties file and post it also?

As for the clean up, when the video is done processing it's switched out with the original recording and then all of the temporary files should be automatically deleted.

Here you go...
When everything stops, Dirmon is just sitting there....

[ikarus79m]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Once the dust settles on this, there are a few DVD'centric features i'd like to add, and this is one of them. It'll be a while though.

Great news! Are you planning to implement a simple "Rip Entire DVD" option or a more advanced one a la DVDShrink which will allow you to rip either the enire DVD or select the movies, extras, and menus seperatly?

How long is a while?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by ikarus79m

Great news! Are you planning to implement a simple "Rip Entire DVD" option or a more advanced one a la DVDShrink which will allow you to rip either the enire DVD or select the movies, extras, and menus seperatly?

How long is a while?

Ideally it's be a simple dvd rip and AutoGK type compression, but for my own sanity, I can't imagine i'd start working on it anytime this year

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by JDizzy

Here you go...
When everything stops, Dirmon is just sitting there....

Opps! There's a problem with one of the encoding profiles in the download. Do me a favor and replace "perl2dvd.mencoder.profiles" with the one in this .zip. That'll fix the processing problem right up. I'll update the download tonight.

[evilpenguin]

Looks like flachbar figured out the issue people are having with not being able to enable/disable my plug-in featues (thanks!). Here's an updated STVi and i've also updated the download.

[pilotguy7ca]

Thanks EP, I've got the option to "Send to DVD" showing up now! One thing though if I send a video to a single DVD from my SageClient (set to schedule and to burn) it creates/modifies the dvdlist and dvdlist.log file in my server's qdvd folder and nothing else so dirmon never sees a qdvd file. If I send a video to a single dvd from on my server (set to transcode and to schedule), it creates/modifies the dvdlist and dvdlist.log file and also creates the qdvd file for dirmon to see and then dirmon kicks off creating the dvd, I can also see the image and batch link file created in the other programs directory. My client can see the dvd that the server is creating in the "Other Programs" menu, but not when it sent a dvd to create?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by pilotguy7ca

Thanks EP, I've got the option to "Send to DVD" showing up now! One thing though if I send a video to a single DVD from my SageClient (set to schedule and to burn) it creates/modifies the dvdlist and dvdlist.log file in my server's qdvd folder and nothing else so dirmon never sees a qdvd file. If I send a video to a single dvd from on my server (set to transcode and to schedule), it creates/modifies the dvdlist and dvdlist.log file and also creates the qdvd file for dirmon to see and then dirmon kicks off creating the dvd, I can also see the image and batch link file created in the other programs directory. My client can see the dvd that the server is creating in the "Other Programs" menu, but not when it sent a dvd to create?

Can you post your dvdlist.log?

[Kirby]

Just a quick question, is this working well now? I would really like to use the 2-pass encoding profiles you have in there, but dont have much time for testing at this point. Oh another question, does any of this need to be installed on the Server, or can it all run on a high powered client? I would probably do it all on my current HTPC for now, especially if mencoder makes use of dual cores?! If it doesnt, would there be an easy way to force the core affinity to the second core?

Another question, from reading the FAQ, there were some comments about 1920x1080 and 1280x720, and a profile being used for those. Will there be an issue with HD-lite, where the source is stripped down to either 1440 or 1280 lines instead of 1920? The pixel aspect ratio changes from 1:1 to 1.33:1 or 1.5:1 respectively in order to keep a 16:9 image. Just curious how mencoder is going to handle this?

Ok, so thats much more than just a quick question, but hopefully not too bad!

[evilpenguin]

Hi Kirby,

• Things are still a little rough around the edges right now, but I’m working on fixing it as fast as I can
• Yes, you can configure this plug-in so the transcoding gets done on any PC you like. Hell, you could set up a transcoding PC that doesn’t even have SageTV installed on it
• Multi-core encoding is supported in mencoder provided that the codec you are using supports it (I know Xvid does). It’s just a matter of looking up the encoding options you need to set to enable it.
• I don’t know anything about HDTV lite, but I’m almost 100% sure that you could create an encoding profile that would handle it

[FidgetyRat]

Wow looks like things evolved alot in the past few months. Nice work

I see there are alot of improvements that I will not really use. I know the #1 thing I do is burn a single SDTV file to disk.

Is this still easy to configure for this basic operation or am I going to have to worry about tons of transcoding features i'll likely never use? Using the built in would be ideal. The less configuration the better vs. the last version

[pilotguy7ca]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Can you post your dvdlist.log?

Here you go, I've attached a zip with 3 files , the dvdlist.log and dvdlist. is what is created when I send a video to a single dvd from a client. The dvdlist1.log is the log of a file that I successfully sent from the server console but I think the operation failed part way through since the image in the "Other Programs" menu has a red dot and the qdvd and work file are still left in the qdvd folder. I think it got stuck at the menu making part since I still see a menugen.bat file in the work folder and there are 2 mpg's in that folder, a ...2dvd.2cut.mpg and a ...2dvd.mpg.

[evilpenguin]

Looks like your client has an old version of add2dvdq.exe. If you replace it, the problem should go away.

The menuGen thing, is a known issue when you're using UNC paths for your recordings. I've got the fix for that ready to go for tonight's build.