STV Import: Auto Compress for version 6 Default STV (V1.4.5 1/October/2008)

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

There is definitely a problem. If I setup a favorite to Wait for Comskip "NO" when I go back into it it says wait for comskip "YES"

Thanks nyplayer, it's fixed in the latest test download on the first post.

John

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by roxy99

Does the compression script remove commercials from the AVI or does it only use the skip points in the edl for playback?
..........

If evilpenguin's memcoder script doesn't do that then is there a way to configure this to use my script instead?

The evilpenguin compression can do removal of commercials using the edl files. It's a global setting in perl2dvd.advanced.pref, so whatever it's set to applies to all compress job. I don't think I can get around that one, but Evilpenguin is planning to make all his options available on a per compress basis in his next version.

I have been wondering how difficult it would be to get your script running with this, just to give another option. I'll probably have a look when I have this test version sorted out.

John

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Thanks nyplayer, it's fixed in the latest test download on the first post.

John

Thanks that did the trick.

[JREkiwi]

Made the previous test version the current version with no changes.

(1.3.3)
- Wait for Comskip configurable for EvilPenguin compression

John

[JREkiwi]

New version available

(1.3.4)
- Option to Wait for Caption file (.smi) before compressing

John

[JREkiwi]

New version available for download

(1.3.5)
- Removed restriction on Auto Compress only working when Server UI was running

There is still a requirement for a UI to be running for Auto Compress to work, but it can be any UI.

John

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

- Automatically Compress Favorite Recordings

John

John,
How can I get the Favorite window to show compresson settings in a client or Placeshifter window?

I'm away a lot, and if I set a new Favorite away from home, I also want to be able to set the auto compress to save disk space.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

How can I get the Favorite window to show compresson settings in a client or Placeshifter window?

On a client you should just have to import the STVi. I've not tried on a Placeshifter, but you should just need to point at an STV that already has Auto Compress imported.

John

[hemicuda]

just installed this as a stop-gap til the HD extender comes out. when I go to per channel settings I'm unable to set the wait for comskip option to yes. i can set this in defaults however.

Edit: on the MVP I had to use the yellow button to exit from the channel list when setting up individual channel options. it just kept wrapping through the list. feature or "feature"?

Can the MVP serve as a "UI" for the STVi to function?

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

when I go to per channel settings I'm unable to set the wait for comskip option to yes. i can set this in defaults however.

Edit: on the MVP I had to use the yellow button to exit from the channel list when setting up individual channel options. it just kept wrapping through the list. feature or "feature"?

Can the MVP serve as a "UI" for the STVi to function?

You obviously need the "feature" reduced version 1.3.6 which may introduce new features, but no new function.

I put a change in 1.3.5 for so an MVP can act as the UI for this to function.

John

[JREkiwi]

New version available for download

(1.3.6)
- Fix not refreshing on change of Wait settings on Auto Compress Channel panel
- Fix not being able to scroll to Close on Auto Compress Channel panel

John

[hemicuda]

that did the trick. thanks for the quick turn-around.

this might get me by w/ "The Better Half(tm)" on HD shows until the extenders come out. tested it on numbers last night. image had none of the streaking that my analogs exhibit (even on DVD std qual.); takes about 80-90min to compress to DVD std w/ AC3.

my next question... are the formats in order from least to best quality; - goes down, + goes up? I'd be temped to try one of the HD AVI formats if afterward they would still be listed in Recordings and I figure out how to keep the EDL after the mpg is deleted.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

my next question... are the formats in order from least to best quality; - goes down, + goes up? I'd be temped to try one of the HD AVI formats if afterward they would still be listed in Recordings and I figure out how to keep the EDL after the mpg is deleted.

No, I think they end up alphabetical if your using the standard compression profiles, but the names give some clues as to the relative quality.

If you either do in-place compression, or compress into a SageTV recording directory, then the compressed shows will still show up as recordings.

If your using Dirmon to cleanup your EDL files, just change "when no matching file with theses extensions" from mpg to mpg,avi

John

[hemicuda]

I could never get dirmon2 to behave well on my server so I let CSM run the show.

[hemicuda]

do the settings for favorites override the default settings in the customize menu? an hour after a show was over on a channel I had set to compress the conversion screen showed no pending or finished jobs. i had auto compress turned off in each of my favorites that record on HD channels, but in the default settings I have those channels set to auto-compress. I didn't want to re"compress" several unwatched that were already recorded on SD channels.

Edit: noticed something else... compressing after comskip runs is causing some issues w/ the skip timeline. it seems to hit the commercials well, but the stvi skips don't hit the end of the marked blocks every time. guess it's something to do w/ the conversion and any difference in fps between the HD recording and DVD format? hope that makes sense.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

do the settings for favorites override the default settings in the customize menu? an hour after a show was over on a channel I had set to compress the conversion screen showed no pending or finished jobs. i had auto compress turned off in each of my favorites that record on HD channels, but in the default settings I have those channels set to auto-compress. I didn't want to re"compress" several unwatched that were already recorded on SD channels.

Edit: noticed something else... compressing after comskip runs is causing some issues w/ the skip timeline. it seems to hit the commercials well, but the stvi skips don't hit the end of the marked blocks every time. guess it's something to do w/ the conversion and any difference in fps between the HD recording and DVD format? hope that makes sense.

hemicuda, when checking to see whether a particular program should be compressed, it first checks the favorite compression setting and if enabled will use those settings. If the favorite compression is disabled, it will then check the channel compression settings.

You do need to restart SageTV after enabling auto-compress (the top option in the Customize Options). I've not done any testing on this, but if it's running from your MVP, you may need to restart the SageTV service. I should try and figure out when the Application Started hook gets called on an MVP.

As for the skipping, if your using EDL files then the fps don't matter. It's more dependent on the format you're converting to, and how accurately the SageTV player can skip that format. I know that accurate skipping of avi's depends on the AVI Splitter that is used

John

[hemicuda]

partially my bad.

i forgot to reload all the jars for the various STVi's I use after I loaded 6.1.9. oopsie. That cured the comskip issue I think.

Something I did notice today.... I had gone in and turned on compression for a favorite last night and left it on (only the HD channels) in the customize menu. I went to check on it via PS from the hotel to make sure it had compressed to DVD std so the wife could watch it on the MVP. Went to the conversions menu and found where it had run. It also showed the same show being compressed again at about 2% complete. My gut tells me that when the file has been compressed once it shouldn't fire up another session simply because I connect w/ PS should it? If you can tell me what I(?) did wrong w/ the settings I'll be set. She liked the way it looked yesterday even though it's only SD widescreen; much better than the best my analogs can do on the same show in SD.

Oh, I just went in and turned off the by-channel auto-compress and just left it turned on by-favorite setting.

[hemicuda]

Oceans Twelve (recorded HD) is now on it's 3rd instance of trans-coding. Seems to start another session every time I fire up the server UI. like it doesn't know that the show was already processed on the MVP session; there are 2 complete and one in-progress listed on the conversions screen.

[JREkiwi]

You don't have something deleting the .autoCompress files do you? It shouldn't do another compress if an .autoCompress file exists.

John

[hemicuda]

this
OceansTwelve-1754566-0.1.1.1.1.mpg and
OceansTwelve-1754566-0.1.1.1.1.edl
are the only 2 files for that show in the recording folder. the only cleanup I do is the edl,txt,log through CSM if there's no mpg.
I also use in-place compression.