How do I: Extract short clip with Sage?

[stevech]

Sage 6
Goal: take a recording file produced by SageTV (Std Def) and extract a small segment. Use the Video Conversion functions in SageTV 6 to define start time/duration, and output format.

My goal is to simply extract a 30 second segment in a format that SageTV will play, storing it in the imported videos or other handy place for access using SageTV's menus.

When I tried this I got a file that either:
a) locked-up Sage when it was told to play the result
b) an AVI file with badly shifted colors (red to purple, green to puke)
c) an mpg file (choosing DVD) that neither Sage or MS Media Player will display.

Is this goal do-able?
(I do own Nero, but it takes forever to parse a video once before you can do anything at all. The idea here was to use Sage's tools.)

(also: the "start" time must be in seconds, not minutes:seconds. So I had to compute by hand to start at 2618 seconds. Duration must be in seconds too. Not cool.)

[BobPhoenix]

I realize you want to use Sage tools and the Convert options _should_ be able to handle it. However my solution is to use VideoReDo. There are other free options as well but I have never tried them. My VideoEdit plugin hides the VideoReDo screens and allows you to do this online with a remote so it at least LOOKS like SageTV is processing the file.

[heffe2001]

I'd second that, VideoReDo works a treat for stuff like this. MUCH faster than the alternatives as well...

[stevech]

what did I do wrong, as described at the top of the thread?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by stevech

what did I do wrong, as described at the top of the thread?

I would follow up with Tech Support it could be a bug. I've never done that with the SageTV transcoder (convert) so I do not know. If no one answers here with an idea I guess you are stuck with that as your option.

[stevech]

r-i-i-i-i-ght.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by stevech

r-i-i-i-i-ght.

whats that supposed to mean?


I just used the convert tool to extract a 2 minute segment from the middle of an MPEG2 SDTV file into both a MPEG4/high and into a DVD/standard file with no problems... (using 6.1.9)

Note that if you do this often, you may be able to speed things up a lot, and get better quality in your clip if you add a new transcoding property that just copies the input to the output with no video conversion -- add the following to sage.properties -- make sure you select the right one for the source file format.

transcoder/formats/Copy-Copy\ Avi=f\=avi;[bf\=vid;f\=copy][bf\=aud;f\=copy]
transcoder/formats/Copy-Copy\ Mpeg2=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=copy][bf\=aud;f\=copy]

[stevech]

Originally Posted by nielm

whats that supposed to mean?


I just used the convert tool to extract a 2 minute segment from the middle of an MPEG2 SDTV file into both a MPEG4/high and into a DVD/standard file with no problems... (using 6.1.9)

Note that if you do this often, you may be able to speed things up a lot, and get better quality in your clip if you add a new transcoding property that just copies the input to the output with no video conversion -- add the following to sage.properties -- make sure you select the right one for the source file format.

transcoder/formats/Copy-Copy\ Avi=f\=avi;[bf\=vid;f\=copy][bf\=aud;f\=copy]
transcoder/formats/Copy-Copy\ Mpeg2=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=copy][bf\=aud;f\=copy]

I'm using the same version. I initiated the conversion of a small segment of a Sage recording using the PC client, if that matters as to why the results as AVI had no video but audio OK, and as mpeg4, the color is badly shifted.

Source format - I gave it a recording produced by SageTV.

I don't do it often; there were a couple of 30 second clips that my wife asked if I could extract from the Tour de France and save for posterity.