Woo, got a compleatly invisible cutting / encoding program going

[balur]

After neglecting my business for a week and a lot of experimenting, I've managed to come up with a completely invisible commercial detect / cut / encode program.

Basically the way it works is I wrote a EXE that is completely invisible in windows, so it can't steal focus or anything. The exe takes one property (the file name) which is passed from BTV through the CustomPostProcessing.xml file.

The EXE then starts up completely invisible, and launches a batch file that is also invisible.

The batch file then runs comskip to detect the commercials, then mencoder to cut them out. Both are command line programs so nothing launches beyond the window (and the processes can be set to low priority.)

(Mencoder theoretically could be used to recodes in XVID but I haven't experimented with that yet)

Then it cleans itself up, the batch file ends, the exe detects that the batch file is done with, and closes itself.

When the exe closes, BTV realizes it and ends the process and moves into the next thing in the queue. Which if you've configured it is ShowSqueeze.

So you get it all cut before BTV decides to encode, and the big plus is that your final files includes the file name, length, channel, time, etc.

I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in using this little setup, its right now hard coded to my setup, but if anyone wants to use it I could expand the program somewhat. Let me know.

[tscales]

I'd love to try it. I want to cut without ShowSqueeze.

Tom

[kali]

What file formats will this work with?

[Xiadix]

Please make it available to use.!!!.


KevG

[balur]

Kali, the program that I wrote, will work with any file format, all it really does is take a file name and then pass it on to a batch file which it starts invisibly.

The batch file then can be used to call any programs you want them too,

I use comskip and mencoder to do the work. So it is limited to the formats that those two are compatible with. However you theoretically could call any program that you wanted too, though if you call non command line programs you loose the whole benefit invisibility.

Since there is some interest, I'll knock up a installer and add a .ini file for a couple things, and put something out in the next day or two.

[BillKalicious]

What language is the EXE written in?

[erik]

The lastest comskip release contains hiderun.exe

HideRun.exe can be used to run any program or batch file without showing the console window.
Usage: HideRun "path to batch file or console application" "parameters for the program"
Hiderun requires .net to be installed

This is the source

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace HideRun
{
	static class Hiderun
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// The main entry point for the application.
		/// </summary>
		[STAThread]
		static void Main(string [] args)
		{

 //		   if (args.Length < 2) return;

			// Create the process with the desired arguments.
			Process comskipProcess = new Process();
			comskipProcess.StartInfo.FileName = args[0];
			comskipProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "\"" + args[1] + "\"";
			comskipProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = false;
			comskipProcess.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;

			// Start the process and wait for it to exit.
			comskipProcess.Start();
			comskipProcess.WaitForExit();
		}
	}
}