Got DivX? (or XviD)

[Mr.X]

So, anyone still interested in having a showsqueeze that goes to DivX or XviD is welcome to try some scripts I put together. I've tested them a little, but I'd love some other people to try these and see if they work for you.

What it basically does is checks a particular folder to see if any new .mpg files show up there, and if they do, it runs AutoGK to make a DivX or XviD copy. BTV will put files in that folder by using the showsqueeze with the "copy" option.

Please read the BTVMP4README.TXT file carefully before starting.

If you don't know about AutoGK (then I feel sorry for you =)) then go to www.doom9.org and start reading. (And send the author a donation - it's an incredible peice of software that looks deceptively simple) Since it's purposely written to not allow a CLI, my script gets around that in a very klunky way, by emulating mouse clicks an key presses. For that reason, if my script crashes while it's trying to control AutoGK (only a few seconds) your mouse and keyboard will seem "locked". If that happens, just press ctrl-alt-del to get their function back.

I'm sure this program will only work on WinXP, and I've only tried it on Professional, not Home, but I expect it'll work on XP Home. Somebody brave might want to try it on Win2k, but I don't know whether it'll work or not.

If anyone's familiar with the API and wants to take a crack at figuring out how to copy the show's information from the mpg file to the avi, that would be a great addition to this. The information is in the libraryfolders.xml file, but you can't change it while the program's running.

Enjoy!

[Edit: Updated to add percentage quality in addition to fixed filesize]
[Edit: Fixed error when no .mpg files in source dir]
[Edit: Fixed percentage quality error when percentage is in .ini file]
[Edit: Changed to hotkeys instead of mouse clicks, waited until file is finished copying before starting AutoGK]
[Edit: Made the script replace all commas in the filename with underscores]
[Note: The btvmp4sqz.ini file is missing some entries on purpose. Run the program once and it will prompt for those entries]

[Mr.X]

Has anyone tried this? I'm curious to find out if it worked or not on other machines.

[mujizac]

You should make it so that one can define the percentage of quality, as you can to in autogk if desired, rather than the file size. I wouldn't want a 2 hour show to be the same size as a 30 min show. If it could be helped. I definitaly want to give it a go, but I would like that feature before I set it up.

[Mr.X]

I'll work on that tonight and post an update when it's ready. Theoretically should be easy to do, and it makes sense!

[Mr.X]

Added percentage quality. Just put a % sign after the percentage in the FileSize parameter in AutoGK Script.ini.

e.g. FileSize=50%

Fixed filesize still works

e.g. FileSize=350

(size is in MB)

Still hoping someone tries this - there was so much complaining before about people not being able to showsqueeze to DivX/XviD!!

To quickly test it, after reading the readme and installing, go to the library and showsqueeze something. It should start very quickly after.

[DodgeV83]

I just want to say how impressed I am that you went through all of this work to please your fellow Beyond TV users! I am testing it right now!

[vogelap]

Looks good. I will test it this evening. Thanks!

[opilion]

Sounds simple enough. I'll give it a go!

op

PS. What version of AutoGK did you test this with - stable 1.25 or BETA?

[Mr.X]

Originally Posted by opilion

PS. What version of AutoGK did you test this with - stable 1.25 or BETA?

It was tested with 1.51 and 1.52. It will probably work with 1.53 but I haven't tested that yet. As long as the GUI doesn't change it should work.

[DodgeV83]

Before I used your scripts I decided to try out Auto Gordian Knot...and wow is it slow!

At the rate its going it will take 2 hours for me to encode a 30 minute show... WMV9 on show squeeze on my high setting takes an hour, while WMV7 takes around 30 minutes...

Doesn't look like I'll be using this anytime soon!

Edit: I see the default processor usage is set to LOW, I'll try it on Normal and see how long it takes.

[Mr.X]

Originally Posted by DodgeV83

Before I used your scripts I decided to try out Auto Gordian Knot...and wow is it slow!

At the rate its going it will take 2 hours for me to encode a 30 minute show... WMV9 on show squeeze on my high setting takes an hour, while WMV7 takes around 30 minutes...

Doesn't look like I'll be using this anytime soon!

As I'm sure you're aware, that's not AutoGK's fault, it's the cost of doing a high-quality MPEG4 conversion. You definitely want a fast machine. My P4/3.0g even takes a while. At least it can batch them and you can let it run overnight...

[DodgeV83]

I see the default processor usage is set to LOW, I'll try it on Normal and see how long it takes.

I can't find a FAST setting or anything in the AUTO GK software. Should I switch to Gordian Knot? But then I won't be able to use your scripts

When using WMV I can set 0 quality or 100 quality, but it seems that the 0-100 quality in Auto GK is more for file size then encoding time. The damn computer takes 30 minutes going through TESTS before it even starts encoding!

[Mr.X]

I haven't used other MPEG-4 conversion software, but I know that they all take a long time. The difference in AutoGK is it makes all of the choices for you that normally are quite complex. I don't understand them all, but there's film vs. tv source, interlaced vs. deinterlaced, compressibility of the source, and many others. To do this it must run tests to make sure it gets it right. These are all things you'd have to do manually if you wanted a good result unless you knew all the details of your source and the best choices for the output ahead of time. I guess for BTV some of these things would be known ahead of time, but then you'd have to learn how that would relate to settings in the software yourself. That's where Gordian Knot or another program might work, but it's all manual at that point, and you'd better be ready to learn a lot about encoding if you want a good result. Before AutoGK I could never get a decent encoding because it seems like you really need to know what you're doing, and it's complicated. I think other programs like Dr. DivX that make it seem simple are just using defaults and not always making the best choices for your desired bitrate and type of source.

That's the price of quality. I went through this whole thing long ago when I was looking into MP3 encoding. Most people don't know anything about that as well, and think a 128k mp3 is fine. For them it probably is. Others want to know about VBR, Lame vs. Fraunhaufer (sp?), etc. and get the best quality/size ratio possible.

Anyway, I don't mind waiting longer for a better outcome. Some other folks on the SageTV site are experimenting with FFMPEG if you'd like to compare.

[opilion]

With BTV 3.4 and the DivX plugin, I found that DivX showsqueezes were relatively fast - much faster than BTV's WMV showsqueezes.

BTW, does ayone know if Vidomi can be controlled from another application? Has anyone used this tool. It would be nice if you could call an application that actually supported scripting, rather than relying on mouse and keyboard emulation.

op

[viguera]

Originally Posted by opilion

With BTV 3.4 and the DivX plugin, I found that DivX showsqueezes were relatively fast - much faster than BTV's WMV showsqueezes.

BTW, does ayone know if Vidomi can be controlled from another application? Has anyone used this tool. It would be nice if you could call an application that actually supported scripting, rather than relying on mouse and keyboard emulation.

op

I tried Vidomi but couldn't get it to process any of the BTV files for some reason. I kept getting an error saying that the files were corrupt.

As far as native scripting or batch control, you can always try VirtualDub...