[mythtv-users] Crop while transcoding?

[Joseph A. Caputo]

Greg Grotsky wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I have a couple of questions about the transcoder options:
>
> 1) I'm wondering if there's anyway to have the transcoder crop the 
> frame while transcoding from inside myth.  I have many cartoon type 
> recordings that are recorded from a 1280x720 station but the cartoon 
> doesn't fill the frame.  I want to save space so I need the '-croptop 
> 8 -cropbottom 4 -cropright 170 -cropleft170' specified when I run 
> ffmpeg externally.  There aren't any switches for adding these types 
> of options in the transcoding options menus, is there some way to 
> implement these switches in the database?
>
> 2) I know there are a few different types of transcoder settings, I'm 
> referring to the "High Quality", "Medium Quality", "Low Quality" 
> options.  Is there a way to choose which one of these methods the 
> transcoder will use when manually selecting a recording for 
> transcoding?  When I choose to transcode a video from the recordings 
> menu, I'm not sure how to determine which one it will choose.


Myth has the ability to apply filters on either playback or recording.  
Recording filters are per-channel, but I believe playback filters are 
global.  In addition to the usual deinterlace filters, there are other, 
including a 'crop' filter.  This is probably what you're looking for, 
with 2 possible issues:  First, I don't know if any of the filters get 
applied during transcode, and second, what you probably want is the 
ability to specify filters per-recording schedule.  Check it out, 
though, you might be able to hammer it into submission.

-JAC