[mythtv-users] Announcement: Looking for Alpha testers for a generic Lossless cut solution

[Doug Vaughan]

   Currently the "Lossless Cut" set of utilities are available as an 
Alpha release. The intent is to have MythTV users qualify their recorded 
videos to determine the script's compatibility with a wide variety of 
recording devices.

     So far the utilities successfully performs loss less cuts on HDPVR 
h.264 and UK freeview DVB-T Mpeg recordings. Hopefully with the 
assistance of the MythTV community we can identify other recording 
devices which work and/or have the script improved to include additional 
devices and their encoding types.

   Despite having various lossless cut solutions there is not one set of 
utilities that can deal with the wide variety of video, audio and 
subtitle formats MythTV is capable of recording. This is specifically 
true of h.264 encoded videos. The Lossless Cut utilities are an attempt 
to resolve that limitation. It may or may not be successful, that is why 
I need your help.

Here is Lossless Cut's feature list, hopefully it will entice you to 
give it a try.
For full details refer to the Lossless Cut wiki page at: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Lossless_Cut

Lossless Cut features list:
- Supports MythTV versions 0.24+fixes and higher
- Supports NTSC, PAL, SD, HD 720p and 1080i recordings (this claim needs 
to be verified by the Alpha testers)
- A wide variety of MythTV recorded video, audio and subtitle formats 
are supported.
   See: 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Lossless_Cut#Supported_Containers.2C_video_and_audio_encoding_types_and_subtitle_formats
- Supports automatic subtitle conversion to SRT format, cut and remuxing 
into the final mkv video
- Support for recordings with multiple audio, video and subtitle tracks
- A Debian PPA is available along with source. The PPA has the benefit 
of always keeping you up to date with the latest enhancements and bug 
fixes. The source tarball can be easily downloaded and installed on 
non-Debian based distros. Check the wiki page's installation 
instructions for details.
- Includes a userjob that adjusts commercial flag cut frames to their 
closest keyframes. This speeds up manual review of commercial flagged 
cuts points.
- Supports three types of loss less cut user jobs:
   - Export to MythVideo with grabber enhanced metadata or EPG metadata
   - Cut and Save a mkv video file to a user specified directory
   - In place Cut and Replace a Recording with the lossless cut mkv file
- Full integration with the MythTV metadata grabbers including a fall 
back to EPG metadata when the program cannot be found by the grabbers
   - Uses the grabbers as specified in the MythTV settings including the 
language code
- When exported or moved, the mkv file is renamed to a customisable 
format e.g. "Sanctuary - S02E01 - End of Nights (1).mkv"
- When exported to MythVideo any missing sub directories will be 
automatically created according to a customisable path and naming convention
- The MythVideo Video storage group does not have to be on the same 
backend as the recording backend. Transfer of the cut mkv file is 
handled by the MythTV backend.
- By default, metadata will be added to the mkv container (title, 
subtitle, season and episode numbers, program description)
- An included support script provides text bug reports, automated video 
sample creation and wiki compatible text for adding your own recording 
device to the "Supported Recording Devices" or "Unsupported Recording 
Devices" table rows
- A text configuration file provides a convenient method to customise 
"lossless_cut.cfg"
- The command line and arguments used during each step of the loss less 
cut processing is added to a Log file, which is generated with every 
userjob. The log file is automatically deleted if the job successfully 
completes. This is essential information for problem analysis.

Listed at the top of the wiki page are some of the Alpha testing needs 
but feel free to test, test, test ... Remember that no software is fully 
debugged until it is obsolete.

I will do the best I can to improve the Lossless Cut utilities to 
support as many MythTV recording devices but there is no doubt some will 
never be supported.

Thanks

Doug