[mythtv-users] Advice on exporting recordings - Where to start? myth_make_x264.pl?

[E James]

On 25/05/2015 18:06, Matthias Thyroff wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> I am using mythtv since 2006, and every now and then, i start again
> looking into the issue of exporting/transcoding recordings for archiving
> purposes.
> 
> I have tried different scripts documented in the wiki but I keep failing
> one way or the other. Unfortunately, I am not a programmer so I can't
> really debug what is going on.
> 
> What I want is a user-job, that transcodes my recordings (HDTV 720P,
> HDTV 1080i, SD, all from DVB) and stores them in my
> /storage/av/video/TV_transcoded directory.
> 
> I would like to cut commercials and transcode to lower quality to save
> space. Lower resolution / higher compression, if these options are
> configurable - great. MKV would be my favourite output format, with h264
> inside, plus all audio tracks in ac3 and/or mp3, plus subtitles, if
> available)
> 
> I found myth_make_x264.pl in the wiki which looks quite promising, but
> it does not work (the log looks good up to the point where an mv command
> fails because
> /storage/temp/11301_20150524175600/11301_20150524175600.mpg.ts is not
> found. I am not sure at which stage this file should be created from the
> recording's mpg.)
> 
> I also found mythvidexport.py. Started as a user job, it fails. (logs?
> Don't know where to look) Started with the same parameters on the shell,
> it will copy yesterday's news program (chosen as test sample) into
> /Movies/Danger Zone 4: Mad Girls, Bad Girls.mpg (???) No transcoding, I
> think there are other options just to move the file (mythvfs?)
> 
> mythbrake.sh also looks good. But the handbrake transcode fails with
> "Error: Invalid audio codec: 0x100".
> 
> There is also the mythnuv2mkv script with a note from 2012 that a link
> to the script is dead and and some information from archive.org...
> 
> Sigh. Before diving deep into trouble-shooting (and molesting the
> list... :-) : There are so many approaches to this topic, is there any
> such thing as an "official approach"? Or at least a recommended approach
> from users who are successfully practicing what I want to do? Something
> that will also work when 0.28 gets released because it is still
> supported? The wiki seems to have just too much outdated information.
>  
> Thanks in advance for any help!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Matthias
> 
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
> 

Some comments that might be helpful but are not a solution or even a recommendation.

I use MythTV primarily for capture and not as a player; I normally use Totem movie player. I also have 3 other capture systems. Essentially my MythTV system has only one storage location and I remove recordings from this by compressing the original file to another drive and "deleting" the recording via the frontend. The compression is normally done by ffmpeg using a command like this in a script

./ffmpeg -i "/media/sh2mtv/1005_20150523211500.mpg" -c:v mpeg4 -vtag divx -s 640x360 -b:v 700k -acodec libmp3lame -ab:a 56k -y "/media/sg4t2/VF/MTV-RC/NCK/1005_20150523211500_CSI 18-18S15 - THE END GAME.mpg.avi"

The end product is a video recording of about 330MB per hour. (-b:v 1000k = 450MB per hour). At 700k the video quality suffers noticeably when there is a lot of movement. 2 pass compression would probably fix that but I don't have the time. Most of the time it works well but, if the recorded video quality is less than perfect, the audio sync suffers in a variety of ways which can usually be manually repaired. I believe this is a characteristic of mp3. As you can probably see, my main focus is on compression rather than high definition. I am content with the results. 

At this time I remove commercials manually after compression if I feel the need. Perhaps, after more experience of MythTV, I might do it differently. With the other 3 capture systems, manual commercial removal is the only option.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com