[mythtv] transcoding with cutlist

[Russ Southern]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 12:28:58PM -0700, Chris Petersen wrote:
> > I've done some work with mythmkmovie, to support PVR-250's and cutlists.
> > That patch is with the author, awaiting approval.  I know Michael's
> > (mythmkmovie author) goal for mkmovie was just to provide a temporary fix
> > until something more permanent became available.  It has become a
> > nicely-featured package, good for the long haul, IMO.  Adapting it to a
> > working transcode solution sounds permanent to me :-)
> 
> mythmkmovie is slick, but imho the interface could use a bit of work
> (actually, my only complaint there is that it lists ALL shows in one big
> list - I have about 150 recorded shows, and that gets messy - rather
> than first showing a list of shows, having you select one, and then
> showing a list of episodes from that show).  My hope with my script
> (nuvexport, as it came to be named) was to go together with mythmkmovie,
> but split all interface routines into separate objects...  so all of the
> encode/decode stuff would be the same, but we could plug whatever
> interface we wanted onto it - curses, text, tk, etc)

In this case, I was thinking about using the single-file interface (provide
input and output arguments, etc) as a wrapper around the new transcode
approach.  Although, I've been considering how to add multiple output targets
to it (dvd, svcd, move to videos directory, leave in place, etc), and I think
it might be best to split it into a set of modules anyway.  This would cater
to your pluggable interface idea rather nicely.

> > The recent work with mythtranscode (specifically, the fifo stuff) *should*
> > allow mythtranscode to handle cutlists, splitting the post-cutlist output
> > into separate video and audio streams.  We can then use any other tools to
> > transcode/remux these raw streams as required.  Right?
> 
> Yes.  Though as I understand it, transcode may not work well with mpeg2
> files.  it already handles the cutlist stuff beautifully (at least with
> mpeg4 and presumably rtjpeg) - saved myself about 10 gigs so far, and
> another 15-20 gigs worth of commercials left to cut out.

I do have mpeg files working nicely in mythmkmovie, but have yet to trigger
it with 'Z'.  Not having heard from Michael, I wonder if I should just post
my patch anyway...?  If mythtranscode does not yet handle mpeg files, it
would at least provide _a_ solution for the short term.  At this point, I've
converted some 30 shows, and I'm quite happy with the results (4 GB/hr
becomes ~700M after commercials at -vbr 2000).

In my mind, the advantage of mythtranscode will be an easier conversion to
dvd/svcd, since I have yet to figure out how to do it from mpegs...

Barring any discouraging feedback, I think I'll post my mythmkmovie patch
files to this dev list and see what it stirs up...

Russ