[mythtv-users] export recordings w/commercials removed?

[Matt Garman]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 01:00:31PM -0500, Matt Garman wrote:
> I'm currently running a combined FE+BE on an Arch Linux box:
> 
> $ mythbackend --version
> Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
> MythTV Version   : 0.24
> MythTV Branch    : exported
> Network Protocol : 63
> Library API      : 0.24.20101028-1
> QT Version       : 4.7.1
> Options compiled in:
>  linux release using_alsa using_oss using_backend
>  using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_dvb using_firewire
>  using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_hdpvr using_iptv using_ivtv
>  using_joystick_menu using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl_video
>  using_opengl_vsync using_qtdbus using_qtwebkit using_v4l using_x11
>  using_xrandr using_xv using_xvmc using_xvmc_vld using_xvmcw
>  using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_mythtranscode
>  using_opengl using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_live using_mheg
> 
> [ ... snip ... ]
>
>     (1) Recordings - I want them to be "system neutral", sans
>         commericals.  That is, I just want the video files, with the
>         commercials removed, that I'll manage via MythVideo in the
>         new system.
>
> Looks like the first step is to create a cutlist for the
> commercials.  I trust the job mythcommflag did (i.e. don't want to
> manually make cut lists).  Most things I read online suggest using
> mythcommflag --gencutlist.  I can't figure out how to do that:
> 
> $ mythcommflag --gencutlist
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Using runtime prefix = /usr
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Using configuration directory = /home/mythtv/.mythtv
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Unable to read configuration file mysql.txt
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Empty LocalHostName.
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.690 New DB connection, total: 1
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.703 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
> 2011-07-17 12:49:23.714 No program data exists for channel 0 at
>
> [ ... snip ... ]

I still can't get mythcommflag --gencutlist to work.

However, I did some searching, and came up with a more manual way to
do what I want:

# put all the files you want to export here in the FILELIST array
export FILELIST="1321_20110409230000.mpg 1321_20110401200000.mpg"

for INFILE in $FILELIST ; do
    echo -e "\n\n=== $INFILE ===" ;
    export CUTLIST=`mythcommflag --getskiplist -f $INFILE \
        | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $4}' | sed 's/,/ /g'` ;
    export OUTFILE=`basename $INFILE .mpg`.transcode.mpg ;
    mythtranscode -i $INFILE --mpeg2 --honorcutlist "$CUTLIST" \
        --showprogress -o $OUTFILE ;
done

I also found that the "mythlink.pl" script is incredibly useful for
mapping the recording files to "human readable" format.  E.g., on my
system I did something like this:

/usr/share/mythtv/contrib/user_jobs/mythlink.pl \
    --link links/ --format '%T-%S' --underscores

There's a MythTV wiki page[1] that has the details for mythlink.

Anyway, this so far seems to work OK.  Hopefully this is useful for
anyone with similar goals as me.  

Thanks again,
Matt


[1] http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythlink.pl