HOWTO conveniently convert videos using mencoder, x264

[fangorn]

Not a bad idea.

But I see two problems:

1. Each user will have different feeling what is "relevant information" and for sure have
   different ways to express them
   
2. The "ask the user for the unrecognized tokens" approach does not match with my principles
   of "no questions asked" and "just do the right thing"

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[Akovia]

Thanks for the reply fanghorn.

[fangorn]

Yes batch processing multiple files is in the queue for menc at the moment.
Including running multiple jobs in parallel to max. out serious hardware.

avi2mkv at the moment does not support multiple input files.

But you can always let the shell do the job for you. (as long as you are not on Windows, that is)

[Akovia]

[Akovia]

Well I ran into some trouble now =/

Tried to batch convert a folder of ogm files, and a few ended up without audio. (Glad I checked them) I can't tell if it's a script problem or not, but I can ogmdemux manually and re-mux with mkvmergeGUI without any trouble.

I captured the terminal output, but it seems to have conflicting information that I can't decipher.

Here is part of the output:

[fangorn]

I did not test ogm that much. But the command line you posted uses a
track order that needs external audio file. If avi2mkv did not extract the
audio to an extra file there is something wrong.

As A shot from the hip I would replace 0.1,1.0 by 0.1,0.0

Why it does not use this I have to test.
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[Akovia]

The command line I used was

[fangorn]

The error is a little bit more complex. I cannot reproduce.

I do not use OGM movies and just created one using avi2mkv. It does not show such errors.

avi2mkv uses ffmpeg only for media type detection (simple audio streams).

That is most likely not the problem.

When writing MKV it uses mkvmerge, which can thanks to Moritz Bunkus read OGM
directly. ffmpeg would only be part of the process if you had external audio (a second
audio stream or replacement audio) to identify the audio format. For the rest of the
detection process it uses mplayer. If you wanted to convert the audio streams before
muxing the process would get a little bit more complex.

As I cannot reproduce: How were the OGM files created? What formats do video
and audio streams have (mediainfo can give a good list). As you talked of a
ffmpeg bug, were they written by ffmpeg? Do you know the command line that
created them?

Edit: Do you use the default settings for avi2mkv (in /home/<username>/.fangorn/config)?
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[Akovia]

[fangorn]

Sync problem from .ts source files

mencoder seems to have a serious problem with MPEG Transport Stream (.ts) source files.
The audio sync is lost completely (due to an increase in video stream playtime).

Workaround: mux the .ts source files to .mkv using avi2mkv and run menc on the .mkv.
This seems to get around this problem.


I am still in the process of developing some new features (processing multiple inputs in
parallel in menc and riptoh264, bluray-info to optionally feed avi2mkv and output
anything avi2mkv can directly, ...)

I did not test anything of this on anything but gentoo so far and testing is pretty slow
when you test encoding three 1080p fulltime movies in parallel. So it will be
some time until these features hit the streets.
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[fangorn]

Hi,

after a long break some new features for my scripts.

menc and riptoh264 can now process lists of input files, and even can process more than one input in parallel to utilize faster machines fully using the –jobs <num> option.

menc can use about any input and call riptoh264 with your configuration for DVD directories/ISO images or bluray-info with your configuration for BluRay directories. Lists of input can be generated by shell expansion on Linux or by menc on Windows. Optionally all subdirectories are searched for input recursively.

avi2mkv can now process multiple inputfiles, one after the other. Wildcards are usable on UNIX/Linux as the shell will process them.

bluray-info now calls avi2mkv at the end if an output container different from TS is requested.

menc and riptoh264 are now capable to convert only parts of the input source. If chapter information is available (internally or in an external file) you can specify chapter ranges. Or you can specify start and/or end time.

Also there are more little improvements.

Have fun with the tools. And if there are still some problems in the code, don’t hesitate to Email me.

Further improvements for avi2mkv are in progress now, but will take a while.

fangorn
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[wannabegeekster]

So how do I use these program's together? Do I have to run the choose_video_parameters before I convert each video? The help of the application says that it is mandatory to specify the input video width and height. Not all videos have the same width and height.

Is it possible to convert all of my videos to 480p?

I ultimately want to do something like this and have all of the videos converted in one go:

find /path -size +800M -exec menc {} \;

While I do enjoy the ability to run something like for f in *.avi; do menc $f; done. I don't really need that for the most part.

Thanks for the scripts! Can't wait to try them all out.

[fangorn]

You only think of the video type you want to convert.

For video conversion:
DVD -> riptoh264
BluRay -> bluray-info (maybe followed by menc)
everything else -> menc

For Container format changes and/or audio conversion:
avi2mkv

These programs call the others if needed. With exception of bluray-info that does at the moment not
call menc automatically for recompression of the HD video.

To convert to 480p you have three choices:
[list=][*]--targetheight 480
keeps the aspect ratio and forces 480 lines
[*]--targetheight 480 --expand_if_cropped
forces a 16/9 video with black borders added if necessary
[*]--targetwidth 854 --targetheight 480
forces an aspect ratio. with --crop you can remove black borders before scaling. [/list]

Your command line is absolutely possible. I would just set the necessary parameters on the command
line or in the configuration file (~/.fangorn/config).

One problem with this approach: menc does by intention not delete the original. With this method you
will double your movies on the harddisk and maybe will not find them again. Use the --outputpath to
redirect the converted movies to one directory. --tmppath will restrict the temporary files to a location
you can easily clean if something does not work as expected.

have fun,
fangorn
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[fangorn]

Hi,

after about six months of development I have decided to do an open Beta of avi2mkv and menc version 4.0.0.

avi2mkv was rewritten next to completely and after that the feature list has tripled. Not counting all the
automatic glue that makes it convenient. I have tested the basic functionalities on my Gentoo box. The DVD
muxing capabililty aside they are working so far. But I cannot test all the combinations possible. So I will
be thankful for any bug reports.

The possibilities are next to endless now. So if you can't figure out how to do something, just ask. The documentation
most likely can be improved also.

There is a new installation process that is more convenient (and should work on more distribtuions). This
was necessary as the number of dependencies has also increased. You can find the new instructionns here: http://blog.fangornsrealm.eu/install/.

To give a hint what I am so excited about, here is the list of new features for avi2mkv-4.0.0:

[_______0]

do these scripts have their full-version non-scripted commands?? I find those more interesting.

Let's say I do some conversion, do the script show the original ffmpeg (whatever uses) command on the console?

[fangorn]

Yes they do, but not on the console as it would pass by very quickly.
They write a log file that contains each and every command line to call an external tool.
This log file is deleted by default when the program run ends. You have to activate the
--debug option to keep the tools from deleting their temporary files/directories.
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[fangorn]

Finally I found the time to create a full set of ebuilds.

http://progs.fangornsrealm.eu/install/ebuilds.tar.bz2

If you need any further instructions, go to the install page.

http://blog.fangornsrealm.eu/install


menc is out of beta in the meantime, as I managed to reduce the known bugs to zero.

riptoh264 has gotten some love also, after a long time.

avi2mkv has had some bugfixes and is really stable for "normal" usage. But a few of the
new features are still widely untested or known to be buggy, so it's official status stays beta.

Have fun,
fangorn
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[gabrielg]

Can anybody tell me which version of imagemagick they are successfully running with menc? It fails compiling after I activated the truetype flag, which is required, this is the error:

[fangorn]

imagemagick is a dependency of avi2mkv only if you want to use the dvd USE flag.
Which is known not to work properly, yet. The test cases I used produce a DVD with
menus, but the menus do not work correctly at the moment. DVD without menus
is still not implemented. I am a little stuck with these features for a while now.

So if you can't get it to compile, deactivate dvd support in avi2mkv and it should work.

I am concentrating on getting audio conversions to work stable on all platforms and
am at the moment evaluating the best ways to convert multichannel audio streams
into all other formats. In this resort the platforms are quite different, and I want to have
the same features on all of them. The current version is working on Linux and Windows,
but not on Mac OS. And Windows version has compeletely different feature set.
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[gabrielg]

Thanks, fangorn - just for completeness, while my problem started with the truetype use flag, that was pulled by the dvd use flag, so removing those solved the emerge issue.

Now, sadly, I get an error at runtime:

[fangorn]

I had problems with my provider and the last transfer of the toolbox was never finished.
So the version you have might be incomplete.

In doubt download / emerge the toolbox again.
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