Video & Audio File Evaluator/Transcoder

[flickeringsight]

My primary use for Amahi is as a media server for my household. Like many others (I'd presume) I have a large collection of media files in a wide variety of formats, codecs, bit rates, etc. that aren't wholly suitable or compatible with the networked media players likely to be used on the front end.

In order to reliably play some of these files they must be 'normalized' via re-encoding to more suitable formats, but doing so manually on a file-by-file basis is exceedingly time consuming and not practical.

In my mind the best solution is an app that monitors dropbox folder(s) for newly added files and evaluates them against a user-created list of formats that must be transcoded to another specified format, perhaps using ffmpeg as the transcoder engine. Since transcoding is processor intensive the app can be configured to do it's work during specific times of the day or week and give processor priority to other apps if needed. After transcoding the app can sort the files by type into their appropriate directories.

This function would be extremely valuable especially for DVD rips when hard drive space is a premium (when isn't it?). Ideally the evaluating function of the app is smart enough to encode series discs with multiple episodes and ignore unwanted language tracks, special features, etc if so specified by the user.

Since video transcoding is such a technical and varied job it would be wonderful if the app could come with common presets to make the initial job of configuring easy for the user - with rule groups designed for specific playback boxes and software.

[moredruid]

that would be very nice indeed but quite a technical challenge I guess.

I personally use HandBrake, in which you can set quite a few options to your taste, especially for DVDs (default language, subs, type of outputfile/transcoding). I do my jobs by hand tho...

VLC also has a lot of options for this but I find their way of working non-intuitive. Perhaps I need to look into it a little more.

[cpg]

This is a very nice description of an app that we'd like to have for Amahi. Once we become more mainstream!

[flickeringsight]

Thanks for entertaining my wild ideas. However I still have a need for something like this since I'm now preparing to collate my media files onto the server. I am very new to the world of Linux and Fedora, does anyone have a suggestion on where to start looking for a solution?

I was considering Handbrake since it has a GUI, I use it on my Mac to encode files and I like it quite a lot, but Handbrake no longer supports avi files which constitute a large portion of my library so it's no good for transcoding.

So there's Mencoder, ffmpeg et al. but they're useless with out scripts, wrappers and whatever to make them do their thing. I'm willing to bet someone has tackled this problem and shared a solution with the world that we can use as a jumping-off point.

[cpg]

for starters, you probably want to get the RPMFusion apps (both the free and non-free).

this app may work as an editor ... it may have transcoding (not sure)

Description: Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent
: integration with IEEE 1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording
: back to the camera. It captures video to disk in AVI format in both
: type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings.

[flickeringsight]

AUTOMATED CD/DVD/BR/MEDIA DISC RIPPING SEQUENCE
This is my initial thought process on how a framework for my proposed Evaluator/Transcoder might work. Presented in code format for thematic elegance and to retain my formatting. It doesn't include any ideas on scheduling yet and I'm sure there are a great many logistic omissions. The general idea is that a daemon waits for a disc to be inserted and begins an evaluation process to determine how it will be treated. Tasks will be spun off as bash scripts generated on the fly. These individual bash scripts can then be managed and scheduled in an orderly fashion.

Code: Select all

Identify disc type: CD-DA / DVD / BR / MP3 Archive Disc / Video Media Archive Disc If CD-DA Launch CD ripping process ID and tag CD If unidentifiable give temp name(s) and send notification via email / Growl Rip and encode in work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Eject Disk Eject Disc Copy encoded file(s) to media archive Delete work files Update UPnP/DLNA server Send completion message via email / Growl If DVD Launch DVD ripping process ID and tag DVD If unidentifiable give temp name(s) and send notification via email / Growl #temp name based on disc name if unique ID main track(s) and rip to work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Eject Disk Eject Disc Launch encoding process Chose output format based on source material / media player profile Encode in work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Copy encoded file(s) to media archive Delete work files Update UPnP/DLNA server Send completion message via email / Growl If BR Launch BR ripping process ID and tag BR If unidentifiable give temp name(s) and send notification via email / Growl #temp name based on disc name if unique ID main track(s) and rip to work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Eject Disk Eject Disc Launch encoding process Chose output format based on source material / media player profile Encode in work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Copy encoded file(s) to media archive Delete work files Update UPnP/DLNA server Send completion message via email / Growl If MP3 Archive Disk Copy files to work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Eject Disk Eject Disk Launch file name cleanup process Launch MP3 repair utility If error send notification via email / Growl ID and tag MP3s Copy processed file(s) to media archive Delete work files Update UPnP/DLNA server Send completion message via email / Growl If Video Media Archive Disk Copy files to work directory If error send notification via email / Growl Eject Disk Eject Disk Launch file name cleanup process Launch AVI / MKV / MP4 repair utility(s) If error send notification via email / Growl Launch media evaluator process Launch transcoding process(es) Chose output format based on source material / media player profile If error send notification via email / Growl Copy processed file(s) to media archive Delete work files Update UPnP/DLNA server Send completion message via email / Growl end

REQUIRED SOFTWARE / SCRIPTING
This is a very incomplete rundown of all the bits and pieces of software that are needed to make this work. Ideally the fewer individual applications needed the better so those that can handle more than one task are desirable. Also, since this is all script based, applications with CLI interfaces are best suited.

If anyone has suggestions on applications or scripting I'd love to hear about it.

Code: Select all

Filename scrubber ???? CD tagger ???? CD ripper ???? MP3 encoder ???? MP3 tagger ???? DVD tagger ???? DVD decrypter / ripper ???? BR tagger ???? BR decrypter / ripper MakeMKV DumpHD - aacskeys - BDVM Debugger - KeyDB.cfg Video encoder ffmpeg Handbrake Scripting Tasks Disc identification / evaluation mount -t vfstype gnome-mount -f, --fstype Media file evaluation ???? Growl notifications to iMac http://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/?p=4649 MP3 / video media copying Completed file copying Work file cleanup UPnP/DLNA server update Eject Disc Email notifications