Alright, can someone help me out on setting up proper transcoding?

My mission is to reduce disk usage from the base install, and cut commercials.

Others have told me to set Settings>General, and set transcode on. I don't see this!

Not under mythtv-setup or general settings in mythfrontend.

Next, settings> TV > recording Profiles

You have two groups of profiles here. (if you are v4l based)

Software Encoders (v4l based)
Transcoders

Each of these groups has a set of encoder settings, each of which have a "Automatically transcode after recording".

If I want my Default Profile to transcode to something that takes less space, which boxes do I check?

If I check a box for Default, to transcode, which transcoder does it use?

Thanks for putting up with a newb. I just can't seem to find this answer.

Ok I was the one who said there was a setting in general and I was wrong. I don't use transcoding, so they must have moved it on me I'm almost positive it was there back in 0.11, but they also didn't have so many recording profiles.

As it is now you can turn in on for default, and it should transcode using either RTJPEG/Mpeg4 or MPEG2 as listed under the transcoders option in recording profiles. You may not have both of these. I have both a v4l card and an pvr250 so I don't know if it installs both if you only have a v4l card.

So to make it simple what you would want to do is turn on transcoding in the default profile then go into the RTJPG/Mpeg4 profile under transcoding and make sure you change it to mpeg4 (it is rtjpeg by default which won't help the size.) That should be all you need then it should in theory atuomatically transcode all your recordings (that's only new recordings after you make the changes to transcode existing recordings you will have to do it manually) to mpeg4 and remove the comercials. Of course I don't use this myself cause I have plenty of disk space and I am more worried about processor utilization.

Hey, thanks, Xsecrets!

Here's what I'm going to do.

Want to transcode my v4l captured stuff to save disk space.

Frontend setup:

Setup->TV Settings->Recording Profiles->Software Encoders (v4l based)->Default:
- Check box to "Automatically transcode after recording"
- Leave as RTjpeg Codec (faster capture)

Setup->TV Settings->Recording Profiles->Transcoders->RTjpeg/MPEG4
- Do NOT check "automatically transcode after recording"
- Change codec: to MPEG-4

Everything else default.


It is not obvious which transcoder my recording profile is going to use. The Rtjpeg/MPEG4 or the MPEG2 transcoder.... Am I missing something? they both have a "automatically transcode after recording".

mpeg2 is only for the hardware encoding cards pvr250/350 nothing else uses mpeg2. everything else uses rtjpeg/mpeg4.

Having said that it is a slight exageration, there are a couple of other hardware cards, but not many people use them.

Not sure if I am using the best tactic, but this is how I generally do my transcoding.

Record to rtjpeg.
View recording
e - edit
z - automatic comercial detect (sometimes misses all)
pgup/pgdwn, up/down, left/right, space, (as needed to find all the places where I want cut marks
e to exit out of edit
esc to stop watching the video.
Go to another system where I can ssh into my mythtv box
Change directory to the /myth/video
run nuvexport
select the video/movie that I want to transcode
episode, etc,
Select the output format desired, divix usually
Select [.] as the destination
enter Yes to use the mythtv cut list
rest by default.
While transcoding, go to http://www.imdb.com to look up the movie number, if appropriate
Once video is transcoded, go back to my mythtv box
go to Vidoes - Manage Videos
i - to allow me to enter the IMDB number
select the 'Manually enter IMDB number" option
type in the imdb number (do not hit enter)
Wait for the IMDB information to be collected and parsed into the database.
exit out of the video options, back to tv - delete recordings
delete the recording

There are some variations to that, I may watch the video and decide not to transcode it. Usually because the capture was corrupted. Occasionally I try to navigate through the video for cut lists, and end up being tossed to the begining of the video unnexpectedly. In that case I check to see if it is going to be broadcast again any time soon, and delete the corrupted edition.

For episodic shows that I just want to watch and delete, I will do the cutsheet editing to eliminate the comercials, then watch and delete.

Personally I have not been happy with autodetection of comercials in that every time I do so, it misses, or I end up with part of a comercial. I primarily use it as a first draft edit, then tweek the cutlist. The first couple of times this takes longer than desired. After a few runs through I have found it does not take nearly as long as I would have expected.

Hi.
Your Method seems to work nice for me except one thing...

can't this steps


be done in mythtv ?

because there is a Button called "start transcoding"
in the Menu when you hit "e" or "O" (not shure which)
while watching a recording
I just haven't found out how it works and where it places it's
files

Maybe someone knows ?
Thanks

that button starts mythtranscode. nuvexport uses regular transcode. not alot of difference, but there is some. nuvexport gives you many more options of what format to transcode to. mythtranscode only transcodes to either mpeg-4 or rtjpeg, and they are nonstandard at that so that the only thing that can read them is myth or a program or codec that has specific support for them.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

as a follow up to my own post. If you do not wish to go to another system to ssh into your mythtv back end, you can alt-f1 (or other function key through 6) and log in to a terminal session and run the nuvexport from the same box.

If you install gdmflexiserver, you can open a seprate X session on the same system, and switch back and forth between them to use the first session as your mythfrontend, and the second as a way to launch various x based tools, or xterms to run command line stuff without having to go to a textmode only session. At the moment I don't see gdmflexiserver in my apt-cache, which suggests it has not been ported back to the apt-get sources that I have configured. This means that it may be more work for you to install and use it than it is worth.

I would suggest attempting to run mythfrontend in it's own window to allow you to run a sepreate xterm on the mythtv login session for X, but every time I have attempted to run it in a window it continues to run full screen, so I don't think that will work.

There are instructions on how to modify the various menus to run other applications, so you could possibly modify the utilities or another menu to kick off an xterm for you. I have not tested this though so I don't know how well it would work.

I have enough systems around my place that I do not have a problem with going to a different one to ssh in. For those who don't I would say that the above series is the steps I would imagine trying. i.e. first alt-f1 to a text mode session. Play around witht he other ideas as you think of how workable they are for you.

~Rusty

_________________
Master:
- AMD 1800XP on a MSI KT4V motherboard, via KT400 bios
- 120 G Segate Baracuda /, /cache, /myth, swap
- 200 G Segate Baracuda /myth/tv
- 3 Haupauge! WinTV PVR250s
- 19" Daewoo Monitor (1280x1024 ni)