How does one enable auto transcoding of recordings?

In all of my recording schedules I've set "transcode new
recordings" and "transcode using medium quality". But, when
shows are recorded they aren't being transcoded (and there's no
indication in the mythbackend log that it was attempted). I
have to schedule the transcode job manually (which works fine).

I've looked at numerous HOWTOs and Wiki pages and forum
threads, but I can't find any clues -- all they mention are the
settings I've aready done. The manual section on transcoding
seems to be all about exporting/archiving (which isn't really
related to what I'm attempting to do).

_________________
Grant

AFAIK you need to setup a User Job - See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Re ... ommercials and the script it references here http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Sc ... ommercials

So, to fix everything you already have scheduled, from the frontend menus find "Manage Recordings" then select "Upcoming Recordings", then select a recording and press "Enter" to bring up another screen then select "Edit Options" and press enter. Select "post recording processing" then enter and you'll see a list of arrows.

Second item will likely say "Do not transcode new recordings". This is why nothing is happening. Use the L/R arrow keys to toggle that setting to "Transcode new recordings". Escape to the previous screen and select "Save these settings". This should change the settings for every upcoming episode of that show.

Now to fix for the future.

Go to setup (Alt-S). Choose General, go to the 7th screen, select "Allow transcoding jobs". Otherwise, for each recording, you have to manually set transcoding to take place, which is separate from setting what level of transcoding to perform. Now, whenever you add a show to be recorded and also set a transcoding setting, the transcoding will actually take place.

Then what are all the auto-transcoding settings for?

_________________
Grant

Yup, did all that.

Did that too.

What do you mean by "set transcoding to take place?" Do you
mean queue the job, or is there an "enable" flag for the
two settings that you described in the first section?

Except it doesn't take place. I checked both the file type and
the backend logs for a recording that took place last night.
The recording wasn't transcoded even though the recording
schedule was configured to transcode new recordings (and the
global transcoding enable flag was set).

I'll verify the scheduling options for the next few upcoming
recordings to make sure the transcoding options are set and see
what happens.

_________________
Grant

Like you, I hadn't been able to have recordings auto-transcode. Reading through yours and mogator88's posts I found the setting I had been missing - "Default Auto Transcode setting". I just tested it on my system and it worked (R5D1 with MythTV .20.2 from -fixes).

Prior to this the only way I had successfully auto-transcoded recordings (without going into the properties for each recording to specifically enable it) was to setup a User Job pointing to the script I linked to and make sure that "Run User Job #1 On New Recordings" was enabled.

What I mean is that its a "quirk" of mythtv that setting a show to be transcoded to a certain quality level is separate from setting a show to even be transcoded.

Yes, you would think that when you program a recording and set it to be transcoded to medium quality that it would actually happen. However, you also have to set the show to be transcoded in the first place. That's just the way it is.

OK, then where do you set it be transcoded?

Fine. Can somebody please tell me how to "set the show to be
transcoded in the first place"?

Too bad there's nothing in the manual about it. [At least not
that I can find.]

_________________
Grant

OK, I give up, where's _that_ setting at? Is that yet another
global "enable transcoding" flag? How many places do you have
to enable transcoding anyway?

Is any of this documented somewhere? The "transcoding" section
of the manual seems to be about exporting files to DVD and
various other largely unrelated stuff.

_________________
Grant

Never mind. "Default auto transcode setting" was already set
(and had been for a while) along with the default transcoder
being set to "medium quality".

I just checked a couple recordings that were made this evening
and none of them were transcoded. Before those recordings
started I double-checked their recording options and they were
to be auto-transcoded using medium quality. [All my recording
rules are set up to transcode new recordings with medium
quality]. I've enabled "default transcoding setting" and the
"default transcoder" is set to medium quality. I've enabled
the global "enable transcoding" on the backend setup.

Yet nothing gets transcoded unless I manually queue the job.

This all seems way too complicated...

_________________
Grant

Just re-read my first post in the thread.

All of the settings you described were already set the way
you said they should be. Which one is the "set the show to be
transcoded in the first place" setting?

The global "enable transcoding" on the backend was set.

On all of the recording rules the "transcode new recordings" is
selected and the transcoder is set to "medium" quality.

On the frontend options default transcoding is enabled and
the default transcoder is set to medium.

New recordings are not getting transcoded.

_________________
Grant

That is the "set the show to be transcoded in the first place" setting.

I'll have to give this some more thought.

I rebooted the machine last night just in case there were
settings that the backend didn't notice except at startup. I'll
schedule a couple new recordings today to see if 1) the
auto-transcode defaults show up in the recording rule, 2) the
transcode settings in the new rules actually work.

I have commercial flagging disabled in case that matters --
though the commflagging job is still running (to generate a
seek table I presume).

_________________
Grant

Commercial flagging shouldn't have any affect. In fact one form of transcoding, a lossless transcode, should do nothing more than remove those flagged sections.

You didn't check the "lossless transcoding" box, did you?