[mythtv] transcoding with cutlist

[Geoffrey Hausheer]

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 20:55:49 -0700, "Chris Petersen
lists-at-forevermore.net |mythtv/1.0-Allow|"
<o8f8hesx3k0t at sneakemail.com> said:
> Ok, now that I know that I can actually non-transcode things and keep a
> cutlist, I have a couple of findings..  I'm transcoding through myth,
> with the X key while watching a show.  (using cvs from yesterday or so)
Good.  I am thinking I will revamp the db options again.  It is overly
complicated to enable the transcoder today.  I am not sure there is a
good reason not to hardwire thenumber of transcoders at 1, and have the
polling thread always running.  Also the 'Flag commercials' should always
be set. Then the only option would be whether you want auto-transcoding
on or not (during auto-transcoding, the cutlist would be ignored).

> 
> First of all, is there something which prevents my hitting X multiple
> times from resulting in multiple transcodes of the same program?  I
> deleted entries from the transcoding table, and they transcoded anyway,
> so I thought I'd mention this.

You can hit 'X' multiple times, but it will only keep one occurance in
the db.  there is, however, no way to abort a transcode.  the polling
thread in mythtranscode actually has two copies of the 'to-be-transcoded'
list. One is stored in the transocding DB, the other is in a linked-list
in memory.  if you remove a recording form the db (one which has a status
of -3), the transcoder won't notice, and will still transcode the file. 
This is not ideal, and it is probably a good idea to just make all
communication through the db.  I didn't want to because it meant polling
the db every 30 seconds, and didn't seem a good idea at the time, but it
is probably the right way to go now.  In any case, whatever I do, I'll
make it so hitting 'X' again will remove the program from the queue.

> 
> Also, though the commercial flag information is removed after
> transcoding, the cutlist is not.  This results in some pretty weird cut
> points.

That IS weird.  It is supposed to remove the cutlist.  I haven't been
watching CVS too closely, maybe something changed in the cutlist handling
that affects the transcoder.  I'll look into it.

> 
> And lastly, on at least one transcode (still waiting for others to
> finish), only the first cut section was removed.

I've never seen that happen either.

> 
> Oh, and THANK YOU to whoever made it keep the .old files around - saves
> me a headache while testing.
Yes I did that on purpose.  Of course it means you can fill up your
hard-drive pretty quickly, but until the transcoder has had more testing
than just by me, I think it is safer to leave it there.

.Geoff
-- 
  Geoffrey Hausheer
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