[mythtv-users] Announcement: Looking for Alpha testers for a generic Lossless cut solution

[Kevon]

On 10/08/2012 10:01 AM, Doug Vaughan wrote:
>    Currently the "Lossless Cut" set of utilities are available as an
> Alpha release. The intent is to have MythTV users qualify their recorded
> videos to determine the script's compatibility with a wide variety of
> recording devices.
>
>      So far the utilities successfully performs loss less cuts on HDPVR
> h.264 and UK freeview DVB-T Mpeg recordings. Hopefully with the
> assistance of the MythTV community we can identify other recording
> devices which work and/or have the script improved to include additional
> devices and their encoding types.
>
>    Despite having various lossless cut solutions there is not one set of
> utilities that can deal with the wide variety of video, audio and
> subtitle formats MythTV is capable of recording. This is specifically
> true of h.264 encoded videos. The Lossless Cut utilities are an attempt
> to resolve that limitation. It may or may not be successful, that is why
> I need your help.
>
> Here is Lossless Cut's feature list, hopefully it will entice you to
> give it a try.
> For full details refer to the Lossless Cut wiki page at:
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Lossless_Cut
>
> Lossless Cut features list:
> - Supports MythTV versions 0.24+fixes and higher
> - Supports NTSC, PAL, SD, HD 720p and 1080i recordings (this claim needs
> to be verified by the Alpha testers)
> - A wide variety of MythTV recorded video, audio and subtitle formats
> are supported.
>    See:
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Lossless_Cut#Supported_Containers.2C_video_and_audio_encoding_types_and_subtitle_formats
>
> - Supports automatic subtitle conversion to SRT format, cut and remuxing
> into the final mkv video
> - Support for recordings with multiple audio, video and subtitle tracks
> - A Debian PPA is available along with source. The PPA has the benefit
> of always keeping you up to date with the latest enhancements and bug
> fixes. The source tarball can be easily downloaded and installed on
> non-Debian based distros. Check the wiki page's installation
> instructions for details.
> - Includes a userjob that adjusts commercial flag cut frames to their
> closest keyframes. This speeds up manual review of commercial flagged
> cuts points.
> - Supports three types of loss less cut user jobs:
>    - Export to MythVideo with grabber enhanced metadata or EPG metadata
>    - Cut and Save a mkv video file to a user specified directory
>    - In place Cut and Replace a Recording with the lossless cut mkv file
> - Full integration with the MythTV metadata grabbers including a fall
> back to EPG metadata when the program cannot be found by the grabbers
>    - Uses the grabbers as specified in the MythTV settings including the
> language code
> - When exported or moved, the mkv file is renamed to a customisable
> format e.g. "Sanctuary - S02E01 - End of Nights (1).mkv"
> - When exported to MythVideo any missing sub directories will be
> automatically created according to a customisable path and naming
> convention
> - The MythVideo Video storage group does not have to be on the same
> backend as the recording backend. Transfer of the cut mkv file is
> handled by the MythTV backend.
> - By default, metadata will be added to the mkv container (title,
> subtitle, season and episode numbers, program description)
> - An included support script provides text bug reports, automated video
> sample creation and wiki compatible text for adding your own recording
> device to the "Supported Recording Devices" or "Unsupported Recording
> Devices" table rows
> - A text configuration file provides a convenient method to customise
> "lossless_cut.cfg"
> - The command line and arguments used during each step of the loss less
> cut processing is added to a Log file, which is generated with every
> userjob. The log file is automatically deleted if the job successfully
> completes. This is essential information for problem analysis.
>
> Listed at the top of the wiki page are some of the Alpha testing needs
> but feel free to test, test, test ... Remember that no software is fully
> debugged until it is obsolete.
>
> I will do the best I can to improve the Lossless Cut utilities to
> support as many MythTV recording devices but there is no doubt some will
> never be supported.
>
> Thanks
>
> Doug


Haven't done any transcoding yet, but had a few issues with the 
installation worth mentioning. I am installing from source and I had 
issue with:
1. There is a required dependency on "python-dateutil". Could you update 
the dependency on the wiki?
2. I had issue with mkvmerge because my myth box had an older version of 
boost than my build box. While the command line displayed a library 
error, lossless_cut error only stated that the utility was not 
accessible, "Error(The MKVToolNix utility "mkvmerge" is not installed or 
cannot be accessed by this script...". Is it possible to update the 
error for the dependency check to output the actual command line error? 
That would make troubleshooting a bit easier.