Organization of Video Compression Screens

[Boilermaker]

thanks for adding the video compression feature within mp. I have one question/suggestion about the way its laid out. Right now, you have to go to my recorded tv, then to compression which is essentially a blank screen with four buttons...then onto the compression tool. is there a way to organize things so that there is one less level of screens to drill down thru to get to the compression tool (the screen that is mycompresstv.xml)?

Maybe combine the compression status and the screen with the compression list control into one screen and add a button on that screen that toggles between the two views. then combine the auto compress and compression settings into one screen and move it under the my settings section.

[Nash]

Howdi,
is the compression already working for you?
I always get a "failure" message in the Status screen.
I have "mencoder" copied in the mediaportal directory.
Is there something else to do (e.g register some dlls)
Thank's in advance

Regards
Jens

[Boilermaker]

I hadn't actually tried to compress anything until i saw your reply to this post....i was only commenting on the organization, not if/how compression worked. i did record a couple minutes of tv to try it out, and it worked for me. i really didnt do anything specific, i am using mediaportal-cvs-06-16-2005--02-23.rar right now. i was having a problem with something else, so just prior to updating to this cvs version, i uninstalled mp entirely, installed .1.2.0 then updated. i also copied the mencoder files into the mencoder directory, but didn not register anything beyond that (such as registering dlls).

my current compression settings are:
type: wmv
quality: high
priority: high

altho delete original file is checked, i cannot change it, nor did it actually delete the original file. i dont have any codec packs installed, just the nvidia dvd decoder, dscaler .0.0.6 and ffdshow.

i dont know if any of this helped, i played with the compression too much, as i was reskinning mce for my widescreen, my previous post were some of my observations.

EDIT....the latest cvs has added a few lines to the first compressoin screen that explains you need elecard mpg2 decoders installed to encode to wmv or xvid. i had elecard installed at one point, but uninstalled it, but it still seems to be working for me. maybe one of the other decoders is replacing elecard, if you dont have elecard installed, that could be the source of the problem.

[dipje]

Hey,

it isn't really working for me either. I tried mpeg/wmv/xvid, but nothing. This is on the latest CVS.

Registered the cyberlink filters (cldump.ax / mpgmux.ax) and installed the elecard decoder (mpgdec.ax). I still get an 'error' status after about 0,5 seconds when I try to convert something.

I only installed the elecard decoder filter. Maybe it needs the demuxers from elecard too (the whole player package). I'll try installed the trial.

I used the cyberlink filters to mux the dvr-ms files to in-sync .mpg (MPEG2-PS) files for some time (with graphedit), and that works fine. So no issue there.

A few comments on the compress feature now: Why does it need a specific mpeg2 decoder? Why does it even need a mpeg decoder filter, while mencoder can handle mpeg2 program streams just fine? I don't know how the feature works behind-the-scenes, so maybe it streams the data from the cyberlink-dumper trough the decoder to mencoder, so it doesn't have to write the whole .mpg file first?

Anyway, I mean to say: this are just some questions that popped up, no critique :). The feature seems to be doing (almost) all I wanted it to do or what I whished for.. and it's still CVS so I'll wait how it turns out when it is released.

[jcee]

It is not working for me here too..

Maybe I am too stupid: I cannot find out how to select files!! When I select a recording under that compression menu, it only asks me to playback or delete.

I have to select what I want to compress, or?!

[Nash]

OkiDoki,
it's working for me after installing elecard codec pack version 2.0.

This is now really a nice feature.

Bye
Nash

[Boilermaker]

Maybe I am too stupid: I cannot find out how to select files!! When I select a recording under that compression menu, it only asks me to playback or delete.

I'm using a keyboard and mouse for navigaing mp...when i clicked on the file in the list with my mouse, its title turned yellow. it took me a while to catch on to that. then i was able to compress the files. i dont know how to select files with just a remote.

after playing with compression some more i found not everything was working properly for me until i went back and reinstalled elecard 2.0. the other thing i noticed is that there are a few tags missing from the skin xml files that would allow us to check/uncheck delete file when finished radio boxes. i added a width, height and align tags to the .xml files, and now i can at least change the settings. haven't tried them out yet tho.

i really like the potential of this feature tho, saves the step of opening a separate program to change video file formats. mp devs, keep up the good work.

Originally Posted by Nash

OkiDoki,
it's working for me after installing elecard codec pack version 2.0.

This is now really a nice feature.

Bye
Nash

With working, you mean converting to
mpeg-2 AND wmv AND XviD ??

Greetings,

[jcee]

@Boilermaker, Thanks. I found out how to select.. With the mouse.. but how is it done via remote? There must be some key(s)

Why is Elecard needed?

Does DIVX,WMV work then..?

[waeberd]

The compression feature is very new and still under heavy development. There will be more info and some small HowTo's coming soon....

Thanks,

Daniel