MCEBuddy 2.x

New Post: having a hard time constraining bitrate.

zhulick — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:22:55 GMT

hey guys,

i've been using mcebuddy though it's various and improving versions for at least a year now with zero issues... mostly it's been converting cartoons for the kids and has been pretty much flawless...

lately i've tried to make it do a little more and it seems like i'm running into an unexpected problem...

currently i'm trying to convert a bunch of mkv's into mp4's... the conversion goes fine, but the bitrate of the output file seems to be all over the place.... i've tried a couple of profiles - high mp4, and high m4v (both 2 pass) with similar results... i even tried a modified m4v profile where i manually set the bitrate to 1500, but that appeared to have no effect...

basically, my output files come out at a bitrate much higher then specified.... for example, high m4v has a default bitrate of 2000, but my files come out at an arbitrary bitrate of anywhere between 3000-4000, one file came in almost at 5.... manually setting the bitrate higher/lower seems to make no difference....

i do not have these issues when converting wtv files, so all the converted wtv comes out at whatever bitrate i specify... i'm guessing either mkv's are treated differently, or i have something setup wrong...

please help, and thank you :)

New Post: Audio Sync issues MP2/MP3/AAC in TS and AVI unprocessed profiles when commercials cut

rboy1 — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:26:36 GMT

you can try it, never hurts. I'm a little confused about the audio sync isue. Can you upload a sample WTV file and teh profile you're using that creates teh audio sync issue, I will try to replicate and see if it can fixed.

New Post: Audio Sync issues MP2/MP3/AAC in TS and AVI unprocessed profiles when commercials cut

lightman2 — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:02:45 GMT

Sounds like I can make up an MKV unprocessed similar to AVI and TS Unprocessed from your comment.

Looking at my device manual for MKV I see it supports Dolby Digital which looks to be AC-3, but I've gone down this track of conversion to MP2/MP3/AAC as I've never seen it play the AC3 from MCEBuddy output. Are there any options I can add to the ac3 codec that might alter this format? I suspect something very subtle here might be the answer.

I have been using the latest Beta, I used this mornings today. I've found that preconversioncommercialremoval helps a little, enough that I used it but does not resolve the audio sync.

I also noticed ForceWTVStreamsRemuxing=true, particularly that it only supports one audio stream, but that might be a good thing in this case?

New Post: Audio Sync issues MP2/MP3/AAC in TS and AVI unprocessed profiles when commercials cut

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:20:56 GMT

You're on the right track. You can also try MKV format with ffmpeg and copy for the vcodec.

Regarding Audio sync have tried updating to the latest version. There are some changes in the past few weeks that might help with commercial cutting issues.

Try using preconversioncommercialremoval=trueand false with the latest BETA

Commented Feature: Feature Enhancement: Customizable email subject [1551]

lightman2 — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:20:45 GMT

Would it be possible to support customization of the email subject line? Perhaps support substitution parameters such as %showname%... like the CustomRenameBySeries parameter?

I recognize some of these parameters can only have values after the series info is downloaded which might make the starting conversion substitution more limited.

For consideration, parameters could be added to the mcebuddy.conf file:

eMailSuccessSubject=MCEBuddy started a video conversion

Which could then be customized like:

eMailSuccessSubject=MCEBuddy started conversation of %showname% - %episode%
Comments: ** Comment from web user: lightman2 **

Just had a chance to try this, excellent, thank you!

Makes it easy to keep an eye on the status when combined with an email filter to put all such emails in a folder without having to open each one, a birds eye view on one screen.

New Post: Audio Sync issues MP2/MP3/AAC in TS and AVI unprocessed profiles when commercials cut

lightman2 — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:57:30 GMT

All was well until one of the point 2.3.12.x releases (Don't recall the precise version) conversion to WTV worked and I could follow it with wtvconverter to change the output wtv to dvr-ms to be compatible with my external media devices and all was well.

With WTV broken I've been looking for the easiest substitute, one that does not require conversion, the MPEG2 video stream in the WTV is of good quality, my goal is to change the container with minimum processing and produce output compatible with WMC and my media devices. The rub is the AC3 audio, it is not compatible with my media devices and needs to be converted to either MP2, MP3 or AAC.

I have spent hours, wade thru the documentation on this site and whatever I could find on the Internet and tried dozens of experiments, what I have found is that either the AVI MPEG-2 Unprocessed or TS Unprocessed profiles when simply substituting MP2, MP3 or libvo_aacenc for copy in ffmpeg-audioac3 and work beautifully when not removing commercials.

The moment I introduce commercial removal, no matter what permutation I try, the audio starts out in sync but comes out of sync at some random time, stopping and restart the video in either WMC or a media device restores synchronization for short periods.

In desperation I tried a two stage conversion, first cutting commercials using either of the stock unprocessed profiles and then the either of the unprocessed profiles with the MP2/MP3 or AAC conversion without commercial removal, this had logistical challenges but surprisingly did not produce usable output, still suffered from audio sync and sometimes lack of video.

I am open to any ideas, would really like to get this resolved, help appreciated.

Source code checked in, #29338

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:19 GMT

don't hold lock while checking suspend status since system might be shutting down and lead to deadlock

Updated Release: MCEBuddy 2.3.13 (Apr 15, 2013)

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:49:43 GMT

REFER TO DISCUSSION FORUM https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/439439 TO GET ACCESS TO EARLY ACCESS PROGRAM TO DOWNLOAD BETA RELEASES.

REFER TO RELEASE NOTES FOR DETAILS ON CHANGES IN THIS BETA RELEASE.
YOU CAN ALSO REFER TO THIS THREAD FOR DETAILS ON THE 2.3.13 BETA https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/442231

Released: MCEBuddy 2.3.13 (Apr 15, 2013)

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:49:43 GMT

Source code checked in, #29337

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:48:28 GMT

Source code checked in, #29336

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:47:23 GMT

mkvmerge 6.2.0

Source code checked in, #29335

rboy1 — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:41:25 GMT

Removed header compression and added meta seek for better compatibility Now use MKVMerge for remuxing first before trying ffmpeg

New Post: Migrating files from old PVR into Windows Media Center with Metadata

rboy1 — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:47:44 GMT

no I will need to make a new build for it but first I need confirmation that you can make that happen. am also trying to work on custom naming metadata scripts

New Post: fixing header stripping on MKV and MP4 with AC3 encoding

rboy1 — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:41:02 GMT

Wait for teh next BETA build for MCEBuddy tomorrow, I've fixed some issues with MKV compatability (seekign cues etc) and hopefully it will work fine.

New Post: fixing header stripping on MKV and MP4 with AC3 encoding

lymanalpha — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:57:59 GMT

OK, it seems like the compression is gone with the new version of mkvmerge (according to mediainfo)... but I'm still getting errors at certain points on my PS3 with converted files. I'm at a loss to figure out what's going on if it's not the compression.
I figured out how to convert to MP4 with all the settings I want though.

New Post: fixing header stripping on MKV and MP4 with AC3 encoding

rboy1 — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:27:07 GMT

it's a quirk of MKVMerge, don't worry about it. You can upload the file to MCEBuddy ftp server (see the discussion read me before posting)

TRy this simple fix:

On hte MCEBuddy server I've put the latest build of MKVMerge.exe (this one disabled header compression by default)

Download it and put into the MCEBuddy Installation Directory\MKVMerge folder. (replace the one existing). Now run your conversion and see if the problem has been fixed.

(you don't need to upload your file if the problem is fixed)

Source code checked in, #29300

rboy1 — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:14:12 GMT

allowe mcebuddy to respond to query power events and expose interface to check suspend permission from engine

Edited Feature: Preventing Hibernation [1554]

rboy1 — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:13:33 GMT

I am unable to prevent my computer from going into hibernation when a conversion task is running. Allow 'Sleep' is not checked and that does seem to prevent the computer from going into Sleep, but not Hibernate.

I'm running the service on an HTPC which is supposed to hibernate when idle for five minutes and I can't seem to figure out a way to keep it awake while the conversion is running short of disabling hibernate.

Commented Issue: Preventing Hibernation [1554]

rboy1 — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:13:10 GMT

Okay I've added some code to prevent standby and hibernate where possible, bt remember in most cases MCEBuddy cannot (not most programs) prevent the system from going into hibernate.

Hibernate is a system fail safe (e.g battery low) to prevent catastrophe.

MCEBuddy ONLY prevent the system from going into Standby.

New Post: fixing header stripping on MKV and MP4 with AC3 encoding

lymanalpha — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:53:13 GMT

I'm using release 12 of MCE Buddy 2.12 and the profile I was using for MKV conversion was MKV High Quality. In advanced settings I have "rename and sort by video information", "download series info", "extract MC information" and "multichannel audio" all ticked. I also have the maximum width set to 1280. I use ShowAnalyzer for commercial stripping. Everything else is default.

What's odd is this doesn't happen all the time with the stripping. I have a folder full of recordings of one show that don't show header stripping through May 2 and then from May 9 on it's happening. I record from OTA using HD Homerun to my desktop computer running Windows Media Center (Win 7). I don't remember changing anything. But I do remember having problems with a couple of episodes of a show a few months ago (at least I was plagued by the same PS3 error). Did this current issue possibly coincide with my installation of the version 12 release?

A sample wtv file that has this problem when converted is close to 3 GB. Where could I upload that to? Else I could send you a torrent to it.

I really appreciate the program, just donated via paypal (spehrson at yahoo).
Thanks.