andy vt's tools & blog

QSTranscode - 1.0.0.8

babgvant — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:54:00 GMT

I just realized that I never released this rev. The change log is small, but there were some bigger changes to the internals to add non-MSDK supported video CODECs support.

1.0.0.8
- Check video codec profile for HW support
- Decode video codecs that are unsupported by MSDK with FFMPEG
- Explicit DX11 support

QSTranscode - 1.0.0.7

babgvant — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:44:00 GMT

1.0.0.7
- If "-of 23" is specified and the reported frame rate is 29.97 soft telecine mode will be enabled (video is converted at 23.976)
- Fix a bug where folder based sources didn't signal EOF properly

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Security is a hassle. That's the point.

babgvant — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:27:00 GMT

We don't put locks on our doors because it's convenient. We do it to create inconvenience when someone wants to open them, hoping the bad guys respect that - moving on to an easier target. We use other methods like alarms, cameras, etc. to encourage the selection of other, easier, targets. None of these things is a guarantee against a determined adversary and the right tools. Using these techniques is not costless to us. It's a pain to have to carry a key, remember to carry a key, enter key codes or set the alarm. Of course we do these things because the hassle it creates for us, also affects those who would otherwise prey on our stuff. It generally works because the hassle is disproportionate.

The same thing is true about electronic doors. We use passwords and usernames to lock down accounts on the Interwebs. Making the same exchange in hassle (i.e. remembering passwords & usernames on myriad sites) there, as we do in the physical realm, hoping to realize the same disproportionate trade-off - two factor authentication doesn't change the fundamentals it just ratchets up the inconvenience realized by us and the bad guys.

Adding to this, we have to trust that the companies that host "our" data are investing the appropriate amount of care in building locks and safes. Are they using SSL, hashing our passwords, or building social-engineering resistant recovery mechanisms? These things aren't free, they cost money (a lot of money) and time to buy, build, and implement properly - everywhere.

At its core security is just about creating inconvenience, hopefully uneconomically viable amounts of inconvenience, and that's a hassle. For everyone. If only it was this easy:

QSTranscode - 1.0.0.6

babgvant — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:23:00 GMT

1.0.0.6
- Add sanity checks on FFMPEG reported frame rate
- Don't parse AAC, FLAC, or COOK audio
- Revert to FFMPEG 1.13
- Drop audio frames scheduled before video stream begins
- Use the aspect ratio to calculate unspecified width/height parameters except when the AR = 1
- Add support for soft telecined video files (unlike DVDs they will be encoded at reported framerate)

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QSTranscode - 1.0.0.5

babgvant — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:16:00 GMT

1.0.0.5
- Don't try to select non-folder sources audio tracks by language
- Don't crash when an unsupported video codec is found
- Update to FFMPEG 1.2
- Add -cp argument to select an encoding profile
- Add -cl argument to select an encoding level

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QSTranscode - 1.0.0.3

babgvant — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:20:00 GMT

1.0.0.3
- Add BDMV support
- Add -rc arg to select rate control method

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QSTranscode - 1.0.0.2

babgvant — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:45:00 GMT

1.0.0.2
- Better support for files without audio
- Add VIDEO_TS support
- Disable MFX_EXTBUFF_VPP_PROCAMP

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QSTranscode - 1.0.0.1

babgvant — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:13:00 GMT

1.0.0.1
- Better handle files where the frame rate is not detected by scanning the header
- Better support for VC-1
- Add -detect arg to dump the file format without processing the file
- Add support for files without audio

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QSTranscode

babgvant — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:15:00 GMT

QSTranscode:

Command line utility that can be used to transcode video files using Intel QuickSync for
decoding/encoding and FFMPEG for container and audio support. Edit files are supported in
EDL and XML format for editing while transcoding.

Special thanks to Hendrik Leppkes & Eric Gur for their efforts on LAV Filters and the
Intel QuickSync Decoder and for opening the code for these projects. They demonstrated
many of the concepts leveraged here as well as providing source code.

Usage: qstranscode.exe -i "InputFile" -o "OutputFile" -w width -h height [options]
Where [options] can be:
   [-h264|-mpeg2|-jpeg] - output video codec
    [-aac|-ac3|-mp3] - output audio codec, if missing audio will be copied without transcoding
    [-f frameRate] - output video frame rate
    [-b bitRate] - encoded video bit rate (Kbits per second), valid for H.264, MPEG2 and MVC encoders
    [-u 1|4|7] - target usage: quality (1), balanced (4) or speed (7); valid for H.264, MPEG2 and MVC encoders. Default is balanced
    [-q quality] - quality parameter for JPEG encoder; in range [1,100], 100 is the best quality
    [-l numSlices] - number of slices for encoder; default value 0
    [-w] - destination picture width, if both width & height are unspecified detected intput size will be used, can be used with height or by itself where output height will be calculated
    [-h] - destination picture height, if both width & height are unspecified detected intput size will be used, can be used with width or by itself where output width will be calculated
    [-async] - depth of asynchronous pipeline. Default value 25.
   [-sw|-hw|-hw_d3d11] - SDK implementation to use: t-hw - platform-specific on default display adapter (default),t-hw_d3d11 - platform-specific via d3d11t-sw - software.
    [-join] - join session with other session(s), by default sessions are not joined
    [-priority] - use priority for join sessions. 0 - Low, 1 - Normal, 2 - High. Normal by default
    [-n ] - Number of frames to limit transcoding
    [-angle 180] - enables 180 degrees picture rotation user module before encoding
    [-opencl] - uses implementation of rotation plugin (enabled with -angle option) through Intel(R) OpenCL
    [-deinterlace] - forces VPP to deinterlace input stream, if unset interlaced video will be deinterlaced if detected
    [-ab bitRate] - encoded audio bit rate (Kbits per second), defaults to 64000
    [-ac channels] - number of audio channels to mix to, defaults to 2 use 0 to specify "auto"
    [-at tracknumber] - audio track to transcode, when unset the "best" audio track is used
    [-e EditsFile] - path to EDL or XML file with cut points

1.0.0.0
- Initial release

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SageDCT - 2.7.2

babgvant — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:20:00 GMT

Getting closer...

2.7.2
- Add FfmpegProbeMultiplier setting. Multiplies default ffmpeg probesize by this number. Default is 1.
- Add FfmpegAnalyzeMultiplier setting. Multiplies default ffmpeg max_analyze_duration by this number. Default is 1.
- Use av_find_best_stream to select video and audio tracks to be placed in position 0 & 1 in output file.

installers

FfmpegTest

babgvant — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:11:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I was having a realy hard time trying to figure out how to transcode audio with ffmpeg. It turned out to pretty straight forward, but I ended up crawling through ffmpeg.c to find out how to do it.

As I want to figure out other concepts with ffmpeg I will add them to this project. Because it's not terribly useful (mostly POC) just source is available in SVN.

Hopefully this will save others time and trouble.

SageDCT - 2.7.0

babgvant — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:22:00 GMT

Haven't heard any negative feedback (besides speed) of the new Ffmpeg capture method so I'm opening up 2.7.0 to Early Access members.

2.7.0
- Add Ffmpeg RTP capture method. Preferred way to capture TS for other platforms

Download

FFMpegMux

babgvant — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 23:41:00 GMT

Simple command line utility that can be used to remux media files from one container to another. The main purpose is to scrub MPTS files created by SageDCT so media programs that don't deal with these files well can play a remuxed version.

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DTB 1.2.2.6 R5 - EA Release

babgvant — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:25:00 GMT

This is an Early Access release.

Version 1.2.2.6
- Add support for LAV Video decoder (forces DI and HWA decode, if available, during transcoding)
- Fix a bug in codec detection when incomplete video stream informations is present
- Fix a bug where JRSidecar xml files are deleted by the FW cleanup process
- Incorporate updated TVDB scrapper action
- Stop registering OOTB filters globally
- Transition to "Known Filters" registration scheme, loader will fall back on global lookups (normal DS) in some cases
- Bundle LAV and Haali filters with DTB in unregistered state
- Remove outdated applications from installer. Now available via separate download.
- Fix a memory leak in the FW when multiple update events are fired in rapid succession.
- Better support for EDL files when not using SageTV
- Better support for storing artifacts with TV files
- Add support for Mi Casa Verde Vera HA scene execution
- Fix bug introduced earlier in 1.2.2.6 FindCommercials
- Change DTB VE to use registrationless COM filter method

download

DTBAddin 1.0.0.8 R4 - EA Release

babgvant — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:22:00 GMT

This is an Early Access release.

1.0.0.8
- Installs on W8 (untested)
- Add automatic edl -> xml conversion
- Disable key handling when Info dialog is triggered
- Mi Casa Verde Vera Scene triggering based on events/experiences
- Enhance skip back functionality.

download

LcdWriter Updated

babgvant — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:29:00 GMT

I fixed an issue with LcdWriter a while back, but forgot to release it so...

Updated 01/31/13: Fix an issue with how recording sessions are tracked in WMC

Download

WOL Website

babgvant — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:38:00 GMT

I recently picked up a Rasbery Pi and as part of the playing with it I installed Mono and put a simple website that I wrote a long time ago to send WOL packets to systems on the local network. I never released it publicly because the number of people running IIS at home is probably pretty low, but since it works on Linux + Mono it's a cheap and easy way to add this feature to your home network.

Enjoy.

IP-RC6 1.0.0.2

babgvant — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 01:03:00 GMT

1.0.0.2

- Add per process KeyMap functionality (for use w/ HTREMOTE)

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Zmodo Security DVR JPEG Server - Obtuse OEM, but the price was right.

babgvant — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 13:43:00 GMT

I recently picked up a Zmodo security DVR system off of Woot, and while it works a well as I could expect given the camera quality and price point. Unfortunately since it doesn't support my HA system or Windows Phone (both reasonable deficiencies) OOTB it was more novel toy than useful tool. It's not my style to accept these sorts of things so I contacted Zmodo and offered to write tools to make it work in both scenarios then asked nicely for the specifics on how to interact with the device. Let's just say that didn't go as planned.

Frankly, this kind of shortsighted behavior from hardware OEMs baffles me. They make their money from hardware sales, giving away the software clients to make it useful enough for end-users to get the value proposition. When someone offers to make your platform more valuable, for free, the correct response is not to tell them to shove off (even politely). Ultimately, all this does is slow down the motivated, making it more expensive (in time) to get it working.

I know this is rambling, but as the title foreshadowed it got done - just took longer than it should have.

ZmodoServer is a Widows service that connects on-demand to the mobile h.264 stream exposed by the DVR creates a JPEG (or MJPEG) exposed via HTTP. By default it is setup to work with LAV Video (not included) but any H.264 decoder that accepts MEDIASUBTYPE_H264 and exposes MEDIASUBTYPE_RGB24 or MEDIASUBTYPE_RGB32 should work (I use ArcSoft's).

Have an Onkyo Remote with Ethernet and a Windows Phone?

babgvant — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 02:10:00 GMT

Generally there's nothing to get too excited about when it comes to HT gear and apps, but Onkyo AVRs are different because they can also act as an IP-to-CEC bridge (so you can theoretically control any CEC connected device through the AVR). I'm working on an app that does just that, as well as the normal app-like functions. If you're interested in beta testing please let me know.

Vera Control - Mi Casa Verde Windows Phone Control Application

babgvant — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 02:10:00 GMT

I've recently gotten into home automation (HA), so much so that it's become an integral part of how we manage most of the lights and security at my house. I wrote a full review of the HA controller (a Mi Casa Verde VeraLite) over at Missing Remote, but I forgot to post here that I also wrote a Windows Phone application (Vera Control) to interact with it.

Some screenshots are included below:

DTB 1.2.2.6 R2 + DTB Addin 1.0.0.8 R2 EA

babgvant — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:46:00 GMT

Version 1.2.2.6
- Add support for LAV Video decoder (forces DI and HWA decode, if available, during transcoding)
- Fix a bug in codec detection when incomplete video stream informations is present
- Fix a bug where JRSidecar xml files are deleted by the FW cleanup process
- Incorporate updated TVDB scrapper action
- Stop registering OOTB filters globally
- Transition to "Known Filters" registration scheme, loader will fall back on global lookups (normal DS) in some cases
- Bundle LAV and Haali filters with DTB in unregistered state
- Remove outdated applications from installer. Now available via separate download.
- Fix a memory leak in the FW when multiple update events are fired in rapid succession.
- Better support for EDL files when not using SageTV
- Better support for storing artifacts with TV files
- Add support for Mi Casa Verde Vera HA scene execution

bin

1.0.0.8
- Installs on W8 (untested)
- Add automatic edl -> xml conversion
- Disable key handling when Info dialog is triggered
- Mi Casa Verde Vera Scene triggering based on events/experiences

bin

SageDCT - 2.6.0

babgvant — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:16:00 GMT

2.6.0
- Change how presentation URL is obtained for compatibility with upcoming HDHR FW release

x86 | x64

SageDCT - 2.5.0

babgvant — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 19:54:00 GMT

2.5.0
- Fix a bug where the current file path wasn't set when using VLC

x86 | x64

SageDCT - 2.4.0

babgvant — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:54:00 GMT

2.4.0
- Internal tweaks (should fix issues introduced in 2.3.0)

x86 | x64