andy vt's tools & blog

Sigh.  I thought I had everything perfectly set up...I managed to do up a profile that would take the shows I want, cut the commercials out of them, convert to MPG and then run wmcmd.vbs on them to get them to a 720p wmv file that would conveniently be put in the proper directory overnight.  And it worked great for about three weeks.  Then, all of a sudden, Tuesday night, it stopped working.  WMCMD would just hang at 100% no matter what.  The rest of the process wouldn't go on.

 The script I am working with is as follows, and it is called from DVRMSToolbox as a run external with %TempMpeg% and %OutputFile% as variables:

 c:\windows\system32\cscript.exe "c:\program files\dvrmstoolbox\scripts\wmcmd.vbs" -a_codec wmapro -a_mode 2 -a_setting Q90_48_6_24 -v_preproc 1 -v_codec wvc1 -v_height 720 -v_width 1280 -v_mode 2 -v_quality 90 -input %1 -output %2

DVRMStoWMVHD still works, but it has those interlacing artifacts (see previous posts) and they're really noticeable. 

In addition, I can use WME to convert one at a time, manually, and it works fine and the session ends when it is supposed to.  For some reason, though, the script just sticks.  If I don't select "deinterlace" in WME, I get similar lines to DVRMStoWMVHD.

Can anyone think of what the blazes has just happened?  I am wondering if an update got pushed down this week that has screwed things up.  I don't see anything in Windows Update though.

 I've also used DVRMStoWMVHD with a custom profile that sets out the above, with the exception of the -v_preproc 1 switch since I don't know how to introduce that into a profile.  If I used "saveprofile" with wmcmd, would that get it in there?  Something to try I guess.

I guess a question I do have is whether DVRMStoWMVHD has anything that addresses either deinterlacing or the -v_preproc 1 switch inherent in it.  The inner workings of these things are way above me.

 All this to get files that will play and look good on my XBOX when I get to watching them six months from now (in a space-saving format so I don't have to go buy a NAS).  Sigh.

If anyone has any ideas that would help, I am all ears (eyes...).

Thanks.

Just an update...I woke up this morning to find beautiful episodes of my Monday night shows all encoded and moved according to profie.  So, I triggered a profile through the gui, and it all seems to be working now, with a reinstalled FFDSHOW video decoder as the preferred mpeg2 decoder. 

Go figure!  I am backing slowly away from tinkering with ANY aspect of my computer from here on it since it seems to all be working.

i'm not sure if interlacing is controled via profiles.  i'll take a look at the sdk, if it's not maybe I can add a cmd line arg.

That would be great!  I think I've got it fixed by turning on support for both raw video and mpeg2 in ffdshow, enabling the deinterlace filter there, and using the -v with the guid for the ffdshow video decoder.  I've got it on Tom's mocomp right now, seems to get rid of the jaggies.

I think the only thing I get that is 720p is ABC, and I don't think I'm compressing any of those...so this may be the solution for me.  Any dangers to leaving that deinterlace filter on for good?  Will it screw up any video watching, or will it only deinterlace if it detects interlaced content...

Try this - http://babgvant.com/files/folders/eawmc/entry10796.aspx

let me know if it works

I will give it a go tonight.  Thanks for the speedy assist!

[Hangs head sheepishly]  The answer is yes and no.  Did I try it - yes.  Did I try it PROPERLY?  - no.  I put the switch in with no number beside it and it just crashed...  I'll give it a go tonight with -im 1.  Was in the middle of a house move, so the system has been neglected the last little bit.

 if you specify the switch a # is required (or it will try to cast what ever is the next thing in line as an integer)

Works like a charm and the output looks great.  I now have a huge debate on my hands.  Mencoder avi or WMV.... not an easy call, but I think the WMV wins...

Thanks.

cool.  thanks for letting me know.