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I think my Zune has forsaken me for the last time. Once again, all videos have mysteriously disappeared from the device and my collection (though the files are safe and intact on my drive). Love how it takes 10 seconds to remove everything and 6 hours to put it all back. Some are mp4's that need to be reconverted. Ugh.

So, now I find myself considering an iPod Touch, likely the 32GB version.

That being said, I've grown accustomed to the metadata that the WMV format (and dTB) has afforded me. I recognize that there a few good tools at my disposal in the current rev of dTB, notably the iPod Touch ffmepg profile, as well as the metatag lookup from tvDBMetaData.

My question is specifically how these can be used together to ensure that the metadata gets into the resultant MP4 correctly/completely. Suggestions or recommendations are welcomed, as the new functionality has me a bit at a loss. I intend to play more with it this evening, but if there is something starter I could work with, I would sincerely appreciate it!

Thanks!

EDIT: Just posted my solution with detailed steps on page 2 of this thread.

I found onlydarksets' turorial for conversion/metadata, though it's geared to Sage content. Regardless, I think I can make it work -- looks good on paper :)

http://onlydarksets.com/2009/01/02/converting-sagetv-recordings-to-zuneipodiphone-version-20/

 Coyote wrote a how too, should be linked in the wiki.

Thanks, saw that. Unless I'm missing it, there's not a lot on metadata in that one. I did manage to create an mp4 in conjunction with AtomicParsley with dTB, as instructed in onlydarksets tutorial. I used a very abbreviated version of it though -- there was a lot of context switching going on which I assume was due the Sage piece.

The first go seemed successful, but I did not actually have a chance to see if the metadata was applied. It also failed to rename the resultant file, but I want to assume that was an issue with my scripting and not for any other reason (as it works for other profiles now).

I'll post back when I have more info/progress.

EDIT: No soap, metadata not present :(  Probably something I did, off to round 2... 

EDIT #2: Second attempt also failed. I did have some limited success just using the command line with AtomicParsley, however, so now I'm dumbing down my testing to first create a successful complete command w/ switches. Once that's in place I will create a new profile with a single runexternalnostatus to call AP with the command. Assuming that works, I'll add it to the full conversion and see where I'm at.

Wish I had more time to tinker...

I think I figured out my problem. I have constructed a working command line that seems to play nice with dTB. What I saw when playing with AtomicParsley is that the output was an arbitrary file name based on the original (ex. Robot Chicken.mp4 => Robot Chicken-temp-15996.mp4).

What I suspect is that the unaltered (orginal) mp4 is being manipulated, but the copy made by AP is not being touched, since there is no context for it in dTB. Question is how does this become something I can reference in dTB? Moreover, I can't even find the "tagged" file (no errors in the logs). Based on instructions from onlydarksets above, it should be automatic. Or maybe, and more likely, I just don't understand.

On a manual basis, the tags are being inserted correctly. It's automating with dTB that causing me grief at the moment. Any ideas?

Thanks. Unfortunately, I just can't get the hang of this one.

Simply put, I want to create an mp4 with metadata. Creating the mp4 is easy, and so is tagging it after the fact. I just can't get dTB to automate this portion of it and have run out of troubleshooting ideas.

If anyone has a working script to do this, I would appreciate it. I would even use a util that will add metadata after the fact (outside of dTB) from theTVDB, based on filename, for example, if it's out there, but so far, I can't find anything.

Seems like thing should not be this hard...

I found the problem I was having but not sure what to do about it.

I created a 2-line dTB script that takes a .dvr-ms file and puts it's metatags into an existing .mp4 file using a 'runExternalNoStatus' with Atomic Parsley. When I run this via the dvrmsGUI, it looks like Atomic Parsley is executing, but nothing is actually happening. When I take that same, translated command -- literally a cut-and-paste -- from the GUI output and plop it into a cmd prompt, it executes perfectly.

Any idea why dTB would fail to run the program? Or may be the question is why the program would not run when called by dTB in the above command?

-------------------------------- 

GUI Output:

InputFile=D:\recorded tv\Dollhouse_WTXFDT_13_03_2009_21_01_02.dvr-ms
Processing actions, this may take some time!!
Run Profile = iptDELETE
ProcessId = 3664
DvrmsToolbox Version: 1.2.1.6
Throttle DVRMStoMPEG
FWThrottle: D:\recorded tv\Dollhouse_WTXFDT_13_03_2009_21_01_02.dvr-ms

WaitTime: 5 PollTime
Waiting to process file
Queue file
Duration = 00:00:01.0077480
Waiting for available worker: 3/15/2009 8:23 AM
Worker allocated: 3/15/2009 8:23 AM
Create a maximum action time of 240 minutes.
Duration = 00:00:00.0009765
Run E:\Downloads\VMC\AtomicParsley-win32-0.9.0\AtomicParsley.exe "E:\iPodVideo\AOTS-orig - Copy.mp4" --stik "TV Show" --TVNetwork "WTXFDT (WTXF-DT)" --title "Dollhouse" --TVShowName "True Believer" --description "Imprinted as a visually impaired woman, Echo must infiltrate a cult to rescue a woman being held against her will." --category="Action/Adventure,Series;Drama,Series" --genre "Action/Adventure,Series;Drama,Series" --overWrite sliently
Run E:\Downloads\VMC\AtomicParsley-win32-0.9.0\AtomicParsley.exe "E:\iPodVideo\AOTS-orig - Copy.mp4" --stik "TV Show" --TVNetwork "WTXFDT (WTXF-DT)" --title "Dollhouse" --TVShowName "True Believer" --description "Imprinted as a visually impaired woman, Echo must infiltrate a cult to rescue a woman being held against her will." --category="Action/Adventure,Series;Drama,Series" --genre "Action/Adventure,Series;Drama,Series" --overWrite

Duration = 00:00:05.0172570
Total Duration = 00:00:06.0318405

------------------------------------------------

So close, so close...

EDIT: I changed the command to RunExternal, and got additional output, specifically:

      AP error trying to fopen: Invalid argument.

So the good news is that dTB is calling the app OK, but it can't open the file for some reason. I'm still stuck on why this same command works from a cmd prompt and not dTB, however.

 Try copying the DTb command line to the clipboard, paste it into the command prompt, and see if it executes.  I'm not sure why it isn't working within the DTb GUI.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I though I was clear on that above, but I did exactly that and it executes fine. I'm literally copying the output from the GUI (which has the acquired metadate) and pasting it into the cmd prompt and it works perfectly. Not sure where to go from here. Any thoughts? Can I call a command prompt and pass it all in?

 I mean the DTb command line, not the AP command line.  It's an option under the Tools menu in the DTb GUI.

Oh! Sorry, I misunderstood. I've not used that until now. Will let you know... thanks.

A direct copy of the DTb command line did not execute and resulted in the same AP fopen error. However, when I simply copied everything from the AP call, it worked fine. One thing I noticed was that in your tutorial, you have single dashes for the arguments, but AP itself specifies two. I have the two -- is there something in DTb that prefers I use the one?

Not sure what else to try...

No - I used double dashes.  Wordpress converted "--" to "-".  Thanks for catching that, I'll fix it in the post.

What happens if you create a Profile with a single RunExternal action, and put the command line that works outside of DTb in there?  Start with just a single tag and no overwrite, andthen build it up from there. So, the Action would look like this:

Process Name: E:\Downloads\VMC\AtomicParsley-win32-0.9.0\AtomicParsley.exe

ArgumentsContext: "E:\iPodVideo\AOTS-orig - Copy.mp4" --title "Dollhouse"

Thanks for the reminder to "KISS" -- I kept thinking that it worked on the command line, so no need to change anything. Anyway, after the above suggestion worked, I added in the title as a variable and I was off and running. A few things were going on with my command:

• The Network name, in my case was long and had special characters - "WTXFDT(WTXF-DT)". Whenever I put this back in it borked the code. Perhaps there's a character limitation for this?
• Some of the quotation marks were not correct. I believe this was cut and paste issues from a web page to the DTb dialog. Manually rekeying these corrected most of the other fields.
• Description will not go in, even now. Not sure why. I've checked/rechecked, but so soap.

My next task is to set manual strings for networkname and description to see if that works, and it's not something specific to the input file I've selection. Once I have that working, I'll include the conversion and commercial removal as well.

Thanks again for helping me to get started. I will post back witht the entire script once it's works as intended.