vcs

Fails on some files (gets stuck forever while capturing the first frame).

Happens often with Matroska. 1.0.7a introduced a workaround (-Wo) with ffmpeg’s argument order that worked with other file types.

/dev/shm isn’t really intended as an alternate temporary location, and VCS’ temporary files can easily grow too large for it too.

As a possible alternative offer a first-run choice of temp-dir (maybe suggesting /dev/shm).

References:
http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/RunDirectory#Why_put_.2BAC8-dev.2BAC8-shm_and_.2BAC8-tmp_under_.2BAC8-run.3F http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9745281/tmp-vs-dev-shm-for-temp-file-storage-on-linux

When the resulting contact sheet is too thin, the meta-information header is cramped and fields overlap.

Original report by Dougn Redhammer

vcs hangs with some RM files.

Tracing shows it gets stuck in mplayer_identify.

MPlayer can play the files fine from the terminal. Although it exits with «MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: uninit_vcodec».

I can reproduce the abrupt termination, it happens when using Real’s native decoder (w64codecs, /usr/lib/codecs/drvc.so). Using FFMpeg’s decoder (MPlayer’s -vc ffrv30) MPlayer exits normally.

I can’t reproduce the hang either way.

As reported by Dirk Reiners (paraphrased)

Files incorrectly reporting too short length (unlike too long), pass the safe_length_measure check ⇒ This prevents correcting length.

See http://libav.org/, Jan 27 2012.
Also http://libav.org/index.html#fftools_rename for changes to the syntax.

Must change to avprobe/ffprobe and/or avconv.

Originally reported by Dougn Redhammer

The available configuration options need a serious review and renaming. Old names will be accepted with warnings for either two releases or six months.

Also, should provide a sample configuration file so that the syntax and options are clearer.

Reported by Paul:

> Hey,
I’m using VCS via Homebrew Install (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/vcs#default) and since the last update of imagemagick (?) I get dozens of error messages:

>convert: Expected operator at ‘.mean*100’ @ error/fx.c/GetOperator/2408

Confirmed to happen on ImageMagick 7.1 on Linux, the contact sheet is generated but blank frame evasion is skipped

Originally reported by Tomasz Strózik

Example given:

$ find $DIR \(-name "*.avi" -o -name "*.wmv" -o -name "*.mpg" -o -name "*.mp4" \) -exec vcs -dt -ds -n 12 -c2 -H 200 --jpeg --quiet {} \;

Works on avi, mpg and mp4 but fails on wmv with
Failed to capture frame (at second xxx.000)

Processing the same file directly works:

$ vcs -dt -ds -n 12 -c2 -H 200 --jpeg --quiet File.wmv

Request by Chris Hills

http://outlyer.net/2014-05-18:vcs-1_13_2-released/comment-page-1/#comment-17238:

Thanks Toni. I was hoping I could simply run `$ vcs-1.13.2.bash -? **/*.mp4` to create contact sheets for all videos in all subfolders, but it sounds like I’ll have to use a wrapper script. Would you consider adding this in a future release for a donation?

My reply:

I guess you’re using zsh-ish globbing there.
That’s not something I use so I didn’t even think of the case where recursing could be so simple.

It was a bit of an overlook on my part not to have the option to output to the same directory as the video, probably because recursion always required a wrapper in my head.

Introduce new names in 1.12 ( FS#120 )

Remove old names in 1.13 or 1.14 (this)

Originally reported by Phil Grundig

Version of mplayer: mplayer (1.0pre8cvs)

No need for description

I.e. create file sample#.avi

Run vcs on sample#.avi -> sample#.avi.png is created.
Run vcs again. sample#.avi-1.png should be created, but sed generates an error.

Originally reported by Phil Grundig

Version of ffmpeg: ffmpeg (CVS-060515)

Originally suggested by Dean: http://outlyer.net/2010-08-24:vcs-1_12-2-released/

” [...]

Second, my dvd-drive is useless atm, but i remember previously piping dvd-ouput from mplayer into ffmpeg via a fifo and finding the info generated to be much better than mplayer-alone – for one thing, it won’t ‘downmix’ 6-channel audio automatically. Don’t know if that would be useful to you. The syntax was something like:-

mkfifo piped.vob &&
mplayer dvd:// -dumpstream -dumpfile piped.vob & \
ffmpeg -i piped.vob

…See what you think…
”

When a frame evasion is tried and given up, the chosen timestamp should be the original instead of the last attempt

No need for description

No need for description

Timestamps could use some tweaking: e.g. centering on their background and rounded corners

Asked by Bob on the blog

Would it be possible to somehow specify to only screenshot half of the video image (for 180 side-by-side VR videos)?

Or would this require new features to be added to the VCS?

Originally suggested by Dogn Redhammer

Originally requested by Phil Grundig

See vcs:devel:transcode

No need for description