vcs

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.

Great feature, implemented in mtn

http://moviethumbnail.sourceforge.net/

See also FS#126

Originally suggested by Dogn Redhammer

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.

Originally reported by Dougn Redhammer

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.

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

Reported by KW in comments: https://outlyer.net/2019-11-26:vcs-1-13-4-released/#comment-51875

With the new script I'm getting issues the following error:
No compatible version of getopt in path, can't continue.
Enhanced getopt (i.e. GNU getopt) is required

Added by Darko in comments: https://outlyer.net/2019-11-26:vcs-1-13-4-released/#comment-52719

The homebrew's version of vcs has this at line 186:
declare GETOPT=/opt/homebrew/opt/gnu-getopt/bin/getopt
While Toni's just uses whatever is on path:
declare GETOPT=getopt
… which on macOS is non-gnu version of getopt.

Added by X in comments: https://outlyer.net/2019-11-26:vcs-1-13-4-released/#comment-53401

The issue is on line 186. Brew version has this:
declare GETOPT=/usr/local/opt/gnu-getopt/bin/getopt
The trunk version has:
declare GETOPT=getopt
When I backport the most important change you did in the trunk version ('`fx:image.mean` > `fx:mean`') then indeed the error messages on '.mean*100' are gone.

Originally reported by Phil Grundig

Version of ffmpeg: ffmpeg (CVS-060515)

Originally reported by Phil Grundig

Version of mplayer: mplayer (1.0pre8cvs)

Originally requested by Phil Grundig

See vcs:devel:transcode

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