DirMon2, SA and BTV 4.3

[mst3kroqs]

Hi -

Congratulations on a fine pair of utilities. In the spirit of giving back, I am posting this just in case this is of use to anyone else utilizing BTV 4.3 or greater ...

Statement:

I don't particularly care for BTV's SmartSkip (commercial detection), and I'm pretty fussy about getting all of the commercial cuts just right for the series that I wish to convert to XVid and archive. Even for those series I don't wish to compress and archive, I still wanted more meaningful 'SmartSkip' information (*.chapters.xml) for BTV playback.

My solution:

I have BTV configured with additional video directories, one for each of the series that I record. Some of these series I wish to cut/compress & archive, some I just utilize SA to create a *.chapters.xml (the processing is far superior to BTV's in-built SmartSkip function.

I use DirMon2 to launch SA to create *.Vprj project files for VideoRedo. I then use VideoRedo in interactive mode to refine/improve/resave the project files, and then batch-process the cuts for all of my files at the end of the evening, again using VideoRedo in batch mode.

I utilize a separate DirMon2 job for each video directory, although SA's configuration and function is of course global to all directories. SA is configured pretty much 'out of the box', with the exception of turning on the generation of the VideoRedo project file and BeyondTV chapters.xml after processing is complete.

When I want to actually perform the cuts and compress, I utilize VideoRedo in batch mode, then submit the edited files to AutoGK for processing. When processing is complete, I delete all of the *.mpg, *.Vprj, *.chapters.xml and *.txt files, and move the resultant .avi files to longer-term storage.

They key to using DirMon2 successfully with BTV 4.3 was to recognize the existence of the *.mpg.inprogress.xml file which BTV creates while it is still recording to the .mpg file. The in-built 'Wait Until File Is Finished = 1' option didn't seem to work for me. Note that I do not know whether previous versions of BTV create this file or not, I can only attest that it works with 4.3 (as of this writing, the latest non-beta release).

Anyway, here's my dirmon2.ini for everyone out there with similar needs. Only a single job/directory is shown, you need to create other similar jobs for other directories (or you can use the 'Search Subdirectories' option in the job if your series subdirectories are all under a single root):

[Global]
Polling Time = 60
Available Resources = 100

[Service]
Start Automatically = 1
Run as Local System = 1
Allow Interaction With Desktop = 1
Run as User = 0
User Name =
User Password =

[Job Description 1]
Name = AGShow
Processor = C:/Program Files/Dragon Global/ShowAnalyzer/ShowAnalyzer.exe
Command Line Options =
Must Exist 1 =
Must Exist Logic = OR
Must Exist 2 =
Must And Or Must Not Exist Logic = OR
Must Not Exist 1 = txt
Must Not Exist Logic = AND
Must Not Exist 2 = inprogress.xml
Directory 1 = E:/Video/The Andy Griffith Show
Processee Extension 1 = mpg
Resources Needed = 100
Timeout Enabled = 0
Timeout = -1
Priority Boost Due To Job Description = 0
Priority Boost Due To Age = 1
Priority Boost Due To Name = 0
Process Subdirectories = 1
Wait Until File Is Finished = 1
Wait Until Drive Is Idle = 0
Wait Until File Is Finished Time = 1
Wait Until Drive Is Idle Time = 2
Hide Console = 1
Blackout Enabled = 0
Blackout Start Time = 0
Blackout End Time = 0

Best regards.

-m

Mark A. Howard
Cary, NC

[tofin]

I know...a newbie question

Thanks for the ini file mst3kroqs...I am using SA and BTV4.5...your ini file has helped alot, but I am trying to get DirMon2 to work....When I set up DirMon2 with your ini, showanalyzer starts and marks the show, then quits and then starts processing the same show again and again...I know this has something to do with the ".txt" file, but I can't seem to find where that is created or how to create it. I have done a search but can't seem to find how to create that ".tx" file.

Any help would be much appreciated

[Sherman9]

I have made a simple webpage that will help you out if you are installing DirMon2 and SA with BeyondTV 4.5. It will show you how to get the txt files to show up. I could not find instructions on the web and have played around with it for 3 days and finally got everything to work well. I hope this will help other BeyondTV people out there as it is much better than the one that comes with BeyondTV!

http:\\geekinside.org\beyondtv

[tofin]

Originally Posted by Sherman9

I have made a simple webpage that will help you out if you are installing DirMon2 and SA with BeyondTV 4.5. It will show you how to get the txt files to show up. I could not find instructions on the web and have played around with it for 3 days and finally got everything to work well. I hope this will help other BeyondTV people out there as it is much better than the one that comes with BeyondTV!

http:\\geekinside.org\beyondtv

Thanks for the hard work you have done and posting your results here...it has helped me immensely...I too have been searching the web for hints and tips...SA and DirMon2 are great programs and sure does beat the smartskip built into BTV...again many thanks