Aspect Ratio Report?

[CraziFuzzy]

I use SA and DirMon with my SageTV setup, and I love it. I am currently looking at writing an auto-aspect switching plugin for sage, that will read a text file and, based on current timestamp, switch the zoom mode in sage to a pre-configured setting. (I get a pretty even split of recording aspects, between true 4:3, true 16:9, and letterboxed 16:9 on 4:3, causing me to constantly switch modes)

I know SA analyses for aspect ratio, and this information is presented in the log file, but I would prefer to not have to parse this out. I am basically requesting a new export format from SA, some sort of aspect ratio text file. Make it like an edl, only instead of the 1 or 2, simply have the aspect ratio (decimal format) for that segment. Perhaps an option to filter down the list with a minimum segment length setting. I'm not sure how hard this woul dbe to add, but I'm hoping it is possible. Otherwise, I guess I will just work on parsing out the log file, but parsing logfiles never seems to be very bugproof.

Example:

0          539.54   1.78
539.54 780.18   1.33
780.18 1266.4   1.78
1266.4 1416.85 1.33

Thanks,
CraziFuzzy

[CraziFuzzy]

Well, not sure if I'm gonna get a response to this, so I've started looking into the log files. It appears that aspect ration information is only written to the logfile once the program is completely scanned. This would mean I could only use this method once SA was done, so it wouldn't work for near live playback (which would be a definate goal).

Because of this, I am definately looking for a response from Jere on the possibility of adding this feature.

Thanks,
Chris

[SteveM]

Chris,

I would love to help you, but I am just a newb also needing help. These commercial skip forums (SA and DVRMSToolbox) are deader than a doornail. I understand the lack of support at DTB as it is a free program, but you would think there is some sort of support for SA.

I am beginning to believe I should have just stuck with my Tivo. I would undoubtedly be richer$$$

Steve

[dwalton22]

Will ComSkip do what you are looking for? It is free, open-source and the author is pretty good about replying to posts on the forum.

I like SA but I agree with you that waiting weeks for responses to questions is frustrating.

[Jere_Jones]

Sure. I'll put it in the next version.

However, something to be concerned about is that the numbers won't be completely accurate because most mpegs aren't encoded with square pixels. Basically you won't be able to use them as a source of calculation, but you could use them as a type of threshold.

As I understand it, you want it live? That could be more difficult. Since blocks aren't calculated until they are finished, There would be considerable delay for show sections.... but I may be able to conquer that.

How does: MyShow.aspects work for you?

Jere

[CraziFuzzy]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

Sure. I'll put it in the next version.

However, something to be concerned about is that the numbers won't be completely accurate because most mpegs aren't encoded with square pixels. Basically you won't be able to use them as a source of calculation, but you could use them as a type of threshold.

As I understand it, you want it live? That could be more difficult. Since blocks aren't calculated until they are finished, There would be considerable delay for show sections.... but I may be able to conquer that.

How does: MyShow.aspects work for you?

Jere

.aspects would be fine, really doesn't matter what the extension is, as long as it's unique. I wasn't aware that aspects weren't looked at until the end, I was under the impression that aspect changes were used to help determine block boundaries. So are they only used at the end to filter commercial/show?

I understand that the numbers aren't exact, because of differing pixel aspects, but all I'm looking for is some basic threshold matches, so that'd be fine.

Anyways, whatever you can easily implement, would be great.

[Wynter]

Could this be used to automatically change the zoom setting in MCE. I have a widescreen TV and when I get SD content that is in HD format you get the black bars on the top and bottom so I use the zoom setting to stretch out to the left and right of the TV and chop off the black bars from the top and bottom. Problem is that only some shows are formatted that way so you end up changing the zoom back and forth... sometimes you don't notice and watch half a show on the wrong setting.

Wynter

[Jere_Jones]

I would like to make a change to the format. Since the format includes the ending time of the block, I won't be able to write that line until the block ends. That could be 30 seconds or 8 minutes after the block starts. I could continously update the end of the block and rewrite the file, but that would be much more disk writting than would seem to be necessary.

How about just writing the start time and the ratio? Like this:

0.0 1.78
47.289 1.43
62.345 1.78
etc...

In the stv you could do something like this:

int i = 0;
while (currentTime < time[i]) {
 ++i;
}
use aspectratio[i]...

Then the file would only need to be written when a new block is started and I can determine a new block has started within a second or 2.

Anyway, if you like, I can send you a version that includes this functionality so that you can use it in testing.

Jere

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by Wynter

Could this be used to automatically change the zoom setting in MCE. I have a widescreen TV and when I get SD content that is in HD format you get the black bars on the top and bottom so I use the zoom setting to stretch out to the left and right of the TV and chop off the black bars from the top and bottom. Problem is that only some shows are formatted that way so you end up changing the zoom back and forth... sometimes you don't notice and watch half a show on the wrong setting.

Wynter

I don't know of anything that would allow that, but I agree, it would be way cool! (Bearing in mind that I'm a SageTV user. )

Jere

[Wynter]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

I don't know of anything that would allow that, but I agree, it would be way cool! (Bearing in mind that I'm a SageTV user. )

Jere

I would guess that it would have to be done by something like the commercial skipper plug-in from DVRMSToolbox for MCE or some other add-on for SageTV.

Wynter