ISO Transcoding

[PartyMummy]

I just downloaded Subsonic, and so far, I've been blown away. I'm hoping to get a little more than out-of-the-box functionality, though. That said...

Would anybody be able to walk me through the setup to be able to transcode ISO files? I know it's possible, but I can't quite figure it out - command line based transcoding is still a little new to me. From what I've seen, VLC or mencoder would be the best way to do this, but I haven't been successful with any of my attempts. Any suggestions?

[Minime]

Hi,

If i understood you correctly, you have an ISO image with media content and want to add content to Subsonic?

Mount your ISO with(depending on your OS) something like Isobuster, then in subsonic add a new folder in Settings->Music folder->add folder(folder name) and point it to the mounted media then enable it with a tick then save.

Next check the music/video mask(depending on your media) for media enabled in subsonic: Settings->general->Music/video mask.

Transcoding settings are in Settings->Transcoding. Make sure the ones you need are enabled there.

Not sure if media on a mounted device is always that reliable, specially when pc is rebooted, media may be assigned a different drive letter in windows . I have all my media on a local drive and may be a better and more stable way than mounting.

Also, It is always a good idea to mention what your OS and version of SS etc you have so you get a quick and better response from forum community.

Hope that helps.

[PartyMummy]

Thanks for the reply - I guess I should have been more specific!

I am operating on Mac OS X, running Subsonic version 4.4 (build 2169). I have a collection of ISO files (my dvd library, which I have digitalized). I want to be able to access these ISO files as though they are any other video file, without mounting it. The desired end result is to be able to stream these ISOs via Subsonic. I am aware of where to put the transcoders, I am just not sure what to do for ISOs specifically.

I hope that cleared it up a bit - thanks!

[Minime]

If disc space is not an issue, i would copy the ISO's contents into a folder(or several if too many) and add them to subsonic.

[PartyMummy]

Well, disk space isn't an issue, but i want to preserve the disc image so I'd rather not rip just the movie. I could rip them as a Video_TS folder, which in practice is the same thing, but for personal reasons I'm choosing the ISO route. Which returns me to my original question of transcoding. What I'm really looking for here isn't a way to extract or mount the contents of an ISO, but rather a way to feed the file directly into Subsonic. What it really boils down to is how to properly utilize the transcoder. I don't believe ffmpeg can handle iso files, which is why I turned here in hopes that someone can point me in the right direction. As I previously mentioned, I'm fairly certain that both VLC and mencoder can handle this task, I just don't know how to set them up to do so. For instance, I tried to set up something similar to what Castius suggested in this thread: http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtop ... c&start=15
but OS X can't handle batch files. I could do the same thing with a shell script, which I tried, but was unsuccessful. Basically, what I'm looking for is the proper setup of either VLC or mencoder for Subsonic on Mac OS X, and more specifically, if anyone has had luck transcoding iso files.

[GJ51]

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/290123

[PartyMummy]

Thanks for the great link! I had to tweak the shell script a bit to work on OS X, but I have successfully transcoded an iso to flv via terminal. The next piece of the puzzle, though, is how to bring this into Subsonic. What would I need to put in the transcoding settings of Subsonic? I know you can call the actual script, but what variables will need to be included? Currently, when I run it from command line, I run:

bash isotoflv.sh /path/to/file.iso newfile.flv

Also, the script currently defines an output location for the flv file - how does this work with Subsonic?

[PartyMummy]

Alright, so some more research enlightened me on stdout, so I have modified the script accordingly. I think it runs fine, so for now that issue is resolved. The big question remaining is, again, how to have Subsonic call the shell script. The terminal command is now simply

bash isotoflv.sh /path/to/file.iso

(Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to focus answers on the remaining issue)

[oeh]

Have you tried just setting up transcoding in the transcoding section of SS.
ISO > flv as described in the transcoding page on SS home page?

http://www.subsonic.org/pages/transcoding.jsp

[PartyMummy]

Yes I have. I receive the "video not found or access denied" error.

One of the issues with doing it this way is that an iso is not actually a video file. In one of my previous posts, I said I wanted to do this without mounting the iso, but I was incorrect. What the shell script is doing is mounting the iso as a disc image, and then streaming all of the resulting vob files contained within the mounted drive as one flv stream.

Here is the shell script:

#!/bin/sh

ISODIR=$1

hdiutil mount $1

cat /Volumes/isofile/VIDEO_TS/*.VOB | ffmpeg -i - -y -acodec aac -ab 96 -b 280kb -ar 48000 -mbd 2 -coder 1 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -s 480x272 -r 30000/1001 -f flv -trellis 2 -partitions parti4x4+parti8x8+partp4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -level 13 -vol 500 -

The /Volumes/isofile/VIDEO_TS/*.VOB is hard coded for testing purposes, so ignore that for now.

[PartyMummy]

Ok, so I seem to have a different probably entirely from what I thought. The shell script is completely unnecessary - the transcoding bit inside should be able to be plugged directly into Subsonic's settings. There is no need to mount the drive, as I have done this from command line fine.

What seems to be the problem is that the transcoding settings aren't registering with Subsonic for some reason. I boiled down the ffmpeg input to:

ffmpeg -i %s -s 480x272 -f flv -

I've set it to transcode iso>flv, and I added iso to the video mask. What's strange is when I view my video files from the android app, it lists the title and beneath it, the transcoding that will occur - but for iso files, it doesn't list anything. i.e. If I have file.mov, beneath it it says something like (48000 kbps mov>flv), but for file.iso it just says (iso). This makes me believe that I've set something up wrong to communicate with Subsonic.

EDIT:
So I seem to have found a solution, and the error ended up being a strange one. The default transcoding settings DO indeed work - but for some reason, any new transcoding configurations I added weren't working. I tested this by recreating one that already existed and disabling the original, and it no longer worked. So I simply replaced the default ogv with iso, and it's working now. So this is a solution to the problem at hand, but I thought that was a very weird bug. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!

[bushman4]

Your problem is that once you add a transcoding option, you need to enable that option for the player(s) that you want to be able to use that new Transcoding option.

Off to give your options a try... I've been looking to do the same thing.

Thanks, and I hope this helps,

Glenn

[bushman4]

That transcode line doesn't work for me on Windows... I get "could not find codec parameters."

I think I need to specify the codec manually. Working on that now...

Glenn