Transcoding and seeking possible solution

[leetpwner]

Now hear me out I know this has been up for discussion many times and yes I understand how subsonic works deep down. My idea is simple. (for people that care, have the hardware and more memory space) See I have people who use the Revue and mobile devices etc. Transcoding on the fly is great if your connection can handle it from point A to B. Now for the few people who wish to enjoy a nice detailed movie on a low connection how can we help them. Then I got a great idea, as we know JW player can naturally buffer Mp4 correct? Yes seeking works with it and you can get great quality out of it in a fair sized package. So why not have an option that instead of transcoding on the fly you simply click a button next to the file name and it will get converted to an Mp4 in the background. Now depending on your setup it can keep the file permanently, temporarily etc. Then you can have one original file and one as an Mp4. If the person can wait then it shouldn't take long on a higher end machine. Now the other idea would to be to seek while converting where when you seek the bar it kills the current thread and fires up another starting from the seek location which JWplayer can provide as you see the time stamp in text next to the drop down seek.

If I get some free time this week to mess with it I will if anyone beats me to it post in here I would love to know if this is an option that we can possibly add to SS.

Update* using handbrake and modifying the code in the transcode file I was able to get handbrakeCLI to fire up and start the conversion process. Now the only thing to do is to get it to go to the correct file name and then delete the file on exit

[GJ51]

I've written extensively on this topic several times. You are correct that transcoding takes a LOT of CPU power and can cause buffering during video playback. Upload connection speeds are also a major performance factor.

The best approach for lower end servers is to preformat video into mp4 and turn off mp4 > flv transcoding so that the stream is passed directly to JW Player. You should select mp4 reformatting settings to work within the upload bandwidth comfortably. Arcsoft Media Converter 7 can be set up to automatically handle monitored video folders and transcode and reformat then save to an mp4 folder that could easily be set up as a video folder for SS. Problem solved.

I also use AVS video converter for odd reformatting tasks as well. There are others out there such as Handbrake that also do a fine job, none of them are very expensive.

[akkidy]

Update* using handbrake and modifying the code in the transcode file I was able to get handbrakeCLI to fire up and start the conversion process. Now the only thing to do is to get it to go to the correct file name and then delete the file on exit

Can you share how you did the transcoding with HandbrakeCLI? I've been trying to figure out how to do this too. You can post your transcode command, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

[leetpwner]

HandBrakeCLI -i "P:\Tv Shows\Tv Shows\Family Guy\Season 9\FG_0901.avi" -o "P:\Tv Shows\Tv Shows\Family Guy\Season 9\test.mp4" --preset="Normal" -O

just the basic on using the normal preset as I am happy with the results for Tv shows. the -O at the end is so the meta data gets pushed to the front.

GJ51 as to your response yes I could re-convert all my media to mp4 I have quad gpu's so that would not be a problem with badaboom or xilisoft. Transcoding is pretty much useless for buffering. We WANT buffering so you can pause the movie and come back to some of it buffered. Transcoding is out of the question and so is pre-converting. My upload is not my issue the issue is people miles away and their D/L rate as well as the limit of cell carriers. The whole idea behind this project I am working on is the user will simply click a button added on Subsonic which will then convert the selected file live to an mp4, almost like a transcode but we are not piping in the stream, jw will simply read the mp4 as it is created so it can buffer over time allowing smooth playback. This is not for full HD playback, at that point I have instructed people to just download the file.

[GJ51]

This guy might be able to help.

http://videoscripts.wordpress.com/

https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.ph ... d4ce5b8b35