Harry's Tools

H

Harry

New member
hi guys,

i've written a small external application which accesses VideoReDo via it's COM interface in order to execute several functions.

system requirements:

VideoReDo Build 412
Microsoft .Net Runtime Environment

current functions:

+ creation of chapter (=scene marks) by specifying the interval in minutes or specifying the total number of requested chapters
+ splitting a file to multiple files at the scene marks
+ splitting a file to multiple files according to your edits

my recommendation:

unless you know what you do only use this program if you need the required functions. one of the main reasons is simply that if you close the program, it will also close the running VideoReDo instance without notice and you'll lose your edits.

here's more info and make sure you read the short-kept disclaimer:

Code: 
Program: Harry's Tools, Build 0.14 (ALPHA)


Foreword: It is highly recommended to read the 'Important Usage Stuff'


Disclaimer
----------
I'm not a fan of big disclaimers which nobody reads anyway, so here's the main thing:

+ USAGE OF THIS PROGRAM IS ABSOLUTELY AT YOUR OWN RISK! I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU, YOUR DATA, YOUR SYSTEM, ETC.

+ THIS PROGRAM IS IN NO WAY RELATED TO VIDEOREDO OR DRD SYSTEMS, IT ONLY USES THE COM INTERFACE OF VIDEOREDO IN ORDER TO CONTROL IT REMOTELY. If you experience a bug while using this program, please blame it on the program, not on VideoReDo.

+ THIS PROGRAM IS WRITTEN JUST FOR STUDYING PURPOSES OF THE COM INTERFACE.


System Requirements
-------------------
Required build of VideoReDo: 412
Necessary System Requirement: Microsoft .NET Runtime Environment


Important Usage Stuff
---------------------
In order to access VideoReDo, it must be instantiated by this program. This means that you have to call this program, and it will automatically launch VideoReDo. These two programs communicate then afterwards.

If you close VideoReDo, there is no way to access it again from these tools, so you have to restart the tools program. Sorry for the inconvenience, but there is currently no other way supported in order to access a running instance of a COM supporting program.

If you close this program, then the VideoReDo instance which was opened with it will be closed as well WITHOUT NOTICE!!! This means that you'll LOSE YOUR UNSAVED EDITS.

So my suggestion is: use VideoReDo the normal way and save your projects as usual and - only if - you need the functions of these tools, then use them independently.

Sorry again for the inconvenience, but that's just how it works. I would have done it differently, but accessing programs via COM is somehow 'limited'. Example: You might notice that from time to time your project's filename has changed to "temp.vprj". This happens e.g. if you save your cuts to multiple files. It works this way: a temporary project file is saved, reopened and your cut list is parsed and used. Reason for this is that currently there is no way to get the cut points via COM. 


Requests
--------
If you need some additional stuff implemented which is doable via VideoReDo's COM interface, i might take the time and implement it. Feel free to ask ;)

By the way: Feedback is always appreciated.



This program is still alpha, but you're free to test it.

That important stuff said: Have Fun! :)
if some of you have enough courage to test the current alpha, feel free to download it here and give me your feedback:

http://rapidshare.de/files/5233491/HarrysTools.Build.0.14.Alpha.zip.html

as i have no 2nd computer to test this program, let me know if and how it worked for you

:D

greetz
Harry
 
J

jean

New member
nice

... worked fine for me - thanks ...

Just a minor issue:
the "complete" message wasn't shown after the task was completed, but only when clicking
at the tool window again ... (bug or feature?)

Jean
 
H

Harry

New member
thanks Dan and many thanks for implementing the feature i requested :D

and many thanks to the testers :D

i'm glad that that it works. if you guys want additional scripts implemented, feel free to ask. should be fairly easy to implement now that the framework is set up.

regarding the "complete" message box: currently it's a "feature". i'll have to recheck that "complete" message thing, it's a difficult thing: usually there's always a focus switch between the tools window and the videoredo window which it opens. when everything is finished, the tools window should get the focus and hence the "complete" message should be in front and visible. but this might not be the case if the user brings different windows into the foreground manually while the processing takes place in the background.

I think a good alternative would be to draw a progress bar into the menu bar.
 
J

jean

New member
>should get the focus and hence the "complete" message should be in front and visible

hmm, das ist (bei mir) etwas unregelmäßig.
Beim ersten Versuch erschien "process finished" über VRD und Harry's Tool hat den Focus.
Beim nächsten, weiteren Schnitt (und von da an immer) hat am Ende VRD den Focus, das
"finished" liegt dann darunter ...
Nach einem Neustart des Tools bleibt es dann nach dem Schnitt auch beim ersten Mal unter
VRD ... (wobei ich jeweils nach dem Befehl in Tools nicht weiter geklickt habe).

Nun, das ist nicht wirklich ein Problem ;) Als workaround: packe doch alle Meldungs-Fenster
auf / neben das Tools-Fenster, nicht in die Bildschirm-Mitte - dann ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit
ziemlich gering, daß sie verdeckt werden ...

Auch kein Beinbruch:
if you set "specify length of chapter" to a value longer than the full video, you will not get a
chapter mark (which is correct), but the message states "chapter creation finished" which is
somehow misleading as no chapter was created at all. :)

Danke,

Jean
 
H

Harry

New member
thanks jean,

i think instead of a popup i'll make a status window which contains a list of several status information like eg a journal:

processing file 1 of 10
processing file 2 of 10
...
processing finished.

i think it's more meaningful than a "finished" popup.

regarding the "chapters created" message while there's no chapter created if you specify an interval longer than the movie, i think i'll block it in the first place so that the process isn't started if the interval is larger than the file length.

thanks for pointing that out :D

what's to come:

* i think an abort button would be helpful as well
* implementing my comicgen module in C#, there's a load of available image enhancing libraries available in C#
* ... whatever you like and is possible with COM ... :D
 
A

Anonymous

New member
Another nice feature would be to have this app accept input from a text file where each line
contained all the parameters VRDSplitSceneMarkers needed for each project
so you could batch in a lot of splits from different projects and have the VRDSplitSceneMarkers
do them all at once.

DD
 
H

Harry

New member
this is an interesting idea, but is there really a need for such a "monster" project? currently i don't see a real application behind it.

nontheless, it would be easy to do. instead of a text file, one simply opens several VRD Project Files simultaneously in the file open dialog and they are all processed one after the other.

if you really need it, i could do it. but i'm curious: what's the use case?

:D
 
D

diamondd

New member
I have a user that wants to convert 100 karaoke laserdiscs (200 sides) to DVD.
VRD does a nice job at quickly marking the split points needed.
Your app completes the process by creating seperate files from the split points.

I thought it would be nice to have the ability to batch all those project files
to split all those files at one time.

I thought using a text file as input would be an easy way to implement this.
I didn't know that you could open multiple project files simultaneously.
That's even easier!

thanks

DD
 
H

Harry

New member
i think i can arrange that until sunday :wink:

this for sure needs a logging window, i think a filelog would be good as well in that case. so the use case is the following:

* user creates VRD project files with split points
* user selects multiple project files in file open dialog
* application loads vprj file one after the other and processes it, filename is project filename with postfix 0000.mpg, 0001.mpg, and so on

greetz
Harry
 
H

Harry

New member
build 0.19 is up. feel free to test it, but it's as usual at your own risk :wink:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q8FKLS7Z

Code: 
Release History
---------------

Build 0.19:

+ added some logging: 

	logging window, can be switched on/off in menu
	logging file 'application.log' for detailed logging information

+ added feature to launch procedures in a thread; otherwise eg the main and the logging window wouldn't be updated while a function is executed

+ project batch: split at scene markers

	you can open several *.vprj files and specify an output directory
	every *.vprj file will be processed and the file splitted at the scene markers

+ file overwrite check at file output

+ chaptering
	
	prevent "0" for chapter input
	force maximal chapter length: chapter length mustn't be smaller than total file length

+ removed "process finished" message boxes, logging window is more preferrable


Known Issues
------------

* file overwrite dialog sometimes appears in background => you have to bring it to front using the task bar
here's a screenshot:

 
H

Harry

New member
got inspired by the suggestion of Tiger62 in this thread:

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewtopic.php?t=1680

added some new functionality, so here's build 0.20 for the interested ones, if you want to download it please press the "free" button on the following page:

http://rapidshare.de/files/6562115/HarrysTools.Build.0.20.zip.html

Code: 
Release History
---------------

Build 0.20:

+ added function "Cut Current Scene Segment":

	cuts out the scene in which the cursor currently is

+ added function "Cut Every Other Scene Segment":

	cuts out every second scene segment. a question is asked if you want to start cutting at the first segment.
	if this question is answered with no, then the program will start cutting at the second segment.
here's a screenie :D

 
A

alphabeta

New member
Scenes and Cuts

Nice little application.

Still there is one more feature that would be really useful to me :)

I've got some files that need editing both to remove stuff I don't want and to cut the remainder up in to segments.

What would be good would be another mode where you split at the scene breaks and at the same time remove all the cuts. Does this make sense?
 
H

Harry

New member
you mean the split-at-scenemarker function should as well consider the cut points? i'll think it over next weekend, i think it's doable with COM :wink:
 
A

alphabeta

New member
Based on my test so far, the "split at scene" function just chops the video at the scene markers and ignores cuts.

What I would like is for the cuts to be taken out of the video and the remaining stuff to be split at the scene markers. Not sure if that is what you meant by "split-at-scenemarker function should as well consider the cut points".

Would be great if you could add that.
 
A

Anonymous

New member
Harry

I have a request to add a small addition to
"splitting a file to multiple files at the scene marks"

The ability to specify a number in seconds ( + or - )
that would be added to the time of each scene marker.

The reason for this is I'm working on a project to convert
karaoke laser discs to mpg files.

I currently create a scene marker near the beginning of each song
when the title appears so I can see the title in the thumbnails.
But if I can see the title in the thumbnail,
it usually means that a little bit of the title remains in the previous scene.

So to capture the entire beginning, it would be nice to have the
option to have VRD make the splits at the scene markers
minus one or two seconds.

thanks

DD.
 
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