Batch Converting MOV Files

[thomasj]

Hi, I have a bunch of MOV files from my point and shoot camera, that I'd like to convert to DV or uncompressed so I can merge with my VHS conversion. I've manged to write a small BASH script using MediaInfo-CLI to rename the files to their encoding date. Now I'd like to convert them to DV or uncompressed. My VHS footage has the date/time already. I was using Sony Vegas Movie Studio to add a 5 second date/time overlay for each MOV clip. That's a lot of work for a lot of clips, so I was wondering if I could script something. I'm running CygWin on my PC, so I'd like to do the following if possible:

- Convert MOV file to DV or uncompressed. Maintaining the little quality that I have.
- Add a permanent 5 second overlay to each segment using the filename for date/time.

Are there any LINUX (or Windows) tools that can do this from the command line (or batch)?

Thanks

PS - Any other alternate work flow ideas welcome.

[thomasj]

I did a little research and I think mencoder might work here, but I can't seem to get options right. First attempt the video played too fast. Something about the frame rates, but still having trouble...


c:\video\mplayer\mencoder -ovc raw -oac pcm -o test.avi -vf scale=720:480 -sub sample.srt "2005-12-31 143029.mov"


General
Complete name : C:\video\in\2005\2005-07-07 191143..mov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
File size : 18.0 MiB
Duration : 1mn 21s
Overall bit rate : 1 863 Kbps
Movie name/More : EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY KODAK DX4530 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Encoded date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43
Tagged date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43
Origin : Digital Camera

Video
ID : 1
Format : H.263
Codec ID : h263
Duration : 1mn 21s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 801 Kbps
Width : 320 pixels
Height : 240 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 14.988 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.564
Stream size : 17.4 MiB (97%)
Encoded date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43
Tagged date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43

Audio
ID : 2
Format : ADPCM
Format profile : U-Law
Codec ID : ulaw
Duration : 1mn 21s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 60.6 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 7 575 Hz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 601 KiB (3%)
Encoded date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43
Tagged date : UTC 2005-07-07 19:11:43

[Mountain Man]

- Convert MOV file to DV or uncompressed. Maintaining the little quality that I have.

So long as they can read the input format, either ffmpeg or mencoder should be able to do this. For the video compression, I've been using ffv1 which is the lossless ffmpeg codec (mencoder can use it too). You could also look into huffyuv. For your mencoder line, just replace "-ovc raw" with "-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffv1" to try ffv1. Here is a page which lists some of the codecs you could choose from and how to use them.

I'm not sure what the issue is with the framerate. Switching from raw to ffv1 might fix that. If not, let ffmpeg take a crack at it with something like:

ffmpeg -i 143029.mov -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec ffv1 test.avi

I didn't translate your other options, but you should be able to look these up for ffmpeg or even run the output from ffmpeg as the input from mencoder. Also, if you include a -r switch before the -i switch, ffmpeg will take this as the input framerate. An -r switch after the -i (input file) allows you to specify the output framerate.

- Add a permanent 5 second overlay to each segment using the filename for date/time.

You should be able to do this with imagemagick and mencoder together. imagemagick has several ways it will allow you to add text to an image (for example a black background) from the command line. Here are two pages which go over different methods: Annotating and Text Handling.
Once you have the image with the date/time, then you need to turn the single image into moving video. I shared an example script on how to do this here. Instead of a music file, just create an mp3 with silence so it will have an audio track.
Then once you have the banner segment in video form, you can use mencoder to join it with the video segment (assuming both have the same codecs, etc).

mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy bannersegment.avi movie.avi -o finalmovie.avi

One other thing you might consider is fading the text for the banner segment in and out, or even crossfading from the title page to the video itself. If you are interested in this, you might want to check out my post here.

[Mountain Man]

One more thought came to mind on your frame rate issue. When I convert movies into ffv1 format most players can't play them fast enough. The file itself is fine, but if you try to play it it comes out very slow. vlc seems to do a better job than other players, but it still can struggle to keep up at times.