DV Capture to WMV encode. Looking for some advice.

[silmarallion]

Hi, I'm new to these forums so the place to post would be here in the newbie forums :P

First off, let me explaine my situation.
My job entails me dealing with around 800 DV tapes per year (around 200 per quarter).
My goal is to capture the footage, and have it encoded to WMV (256kb) for streaming.

My current process is as follows.
I use Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 to capture and encode to my desired format on the fly. This is a horrible program, crashes a lot and has very limited options + horrible UI. But it seems to get the job done.

Ideally what I want to do is as follows.
Capture the footage as DV.
Then do batch encodes of say 10 at a time to .WMV (256kb).
I would love to do 2 pass encoding as the footage looks quite horrendous with only one pass (espicially my current process which does on the fly encoding "1pass"?).

Problems I have faced in reaching my ideal process.
System specs - as you can see from my system specs, there is not much processing power/ram here which makes it very hard for me to justify to my boss using 2pass encoding (takes a lot of time on current system).
I have not as of yet found a good program to do batch encodes from DV to .WMV (which would support 2 pass encoding).
Adobe Premiere which is what I would use to capture to DV if I was to get my ideal process working, only captures to timeline. I would have to export each file before I could convert it, which adds even more time.

I hope after reading this you have understood my problem. What I would love to hear from you guys are some suggestions on software for capturing then batch encodes.
Maybe suggestions on a a process which would be more suited to my system specs.
And it would be lovely to find out what sort of hardware I could recomend to my boss, to make 2 pass encoding a lot faster.

I may not have got all the lingo right here, and some questions may seem nooby but go easy on me. I'm still learning.

Thanks everyone!

[Baldrick]

Capture with WinDV.
Batch convert using windows media encoder (see http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2699/windows_media_encoder_9_batch_file_encoding_videos...avi_asf_to_wmv )

[silmarallion]

Hi Baldrick thanks for the reply. I will look into usig WinDV for capturing straight to AVI thanks for the suggestion.

I followed the guide from the link you gave me on how to batch process with WMV 9 Encoder (thanks for this)
I have modified his high quality batch file to point to a different Widows Media Profile (one with lower bitrate) and to different input and output directories.

I ran the batch file and this is what happened


Any Ideas?
I've got a backlog of 220 videos to convert

[silmarallion]

I'm sorry for needing to bump. But I don't understand why the batch file wont work, and I really need help to get this working.
Thanks.

[Baldrick]

I guess you installed windows media encoder? And tried convert one dv file using it manually. Did it work fine?

Can you post the bat file also? Looks strange with roxio shared certifications errors.

[Safesurfer]

A quick Google search found this http://babgvant.com/forums/p/261/261.aspx , looks like a Sonic filter is probably to blame. Not sure why it would affect DV decoding though.

[silmarallion]

Hi Thanks for the replies.

@Baldrick - Windows Media Encoder was already installed on this system, as was Roxio Easy Media Creator 9.
At the moment I am not trying to covert any DV files as I still have a backlog of around 220 mpg files to convert to WMV files.
The bat file I'm using is a modified version from the link you gave me.
This is what the bat files looks like~

@echo on

@REM MPG/AVI/ASF TO WMV BatchD
@REM      based on my SageTV Batch File - MPG to WMV
@REM Author: seamonkey420 http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/seamonkey420
@REM created on: 11/25/07
@REM RECOMMENDED TO TEST IN A TEMP DIR FIRST!!

@REM This requires Windows Media Encoder 9 to be installed.
@REM Get here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx


@REM This batch file will encode all mpg files in the idir folder (set below, default is the Raw folder)
@REM Be sure to set the folder settings if you do not extract this to your main c: drive
@REM Also, if you get errors about cannot find wmcmd.vbs, be sure that path points to your 
@REM install folder of windows media encoder


@REM parses month, day, and year into mm , dd, yyyy formats
@REM Not used, but handy code to have around, just use %date% to get MMDDYYYY format

FOR /F "TOKENS=1* DELIMS= " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET CDATE=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 eol=/ DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('DATE/T') DO SET mm=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2 DELIMS=/ eol=/" %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET dd=%%B
FOR /F "TOKENS=2,3 DELIMS=/ " %%A IN ('echo %CDATE%') DO SET yyyy=%%B
SET date=%mm%%dd%%yyyy%

@REM SETS SCRIPT VARIABLES, ie folder paths for files to be encoded
@REM idir = the directory that video files (mpg)
@REM odir = folder where wmv files will be saved and webpages
@REM ldir = Log file directory
@REM oFile = File extension to be outputted, .wmv by default
@REM profile = profile created w/Windows Media Profile Editor
@REM trigger = file to check for to see if programs are done recording/viewed


set idir=Y:\ABC\DEF\WME\Input
set odir=Y:\ABC\DEF\WME\Output
set ldir=Y:\ABC\DEF\WME\Logs
set oFile=wmv
set profile=Y:\ABC\DEF\WME\App\256Kbps.prx
set trigger=mpg
set trigger2=avi
set trigger3=asf


@REM This will create the folders that we set from above
md "%odir%"


@REM Checks for oFile type in Converted folder, if not there, will convert the mpg
for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger%"') do if NOT EXIST "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" (cscript.exe "c:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs" -input "%idir%\%%i.%trigger%" -description "%%i" -author "seamonkey420" -output "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" -loadprofile %profile%)
for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger2%"') do if NOT EXIST "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" (cscript.exe "c:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs" -input "%idir%\%%i.%trigger2%" -description "%%i" -author "seamonkey420" -output "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" -loadprofile %profile%)
for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger3%"') do if NOT EXIST "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" (cscript.exe "c:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs" -input "%idir%\%%i.%trigger3%" -description "%%i" -author "seamonkey420" -output "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" -loadprofile %profile%)

@REM Same as above command but uses log files.
@REM Checks for log file, if log file exists, it will not encode the mpg, but if it does, it will.
@REM remove the @REM to use and add @REM to above line.

@REM md "%ldir%"
@REM for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger%"') do if NOT EXIST "%ldir%\%%i.log" (cscript.exe "c:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs" -input "%idir%\%%i.%trigger%" -description "%%i" -author "seamonkey420" -output "%odir%\%%i.%oFile%" -loadprofile %profile%)
@REM for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger%"') do if NOT EXIST "%ldir%\%%i.log" (echo 1 > "%ldir%\%%i.log")

@REM  Remove the @REM from the line below to delete the movie if its been encoded. Defaulted to not delete.
@REM for /f "tokens=1 delims=." %%i in ('dir /b "%idir%\*.%trigger%"') do if EXIST "%ldir%\%%i.log" (DEL /Q "%idir%\%%i.%trigger%")

@Safesurfer - That thread you linked pretty much flew over my head, I'm going to read it in more depth during my lunch break.

Edit - I'm not sure if this would make a difference but I have Combined Communuty Codec Pack installed as well.

[silmarallion]

I'm going to give Windows Media Batch Encoder a try (from Windows Media Encoder 9 Series SDK). I assume this does the same thing as a bat file would do, but through a GUI?

I'm gonna test it out on some mpg's now and I will get back to you on the outcome.

Update ~ Windows Media Batch Encoder gives the following error for every file.
"Error: Encoder Prepare - Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."
I first tried with the input files and output directory on an external hard disk then tried on my internal hard drive and it reports the same errors.

Any ideas on what this error means?

[Safesurfer]

The gist I got from the link above was if your system is using the Sonic MPEG decoder, you will get the ContextException error. Use Gspot to open one of your MPEGs, click on the MS A/V #1 button to find out which MPEG decoder your system is using.

If it is the Sonic, looks like you will have to set another MPEG decoder (if you have one installed) as the preferred decoder by changing the merit - which you can do with an app such as Filmerit or Radlight Filter Manager.

[silmarallion]

This is what GSpot had to say about the file I am trying to convert to WMV.


So were there no problems with my modified bat file?
Just need to figure out a solution, because now batch conversion doesn't work using the bat file or Windows Media Batch Encoder GUI.

[Safesurfer]

Couldn't see any problems with the .bat. I just did a successful test using the Zune profile with FFDshow set to decode the MPEG video. You could give that a try, I see you already have it decoding the audio.