Comparing Two Video Files Side by Side and frame by frame

[Fozzie_Bear]

OK so I have ripped a 3 whole seasons of Battlestar Galactica and named them Battlestar Galactica S01E01 Battlestar Galactica S01E02 Battlestar Galactica S02E01 Battlestar Galactica S02E02 etc.
Although the files were correctly named and in separate Season folders unfortunately the scraping software has mixed them all up and renamed some and duplicated others
Although each episode has got a name eg. S01E01-33 ,S01E02-Water, the program does not display the episode name in the title.

I have found by elimination some of the duplicate files, partly by file size, and partly using a paid for piece of Duplicate Video Finding software in the trial mode but this doesn't display the file name or location until purchased.

What I need to do to identify the ripped files is to compare them against the DVD which are in viewing order and have the title on the sleeve. A laborious task but the alternative is to rip all 3 seasons again and many took all night for Handbrake to process.

Firstly does anyone know of any freeware/shareware program (Windows or MAC) that can display two separate video files as filmstrips side by side so I can identify each frame? Ideally this needs to be able to display the chapters on a DVDas one source or I am going to have to rip each DVD in very low quality to be able to compare them. Alternatively on another forum there was discussion about using ffmpg and a script to write thumbnails from every 4th frame but this seems a bit long winded and I am not comfortable with script writing for linux. All ripped files are MP4 format

Secondly to avoid this happening again does anyone know of any software that will write the filename to the Video file metadata in a similar way to MP3 tagging software like MP3TagIt. This would store the file name in the metadata and even if the file name was changed would allow easy identification.
Many thanks
Fozzie

[hello_hello]

Do they actually have to play side by side in the same player? You could use two instances of a player such as MPC-HC and run them side by side, one playing the original DVD and another playing the encode. The skip function can skip from one chapter to the next or you can use the Navigate menu to go straight to a specified frame number. MPC-HC can also save thumbnails like this, so if the encode and the original have the same frames, you should get the same frames in the thumbnail image.



You can open two videos together with Avisynth but I think it'd be more hassle than it's worth to simply identify identical videos.

Out of curiosity.... I recall for the PAL DVDs there's a couple of episodes in season three where the luminance levels are wrong. I can't remember if it was whole episodes or just the opening titles, but are there any episodes in season three where space in the opening titles is dark grey instead of black?

What's the file format? Mp3Tag will open MP4s but not MKVs. Foobar2000 is an audio player but it'll still tag MKVs. MKVToolNixGIUI can set a global title for MKVs and add global tags for you. You can even create them yourself. https://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/tagging/example-video.html

[TimA-C]

Why do you need to view each video, frame by frame? From what you've said you just need to identify each episode, don't you? Bring up one of the Many BSG episode guides, load each episode into your favourite player, drag the slider to the just past the opening titles and see who wrote and who directed the episode, compare to the list of writers and directors (a certain wiki-based site makes this easy) and that will get you most of the way there. Just casting my eye down the list there doesn't seem to be much duplication during each season, and the few that are the same seem to be mainly two part stories. The rest you should be able to differentiate pretty quickly from the plot synopsis (or even guest stars?)

[TimA-C]

p.s. If your files are MKVs (or possibly MP4s) you can enter data into the clip's 'Title' field in MKVToolnix's Header Editor - It doesn't seem to be automatic, so you'll probably have to type or copy & paste before saving. Of course, someone out there may know better - It's displayed by VLC when the file is played but doesn't seem to show up in MediaInfo, so not sure how useful this might be?

[Fozzie_Bear]

Do they actually have to play side by side in the same player? You could use two instances of a player such as MPC-HC and run them side by side, one playing the original DVD and another playing the encode. The skip function can skip from one chapter to the next or you can use the Navigate menu to go straight to a specified frame number. MPC-HC can also save thumbnails like this, so if the encode and the original have the same frames, you should get the same frames in the thumbnail image.


[Attachment 40477 - Click to enlarge]

You can open two videos together with Avisynth but I think it'd be more hassle than it's worth to simply identify identical videos.

Out of curiosity.... I recall for the PAL DVDs there's a couple of episodes in season three where the luminance levels are wrong. I can't remember if it was whole episodes or just the opening titles, but are there any episodes in season three where space in the opening titles is dark grey instead of black?

What's the file format? Mp3Tag will open MP4s but not MKVs. Foobar2000 is an audio player but it'll still tag MKVs. MKVToolNixGIUI can set a global title for MKVs and add global tags for you. You can even create them yourself. https://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/tagging/example-video.html

Many thanks Hello-hello i will have a look at those options. To be honest I have not noticed any issues with Luminance but then to be fair I have just set Handbrake up to rip a queue and left it to do its thing. I have not had time yet to sit and watch them Fozzie

[Fozzie_Bear]

Why do you need to view each video, frame by frame? From what you've said you just need to identify each episode, don't you? Bring up one of the Many BSG episode guides, load each episode into your favourite player, drag the slider to the just past the opening titles and see who wrote and who directed the episode, compare to the list of writers and directors (a certain wiki-based site makes this easy) and that will get you most of the way there. Just casting my eye down the list there doesn't seem to be much duplication during each season, and the few that are the same seem to be mainly two part stories. The rest you should be able to differentiate pretty quickly from the plot synopsis (or even guest stars?)

Thanks TimA-C what a good idea. I had assumed that the writers and directors were common throughout the series. Certainly there may be other actors who will be listed i the credits. I will certainly try your suggestion.
As an aside I found out why Ember got confused and incorrectly named some episodes in Season one. It was due to the fact what I thought was an empty folder contained two files of the miniseries which had been moved from my Movies share to my TV Programs share . These should have been in a folder Season 00 and Ember would have correctly found and named them.
Still they say you only learn from your mistakes.
The files are all mp4 so I don't think MKVToolNix will work on them but Hello-Hellos suggestion of MP3Tag may work.
Many thanks for your suggestions
Fozzie

[larioso]

PowerDirector has what they call Multicamera Room - and serves to select from various cameras what to play any instant.
But it does what you want, as far as I understand it.