Add README file with documentation for using scripts

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Elana Hashman 2014-11-03 14:56:30 -05:00
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README for csc-media
Elana Hashman
November 3, 2014
--------------------
These FFMPEG scripts are intended to help you cut and compress assorted videos:
in particular, the MTS raw output from the CSC's video camera.
How to use the scripts
======================
1. First, prepare your video files. To merge files, if you are using MTS
format, simply cat the files together, i.e.
cat vid1.mts vid2.mts vid3.mts > the_whole_vid.mts
If you need to trim the files, you can use the cut-mts.sh script:
./cut-mts.sh vid.mts 00:05:00 00:10:00
input start-time length
2. Run encode.sh on the file you're interested in compressing. This will run a
two-pass compress and encode to produce a final video file.
Caveats:
- encode.sh must be run in the same directory as the video files
- encode.sh's dependencies need to be in the same directory
- Therefore, you should clone a copy of csc-media into any directory you
want to run the job.
- You can only run encode.sh on one file in one directory. Otherwise, the
video cues from the first pass will be overwritten. If you want to run
simultaneous encoding jobs, clone a copy of the scripts into each
directory with each file you want to encode.
Invoke the script like this, preferably in a screen session due to job
length:
./encode.sh vid.mts vid ""
input prefix, output files extra ffmpeg flags (usually null)
3. Wait.
4. Wait.
5. Check htop, keep waiting.
6. Wait.
6. Voila, your videos have been compressed and encoded! Additionally, the
scripts will even kindly provide you with jpg thumbnails for the website.
Notes
=====
All compression schemes except mp4 are currently disabled in ./encode.sh. None
of the other scripts are currently verified to be working.
These scripts use a copy of ffmpeg in Peter ``BOFH'' Barfuss' home directory.
If those become unavailable for some reason, you will need to set it to the
system-wide binary.