OutlyerNet

Here's a very small bugfix release, nothing too fancy this time around:

- A name for the FLV1 codec (used in older flash videos)

- Warnings about the DEFAULT_* configuration variables accidentally removed in the previous release (and temporarily accept them)

- A check of ImageMagick's version that should work in all systems

Also new there's a PKGBUILD file for packaging for Arch.

vcs 1.11.1

http://p.outlyer.net/vcs/files/vcs-1.11.1.gz

deb, rpm, etc.

as usual at http://p.outlyer.net/vcs/

After a user report I noticed I should clarify: If you add, e.g. numcaps=10 to your configuration file you're changing the default number of captures but the default mode of operation is to capture at fixed intervals so to actually use this value you also have to add timecode_from=$TC_NUMCAPS to your configuration, which the changes the mode of operation to a fixed number of captures. E.g.:

$ cat ~/.vcs.conf
numcaps=20
timecode_from=$TC_NUMCAPS
cols=5

In this post:

• Release notes
• A note for everyone (but specially for porn aficionados)
• BTS and Documentation

Release notes

Finally a new version of vcs, and it brings a truckload of changes. So many in fact that it will probably break in new and unexpected ways but so far it has been working quite fine.

The major improvement will probably be the tweaks to video duration detection that should get rid of the dreaded "Failed to capture…" on the last capture.

Other new features worth mentioning:

• Height can be defined as a percentage (-H 25%) or set configuration files (th_height=160)
• Output filename can now be set manually (-o file)
• Lots of small cosmetic tweaks, from default font and heading background, to tighter padding or smaller timestamps. And the ability to tweak or disable padding.
• Support for DVD has been revamped and should work much better now.
• FreeBSD users are now (mostly) first class citizens for vcs
• More concise --help output, added --fullhelp for the whole bore
• Handling of non-latin filenames makes a lot more sense now
• And last but not least, the usual lot of bugfixes, better detection of video features, better aspect ratio detection, new codec names, etc.

On a more mundane note, no longer both MPlayer and FFmpeg are required, either one will do (although both will render best results), bc is no longer required.

Also, I'm providing an rpm package too this time around.

And finally this version will work on bash 2.05b, in case you're using some tight system like DSL.

In case you wonder how the hell did I count to make 1.11 follow 1.0.100a, I just remembered I should bump the version when new features are added, and re-counted versions. Lame I know but at least numbering should make more sense now.

Important I forgot to add warnings about this: If you're using a configuration file, there's been some renamings: DEFAULT_NUMCAPS is now numcaps, DEFAULT_INTERVAL is now interval and DEFAULT_COLS is now cols.

Edit: 1.11.1 fixes this: warns about their usage and accepts them for now.

A note for everyone (but specially for porn aficionados)

Please, if at all possible link directly whenever you discuss vcs. I know many communities prefer to use link redirections to keep referrer hidden but knowing how people is using or what they're saying about vcs helps me in improving and fixing it.

I know full well such a script caters to pr0n uploaders and I'm not offended, no need to hide

Conversely, if you know of any discussion about vcs feel free to let me know so that I can jump in or steal get ideas from it.

BTS and Documentation

Finally, in case you didn't notice, the documentation site has received a lot of love and now is much more useful, and I've also opened a bug tracker in case you prefer it to e-mail.

Documentation: http://p.outlyer.net/dox/vcs
BTS: http://b.outlyer.net/

I've finally open access to the documentation wiki for vcs (and also mp3plot and nautilus-follow-symlink). It's far from complete, with a lot of stuff to add, but I'm moving there all documentation progressively so there's the place to look for help.

I started using MediaWiki but later scaled back to DokuWiki.

I've published a snapshot of VCS in the state I commented in the last post, i.e. it works on FreeBSD and possibly more OSes than before, but output is less refined there. But since I've been a bit sidetracked I've opted to publish now and update later on

As I wrote on the last update, I've been working on making vcs work on FreeBSD (and hopefully other non-GNU systems), there were quite a few problems that made it unusable outside GNU variants, but it's already working. Sort of:

There's still some wrong details:
Like instead of

or instead of

But that's definitely better than not running at all

The other major problem is I've no clue how the size of removable media should be retrieved (in a portable way). That's required when working with a real DVD (i.e. not a DVD ISO). The previous version used a method I disliked (fdisk -s) and that most probably would fail on everything but GNU. SO if you know of a right way of do so, drop me a line

Anyway, I'll publish this version RSN, even with this ugly bits and will look on how to fix that stuff later on.

Before the next release I'd like to make VCS work better in other OSes beyond Linux. Linux is my (current at least) OS
of choice and the one I'm not familiar with so it's also obviously the OS in which I develop and test VCS.
Thanks to virtualisation
gaining a lot of momentum I'm now able to try operating systems I've never worked with (and which I'm pretty sure
will make VCS choke in ways I never expected); e.g. the very last major feature, DVD vidcapping, is written in a way not compatible
with, at least, FreeBSD. I'll focus on making vcs work better (or at all) on ther systems for a while, let's see
how it turns out.

New version released, finally implementing DVD support (both ISO and DVD devices should work).
Also JPEG 2000 output, a more Polaroid™-like

polaroid mode (the older one has been renamed to photos); the timestamp is now reduced
for smaller captures plus the usual batch of fixes/tweaks.

DVDs

JPEG 2000

New polaroid mode

As for bugfixes: I finally came across the previously unreproducible bug that made the polaroid
and overlap modes place all images on the same spot. Guess it was a problem with a newer version of
ImageMagick since I've also encountered a lot of problems with some of the commands I was using.
I've fixed all I was able to find.
As a side effect, I've reworked once again the alignment of the different sheets.

This will be renamed as 1.1.0 if it works well enough for others.

New version released, it fixes highlights, which were broken in the last version and a couple of long-standing cosmetic bugs.

Also now requires minimum length before using the "end offset" i.e.: will only ignore a bit off the end of the video
if it's long enough, by default 19'30" (the default value was chosen based on the fact that most series are at least 20' long,
and since the automatic end offset is intended to skip credits, it's most useful with series and films). Your input is welcome
as always.

To change the minimum length set the desired value to variable MIN_LENGTH_FOR_END_OFFSET in your configuration file, e.g.:
echo MIN_LENGTH_FOR_END_OFFSET=\'1h30m\' >> ~/.vcs.conf # for 1h 30'

I just noticed a bug while editing this page :/ and it's been there for quite awhile… great… whatever, most probably few people, if anyone
suffered it, since it required a pretty specific timestamp format being used in the command-line.

Finally I've also re-added the black border after the highlights, which was removed a long time ago due to it breaking vcs back then.

See the changelog as usual for full details.

New version released with a couple fixes and cosmetic touches.

Fixes include a workaround for cases in which mplayer outputted all-black (or all-equal) captures. Also slightly better
support for older/tighter systems (e.g. Damn Small Linux).

Most notably in the cosmetic side is better thumbnail alignment in extended mode (-e), slightly less padded captures and drop of milliseconds
when using mplayer (since they aren't meaningful at all).

See the changelog as usual for full details and credits.

I'm also providing a debian package now.

I was holding off a bit this release since there's still some known stuff to fix or refine but I'll rather publish now what I've
since, well, who knows when will be the next release

Important note: this version's support for highlights (-l) is broken,
This version is deprecated for this reason, use the last version instead.
I'll update 1.0.10.