VCS 1.11.1 released

• • English, Video Contact Sheet

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/

VCS 1.11 released

• • 3 Comments • English, Linux, Video Contact Sheet

In this post:

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/

mp3plot 0.6.0 released

• • Leave a Comment • English, mp3plot

mp3plot 0.6.0 is out. It started as a bugfix release for a nasty bug when dealing with free-format or broken files (reported by Tricky Trix, thanks pal 🙂 ) and eventually led me to (finally) implement support for "MP1" (MPEG-1 Layer I), "MP2" (MPEG-1 Layer II) and all three layers of MPEG-2. Such files can be found sometimes as disguised mp3s so this should be useful.

Also some other fixes including longstanding (brown paper bag) bugs. There's no doubt more of them in there, so report if you find something weird.

So in short previous versions should be ditched in favour of this one 😛

nautilus-follow-symlink 1.1 released

• • Leave a Comment • English, nautilus-follow-symlink

There's a refreshed version of nautilus-follow-symlink. Nothing new (after all there's little to be added), but I'm finally letting GNOME set the icon instead of force-feeding it, so it should, hopefully, display an icon matching the user-chosen theme. And it should also be friendlier to build.


nautilus-follow-symlink popup menu for symbolic links

VCS 1.0.99 released

• • English, Linux, Video Contact Sheet

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

Capturing from DVDs is a bit tricky, the filename is passed as an argument to -V while
the title number must be provided as if it were the file to capture, e.g.: $ vcs -V /dev/dvd 1

will capture the first title from the inserted DVD.

Passing 0 as DVD title will use the longest title in the disc (which is usually the main title):
$ vcs -V someiso.iso 0

DVD support *requires* lsdvd and fdisk (fdisk is used to detect the size of DVDs)
in this first version.

JPEG 2000

JPEG 2000 output (*.jp2 files) is used by passing the -j2 or --jpeg 2
option.

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.

VCS update 2008-04-16: 1.0.12 released

• • English, Video Contact Sheet

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.

VCS update 2008-04-08: 1.0.11 released

• • English, Video Contact Sheet

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 ASAP but if you need them
(does anyone use them anyway?) please use 1.0.10.

VCS update 2007-11-08: 1.0.10 released

• • English, Video Contact Sheet

New version released wth a bugfix and a couple new features: allow disabling timestamps and/or shadows.
See the changelog below.

I've also published a bit of information on the future of VCS and comments would be very welcome (in short, most probably, I'll be rewriting it in a different language than bash).

Finally, I'm moving the documentation into a wiki and filling in a bit more, will be live soonish I hope.

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