Revision as of 19:52, 2 November 2006

This is a feature request for a Filter Wizard for selecting and applying filters to recordings already recorded. Example: crop black bars from a TV show broadcast in letterbox. The functionality to apply filters to recordings already exists in the transcoder profiles, but currently this method is not very user friendly. A possible solution to this problem would be to make the interface for adding and modifying transcoder profiles easier to use.

Solution

PART I Fix transcoder profile setup to allow for adding new transcoders. It is currently possible to add new transcoder profiles through a mysql query. These profiles are then editable in the recording profiles setup. They are also selectable from the post processing options of the recording scheduler. However, these new profiles are not selectable from the osd menu of playing recordings. Currently the only selectable profiles are "Default", "Autodetect", "High Quality", "Medium Quality" and "Low Quality".

• Add graphical interface for creating new transcoder profiles.
• Modify osd menu for playing recordings to show additional transcoder profiles.

PART II Modify the transcoder profile wizard to make adding filter parameters easier

• Replace the 'custom filters' input box with 'Add filter'/'Remove filter'/'Modify Filter' buttons and a list of currently applied filters
  • These could be on their own page
• On 'Add filter' -> Provide a list of available filters
• On 'Select filter' -> Provide a wizard for each type of filter

Pros

• Should definatly work
• Fixes transcoder profile setup to allow for more profiles
• User only has to set parameters once and can use them on any video
• Filter parameters easily input
• Filters are more discoverable to user
• Seems to go along with the current architecture

Cons

• Possibly adds clutter to transcoder profile setup
• Will require some gui coding for wizards

Alternate Solution #1

Set the filters in the transcoder profile

Pros

• This should definitely work
• User only has to set parameters once and can use them on any video
• No new code

Cons

• Currently only 5 (really 3) profiles and no option to add more.
• The current filter options are inconvenient to input from a remote.
• Filters aren't very discoverable.

Alternate Solution #2

Apply the filters in user jobs

Pros

• This should work
• No new code

Cons

• Not convenient to the user since they could not easily change filter parameters from a remote.
• Would require expertise.
• User would have to find a transcoder the would do the filtering. (maybe virtualDub or something)

Alternate Solution #3

Provide a filter menu for each recording

• Provide a menu item context menu of a recorded video (i.e. where 'edit' is). Allow the user to select filter parameters here and possibly preview.
  • Similare wizard to the first solution.
• Add videoFilter field to recorded table in database to store filter parameters for each recording
  • Perhaps other tables could be created, but this seems in line with how channel fitlers were implemented
• Modify transcoder to get filters from the recorded table, in (addition to / as apposed to) the recording profile.
  • What about conflicts

Pros

• Should work
• Allows user to choose custom filter parameters for each recording
• Should be easily discoverable for the user

Cons

• Probably would be redundant for user to select parameters for each recording if there are only several parameter sets the user uses for all their videos
• Possibly adds clutter to recorded video menu
• Requires change to MySQL schema
• Requires change to transcoder code
• Requires change to osd code?