Filter Wizard
This is a feature request for a Filter Wizard for selecting and applying filters to recordings already recorded. This would allow the user to perform some basic video processing tasks in addition to transcoding.
Example: crop black bars from a TV show broadcast in letterbox.
Background
The functionality to apply filters to recordings already exists in the 'transcoders' profiles, but currently this method is not very user friendly (its just an argument string). There is some discussion on the developer mailing list of adding a gui for filters in the future, but nothing recent. Additionally, it is currently not possible to add new transcoder profiles, leaving only 4 possible combinations of compression and filtering.
The topic of allowing the user to add new recording profiles has been brought up on the developer mailing list. The position of the main developers seems to be "if you add a single new profile name, it would have to be added for each and every other profile group, etc, etc.. " and that this would be overly complex. It is assumed that the average user will not need more than 4 recording profiles. As far as I can tell the profiles in the 'transcoder' group would not have this issue. It is my understanding that 'transcoder' profiles are always used post recording and should then be hardware independent. Therefore a new profile in the 'transcoder' group would not need to be added to any of the other profile groups.
It is currently possible to add new transcoder profiles to the recordingprofiles table using a mysql query.
mysql> insert into recordingprofiles (name, videocodec, audiocodec, profilegroup) values("Letterbox","MPEG-4","MP3",6);
These profiles are then editable in the 'recording profiles' setup screen. They are also selectable from the 'post recording 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 from the osd are hard coded as "Default", "Autodetect", "High Quality", "Medium Quality" and "Low Quality".
Developer Threads
- PATCH transcoding profiles
- More recording profiles?
- More recording profiles? (revisited)
- [Preliminary patch[ Add profile groups
- How to edit the gui? (And some profile related stuff)
Suggested Solution
Fix transcoder profile setup to allow for adding new transcoders
- Add graphical interface for creating new transcoder profiles.
- Modify osd menu for playing recordings to show additional transcoder profiles.
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
- 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
