"-convert_videos true" windows support? HandBrakeCLI.exe location?

[esmith13]

I am trying both the 386 and amd64 version of scraper.exe with the '-convert_videos true' switch to recompress videos for raspberry pi use. The videos remain in their original 640x480 sizes and do not get converted. HandBrakeCLI.exe is in the same folder as the roms and scraper.exe. Am I doing something wrong or does this function only work in the RPi version of the scraper?

[sselph]

Thanks for testing. I wasn't sure if this would work in windows. Do you see any errors? or does everything appear to work but doesn't actually transcode? Are these files already downloaded from a previous run? Looking at the code it only converts videos it downloads.

[esmith13]

videos not previously downloaded. Tested with both a fresh rom folder with no images or videos yet as well as with images already downloaded with a previous scraper.exe release. No errors on the command line either. No prompt to point to the HandBrakeCli.exe (which can I be so humble as to recommend a switch to provide HB.exe path?) I am exclusively using screenscraper.fr as the source. Their videos are 640x480 .mp4 files if that makes any difference. -- LOVE this application, BTW! Used to use UXS but it always crashes and it's way too slow when compaired to yours. Just wish you had the "Arcade (moon)" option they do for MAME/FBA/NeoGeo where the screenshot and marquee get combined to make a isometric view of an arcade cabinet. (hint, hint)

[sselph]

I'll pull out my copy of windows XP and do some testing tonight.

It should look for the program in the path so will check to see where it is normally installed by default and make sure to update the windows path like I have to do for 7zip. I think it would also look in the current working directory but I can test. I think it should just error out and complain if the flag is set and it can't find the program or the parameters are wrong, etc. But this was submitted by someone else so I haven't actually used it. If it is appropriate, I can see about adding a flag for the path but hopefully that is somewhat automatic and the user doesn't have to deal with all that.

Thanks for the kind words! It is hard to compete with the speed and reliability of a compiled language, but screech is awesome and makes a great app. I did rearchitect my image processing then blatantly steal his mix3 and mix4 image templates. I haven't found a way to natively transform images in to a non-square shape or however you actually word that. Basically transforming it to have the perspective of being on the arcade screen. I can look again or since we have been recently adding the ability to use third party apps, using a standard third party binary.

[sselph]

I did some tests and it seems to work with the .exe in the C:\Program Files\Handbrake (after my latest change) or the working directory. This is on an old version that works on windows XP in a VM. Maybe @ainmosni can shed some light.

[esmith13]

I'll check on my end too. The help file said handbrake CLI so I downloaded handbrake CLI.exe not the normal app with GUI. It was available as a free standing exe only so I only tried it in the local directory. I'll download the full installer and try again. Thank you.

[ainmosni]

Even though I haven't tested it, it should work as long as HandBrakeCLI is in the PATH. (Sorry for the slow response btw)

[sselph]

@ainmosni NP. I did end up testing on windows XP with version 0.99 I think. Whatever is the last version that worked on XP. It worked but there is a much newer version so can't do much testing. I did notice if the exe wasn't in the path there was an error like HandbrakeCLI not in %PATH% or something like that. I tested with it in the Program Files/Handbrake/ folder and with the scraper and it in the same directory and it worked. If the parameters were different then it would probably complain with an error.

[paradadf]

Having HandBrakeCLI.exe next to the scraper works on Windows 10 without the need of any installation.

[sselph]

Thanks @paradadf for testing this on a modern version of windows. I'll go ahead and close this out for now. If there are other issues we can reopen or start a new issue.

[esmith13]

I still can't get it to work or give an error on Windows 10. I have both handbrake installed and the HandBrakeCLI.exe in both the program path AND right next to the scraper.exe. I have tried both the 32bit and 64bit versions (of version 1.4.2 and 1.4.1). Here is the exact command I am running. The images and videos download but the videos do not get converted from 640x480 to 320x240. If anyone has any suggestions I'm open to trying them. Thanks in advance...

scraper.exe -console_img mix4 -console_src ss,gdb,ovgdb -missing _missing_roms.txt -region us,wor,eu,jp -video_dir videos -video_path videos -download_videos true -convert_videos true -ss_user {my_usr} -ss_password {my_pass}

[sselph]

Oops closed to quickly. To check, the videos directory is empty before you start? I'll try this exact command next time I get a moment.

[esmith13]

yes. I delete the videos before each test. it downloads them fine but does not convert.

[paradadf]

@esmith13 you could try this: https://github.com/paradadf/recaltools/tree/master/fastscraper

Don't forget to open the file and using -download_videos="true" You might also want to change -video_path.

[esmith13]

@paradadf - just tried your bat file and this was the output running it with and without admin rights:

'chcp' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. 'reg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Can't get OS's language. English will be used. 'ping' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. ERROR: No internet connection available. Exiting...

[paradadf]

@esmith13 it seems that you have a special (dismembered) windows installation, as some basic commands are missing. What kind of setup do you have?

[esmith13]

Dell XPS 8700 that shipped with Windows 7 Ultimate and was updated to Windows 10 via Microsoft's free upgrade path. It is my work PC. I'm the head of our IT department. I'm no programmer nor a great script writer by far but I know my way around a PC.

[sselph]

Another thing that would be interesting to check is while the scraper is running, if you open the videos folder do you see it creating files that look like rom_name-video-converting.mp4. The process downloads the video to rom_name-video.mp4 then will call handbrake to convert the video to rom_name-video-converting.mp4 then rename the file back to rom_name-video.mp4.

Might help narrow down the issue, if no errors are being thrown, I would suspect maybe something odd is happening with the rename, like it is silently failing and not actually overwriting the original file.

[esmith13]

it does not convert at all. I watch the videos folder during the process and as each game is listed in the command shell a mp4 file appears with the naming convention {game_name}-video.mp4. There are no temp files or increases and then decreases in file count. It simply adds one file for each game listed. EDIT: also tried again with administrative command shell and keeping task manager open to verify no handbrake executable was launched at any point.

[Wetzel402]

I tried this today with HandBrakeCLI.exe in the same directory as scraper.exe and also separately with Handbrake installed in the default location. I get ffmepg not found in PATH error.

Edit: I found this thread which prompted me to try ffmpeg.exe in the same directory as scraper.exe and this worked correctly.