Consider doing the "cut point" check prior to processing the raw stream

[tim1mw]

The initial proposal was for all the cut mp4 files to be check and approved prior to upload. However since VLC can reliably seek to a specified time index inside the raw transport stream recording, it would make more sense to check the cut points prior to processing the raw stream, since the final mp4 will be an accurate reflection of those cut points, we can save having to re-run the video cut job if a cut point is wrong by doing it this way and start the upload as soon as the MP4 comes out of the cut processor.

[IanTaylorFB]

So, if I understand you correctly, it would work this way:

have a script to read the cut points
open the raw stream at each cut point
cut point is verified
when both start and end are verified, the session mp4 is cut,
and transferred to `ready_for_upload` for uploading (immediately)

If I've understood correctly, I really like this - it makes sense to do it this way.

Can we have a facility to 'edit' the cut point? I'm guessing this will be done within a web page? If we can have some widget control (slider?) to adjust the recorded cut point, then when you 'commit' the points everything else can flow.

[tim1mw]

Ian, yes that's exactly my thinking. Editing the cut points is partially covered by #10, however that was really just about being able to type a new one in. I'm not certain I know how to get VLC to spit the time index out so we can read it in so you would probably need to manually enter the new time. The initial "simple idea" was to just invoke VLC with the correct time and manually enter a new one if it's wrong.

Ideally the best way to do the cut point check is by showing the video file in the browser and not using VLC (or anything else), controlling an HTML 5 video via javascript is easy and getting the time index out isn't a problem, I've got lots of experience of this. In the long term this is by far the best option.

I think need to do some experiments on working with very large HLS streams, I'm not sure how they behave, which was why I didn't use them this year, the single TS files work and are proven. I also prefer a single TS file since it's directly usable in VLC and other editing software should we want to use it that way.

The "best of both worlds" option would be to generate HLS "on the fly" from the big TS file for the cut point check, it's technically possible if the TS file has been indexed. So that's another option for me to think about. Watch this space....