A Powershell Script for HandBrake

Here's the thing. My system is an age-old i3-530 overclocked to 3.5GHz coupled with GTX 1050 2GB. I have around 1.5TB of tutorial videos that I have to encode due to dearth in HDD space. I want to encode the videos while keeping the folder and subfolder structure intact.

Here's the problem though. Since my system is overclocked, I sometimes get

Code:

BSOD

with IFME. And when I run Handbrake GUI, sometimes it stops working. The difference is that in case of IFME, the incomplete file is in a

Code:

TEMP 

folder, whereas it's pretty darn hard to differentiate between an incomplete and a complete output of HandBrake.

Here's what I want to do. I want to run a

Code:

Powershell

script (I'm a Windows 10 x64 user), which will do the following -

For each .mp4 in given folder:

• Run IFME/Handbrake with proper arguments with output file in a
  Code:

  TEMP

  folder
• Once the encoding completes successfully (maybe use
  Code:

  ERRORLEVEL

  here?), replace the original file with the encoded one.

Can this be done?

sml156 said:

Why not just set the CPU to where it should be and see if the problem stop's.

I agree.

Mycroft2046 said:

I have around 1.5TB of tutorial videos that I have to encode due to dearth in HDD space...

On another note, I have similar space concerns, so I have looked for the most compression I can get away with without noticeable quality loss. It's not the size of the original files that you should be looking at, rather the duration of the videos that's the determining factor.

I use the free Open Source command line utility FFmpeg for my processing. The settings I use are:
Codec: X.264 with Constant Rate Factor (CRF) of 28, preset 'veryslow' and tune 'film' (for live action) or 'animation' (if your tutorials are slideshows). This produces about 200MB for an hour of live action video (less if there's little action taking place). These settings are also available in Handbrake, just choose the H.264 codec to access them.

If you want to script your conversions, FFmpeg (as it's used from a command line) may be easier to set up. a typical command line would be:

FFMPEG -i input.mp4 -crf 28 -preset veryslow -tune film output.mp4

sml156 said:

Why not just set the CPU to where it should be and see if the problem stop's.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. I've tried to run them in stock settings, but that doesn't work as well. And I only get problems with IFME or Handbrake. I regularly use 7Zip to compress files of size 2GB, or run multithreaded Python scripts that push the CPU to the extreme, but no problem occurs then.

Bree said:

I agree.




On another note, I have similar space concerns, so I have looked for the most compression I can get away with without noticeable quality loss. It's not the size of the original files that you should be looking at, rather the duration of the videos that's the determining factor.

I use the free Open Source command line utility FFmpeg for my processing. The settings I use are:
Codec: X.264 with Constant Rate Factor (CRF) of 28, preset 'veryslow' and tune 'film' (for live action) or 'animation' (if your tutorials are slideshows). This produces about 200MB for an hour of live action video (less if there's little action taking place). These settings are also available in Handbrake, just choose the H.264 codec to access them.

If you want to script your conversions, FFmpeg (as it's used from a command line) may be easier to set up. a typical command line would be:

FFMPEG -i input.mp4 -crf 28 -preset veryslow -tune film output.mp4

Since most of my tutorials are screen grabs, I think they are comparable to slideshows. How does animation preset work with slideshows? Is sharpness of the texts affected?