INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: MachineHead on April 12, 2003, 08:05:28 am

Title: External Encoder question
Post by: MachineHead on April 12, 2003, 08:05:28 am
I'm trying to set up MC to use an external encoder. But I keep getting an Error 1 message saying it is unable to open external compressor.

Not sure, but I think I do not I have the parameters set up correctly.

Need an explanation on %IN and %OUT. If using a command line, do these have to be included, and more likely, how? Anyone have an example?
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: ChicoSelfs on April 12, 2003, 08:17:36 am
When i use the External Musepack Encoder i use the command line --quality 6 --xlevel --ape1 %IN %OUT. I Think the %IN %OUT option is for saving the tags from original file to encoded file
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: MachineHead on April 12, 2003, 08:30:35 am
I should have put this in the above post. Here is the parameters:

%d -t "Artist=%a" -t "Title=%t" -t "Album=%g" -t "Year=%y" -t "Track=%n" -t "Genre=%m" lame.exe --alt-preset fast extreme %s %d %IN %OUT

Putting the %IN - %OUT did start the encoder, briefly, but now says failed to import. It didn't kick in the encoder either.
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: RemyJ on April 12, 2003, 08:57:03 am
lame.exe is the executable.  it needs to be the first thing on the command line, everything else is passed as paramters to lame.  %IN %OUT are the input and output filenames respectively.  

>edit:  Oops, external encoder:  lame.exe shouldn't be in the line at all.  it's specified in the exe path.  You might want to start with a simple scenario and get that to work first.   "--alt-preset fast extreme %IN %OUT"

Also, is there a reason you're including your own tagging?  If so, you may want to recheck the parameters.  Those don't look like lame parameters.  MC takes care of all the tagging for you even wiuth the external encoder.

Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: crash_buka on April 12, 2003, 09:30:38 am
Quote
Also, is there a reason you're including your own tagging?  If so, you may want to recheck the parameters.  Those don't look like lame parameters.  MC takes care of all the tagging for you even wiuth the external encoder.



Is that true for every externel encoder or just MP3 encoders or just LAME?
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: MachineHead on April 12, 2003, 10:00:22 am
Quote
Also, is there a reason you're including your own tagging?  If so, you may want to recheck the parameters.  Those don't look like lame parameters.  MC takes care of all the tagging for you even wiuth the external encoder.



I'm trying to get MC to write apev2 tags to mp3's. So you are right that it isn't normal Lame parameters.

More here.. (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=7701&)

And here.. (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=8304&)

I did manage to get EAC to do this. I think MC should also handle this once it is set up right.
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: RemyJ on April 12, 2003, 11:13:35 am
Ah.  I missed the wapet part.  
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: RemyJ on April 12, 2003, 11:16:02 am
Quote


Is that true for every externel encoder or just MP3 encoders or just LAME?


Well, I know that it will do that for other mp3 encoders besides lame but i'm not sure about other formats.
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: rocketsauce on April 12, 2003, 12:41:17 pm
Quote
%d -t "Artist=%a" -t "Title=%t" -t "Album=%g" -t "Year=%y" -t "Track=%n" -t "Genre=%m" lame.exe --alt-preset fast extreme %s %d %IN %OUT


Also, should the %s and %d be in there? Aren't those the file input/output parameters for EAC?

Rob
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: MachineHead on April 12, 2003, 01:41:47 pm
Rob-

I think you are right. It was a command line pasted fromCase's site. I'll remove and see what happens.
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: dmbfan36 on April 12, 2003, 06:15:40 pm
Somewhat related question... is it possible to use external encoders for on the fly transcoding to the tivo server?  I ask becuase I have TONS of my shn files.. there's a util called shnshortener which will convert SHNs directly to MP3s...

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/shnshortener.shtml
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: rocketsauce on April 13, 2003, 12:03:59 am
Quote
It was a command line pasted fromCase's site.


Then those parameters are almost certainly meant to be used in EAC.

Also, if you're trying to write APE2 tags to MP3s, you would probably need to have Case's tag.exe in the same folder as lame.exe. And there is probably a switch (the read me that comes with tag.exe lists all of the switches) that you need to tell tag.exe to write APE2 instead of, or in addition to ID3v1. So your command line in MC might look something like:

-alt-preset standard --force ape2 %IN %OUT


Rob
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: MachineHead on April 13, 2003, 04:26:35 am
Rob-

You do not have to have Tag to do this. At least with EAC. MC shouldn't need it either. Matt had mentioned MC now writes apev2 tags to Monkey's, and I checked yesterday with MPC. Same.

Did you take a look at the thread over at HA? Case mentioned that because EAC does not natively write apev2 tags he came up with 'Wapet'. Basically EAC points to this as external encoder, and as long as Lame is in the same folder it will in turn call it for encoding.

In other words, Wapet is the little devil that is writing the tags in these instances. At least that's what I gathered from his site and through discussion at HA.

Case's Site (http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/)
Title: Re: External Encoder question
Post by: rocketsauce on April 13, 2003, 01:17:24 pm
You're probably right if you've been following the discussion on that topic over at HA. :)

I haven't been following the MP3/APE2/EAC/Foobar threads too closely since I've mostly been using MPC, Plextools and Speek's Frontends lately.

Rob