Feature Request to support VHS to Plex workflow!

DavidCombes

Newbie Joined: Apr 09, 2020 03:42 Messages: 2 Offline

Solved by

Apr 14, 2020 13:34

Folks,

After a lot of research, I chose to use PowerDirector (and have an annual subscription to PD365) to migrate c. 60 x 3hour VHS recordings of our children's early years to MP3 files to add to a Plex library.

My workflow involves capturing the 3 hour video tape, splitting into c. 6-12 chunks based on collections of content (not based on auto-generated clip boundaries), then having to (very painfully) manually select a range that is the clip length, produce that range, giving the output a filename that Plex is happy with (sNNNeNNN etc).

Whilst I appreciate that this is a workflow that very few people will be attempting for themselves in this era, there is one simple changes to how PD works that would make this process significantly simpler for folk that do wish to do this!

Add an option at the Produce stage to generate a set of sequencially numbered output files, one for each clip in the project.

If this is too much to ask, how about adding the ability to make the selected range be the extent of the current clip? This would make the task of producing just the selected clip so much simpler.

Many thanks for your consideration of this request!

Cheers,
David

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Apr 14, 2020 19:57

Sixty tapes, that's a good chore ahead!
May I ask what your work flow is? VCR, capturing hardware, cables (svideo or composite), general computer specs.
What level computer skills? How important is quality? HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
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optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Apr 14, 2020 20:06

I'm completely unfamiliar with Plex, but it seems like the Precut feature does most of what you're looking for.

You'll create the specific precuts from your source clip using the Multi-Trim tool, and you can then you can place the clips on the timeline one at a time. The main advantage of this method over doing multiple Range Selects is that your start and end points are preserved for each clip in case you ever need to access them later.

With a single clip on the timlein, you can use the full Produce page and you'll only have to rename each new clip before producing it.

An alternate approach to generate your specific filenames would be to save a new PD project with the desired name, and only have that single clip on the timeline. Once you've got all your single-clip projects ready, use the Batch Produce feature to queue them all up and create the specific vids.

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DavidCombes

Newbie Joined: Apr 09, 2020 03:42 Messages: 2 Offline

Apr 17, 2020 17:14

Quote Sixty tapes, that's a good chore ahead!
May I ask what your work flow is? VCR, capturing hardware, cables (svideo or composite), general computer specs.
What level computer skills? How important is quality?

Thanks Barry, I'll give a quick resonse as I'm interested to try the suggestion from optodata...

I'm using a Diamond VC500 capture device providing PAL input via USB to a Windows 10 device (64Gb Surface3) running PD18

I would use the default DVD SP capture profile, but this seems to make my video all green, so I use DVD HQ(Fast) instead of DVD LP (which I believe creates lower quality captured material than than the 3-hour tapes provide via SCART).

I then manually look for suitable split points that divides the 3-hour tape into 'reasonable' sized chunks (usually 15-20mins)

I then have to manually select the range of each clip - by clicking so that the cursor is at the start of the clip, and dragging the range-handle to the end of the clip, having to change the zoom level to accurately leave the range handle at the end of the clip.

I can then use 'Produce Range' and write the clip as an MPEG (using MPEG-2 DVD SP profile) with the filename that Plex needs ('sNNNeNNN description.mp3')

I can see how optodata's idea might help the process. I'll report back once I've given that a go.

Cheers,
David

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Apr 18. 2020 01:34