Using nicesplice

[aciddad]

I've just used nicesplice for the first time and the result wasn't what I expected.
The beginning of the recording had program information from the previous program and I wanted to crop that away to the point where the information was correct. After performing the crop the new file still had the previous information (and the original start time) and the current information has disappeared. Is there a simple (not too technical) explanation?

Update.
I've just checked the whole recording and found that part-way through the correct information appeared! More surprising to me is that now the information is correct right from the start.
I'm obviously doing or not doing something, so my request for an explanation still stands.

 

[Ezra Pound]

It's down to the number of bookmarks you insert into the file as to what is 'kept' and what is 'cut', have a look at the red and green indicators HERE, your original file has been kept in an 'original' folder, I would be careful to always keep an original while you are practising

 

[Black Hole]

If I remember correctly, there is a way to make nicesplice treat the first mark as a lead-out instead of a lead-in.

Update: on re-reading the OP, I see this is a different problem.

 

[aciddad]

I looked at the Wiki before I started.
I set 4 bookmarks to crop the beginning, end and an advert break. That worked perfectly, but the first two times that I played the cropped file pressing "i" showed program information from the first part of the original recording (info from the previous program). A few minutes later the correct info was being displayed - hence my update. I'm just glad it works but I'm curious as to what might have caused this to happen.

 

[af123]

The hmt sidecar file against a recording can contain a number of EPG data blocks which are linked to a number of seconds of playback into the file. If you were to look at the raw recording info (which I think is a button in the standard web interface) then you'd see a summary of them.

Nicesplice probably doesn't patch them up when cropping. It could do that but it would need some development. It's probably easier to provide a way to fix it with the hmt tool, assuming it doesn't already have a way -I'd have to check.

Have you tried editing the programme name and synopsis in the web interface? Just add a . or something to each and save. You can always remove it again, the aim is just to trigger a save.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.

 

[aciddad]

Thanks for the replies.
af123 - I tried cropping after editing the name and synopsis but no change. I didn't know the synopsis could be edited so if I have to I can simply enter the correct info. Thanks for that.

 

[af123]

For those who are interested, when multiple EPG blocks are present in an HMT file, the hmt utility displays summary information about them. See the end of the example below. I'm almost sure that nicesplice doesn't touch these blocks or their offsets and to calculate them correctly during cropping wouldn't be trivial. It would be possible to write a patch-up utility that collapsed down to the single block that you want but I suspect it would only be useful/necessary in edge cases.

I've checked the HMT source and as long as you're running the latest version of the hmt package, changing the synopsis should change it in all of the EPG blocks but it doesn't look as the title is updated everywhere.

Format:SD
Title:Action Brewster
Channel:71 (CBeebies)
Folder:/mnt/hd2/My Video/Chuggington/
Filename:Chuggington_20110206_0720
Genre:Children (80)
EPG:Action Brewster: Animation featuring trains that talk, think and don't need drivers. Brewster is excited about seeing the Action Chugger movie, but Irving sends him to the foundry. [S]
Raw file is encrypted on disk.

Flags: SD,Unlimited Copies,ODEncrypted,Shrunk,
Copy count:0

Scheduled start:1296976800 (Sun Feb  6 07:20:00 2011)
Scheduled duration:600
Recording start:1296976831 (Sun Feb  6 07:20:31 2011)
Recording end:1296977457 (Sun Feb  6 07:30:57 2011)
Duration:626
Play resumes at: 612 seconds in.

Service ID (SID):16960
Event ID:47166
Transport Stream ID (TSID):16384
Originating Network ID (ONID):9018
Programme Map Table PID (PMTPID):703
Video PID:201
Audio PID:401
Bookmarks:0 =

EPG Blocks:3
  Block:1 Time:1 Offset:12480
    Block1_Title:i7Chuggington
  Block:2 Time:626 Offset:13184
    Block2_Title:i7Charlie and Lola
  Block:3 Time:0 Offset:0

 

[aciddad]

af123, thanks for looking into this. For my purpose editing the synopsis is perfectly acceptable. I will only need to do it to about a dozen recordings.
I don't understand the technicalities of the CF but I'm very glad it's available. Thanks to all responsible.