I’ve just finished writing a small script that will help us edit and transcode video recorded at LCA 2007. Since we will record directly to DVD, we will need a simple laptop with a DVD drive and the installed software gmplayer and ffmpeg2theora to do the editing and transcoding, before uploading to a Web server. Which means that just about all LCA participants are potential helpers for making sure the video material gets published on the same day.

If you happen to be a LCA participant and want to help ascertain video publishing happens, please walk up to the video guys and offer your editing & transcoding help.

Ah yes, and here is the script - in case anyone is interested:

#!/bin/sh # usage function function func_usage () { echo "Usage: VOB2Theora.sh " echo " starttime/endtime given as HH:MM:SS" echo " filename input file for conversion" } # convert from SMPTE to seconds function func_convert2sec () { tspec=$1; tlen=${#tspec} #strlen # parse seconds out of string tsecstart=$[ ${tlen} - 2 ] tsec=${tspec:$tsecstart:2} #substr # parse minutes tminstart=$[ ${tlen} - 5 ] if test $tminstart -ge 0; then tmin=${tspec:$tminstart:2} #substr else tmin=0 fi # parse hours thrsstart=$[ ${tlen} - 8 ] if test $thrsstart -ge 0; then thrs=${tspec:$thrsstart:2} #substr else thrs=0 fi # calculate number of seconds from hrs, min, sec tseconds=$[ $tsec + (($tmin + ($thrs * 60)) * 60) ] } # test number of parameters of script if test $# -lt 3; then func_usage exit 0 fi # convert start time func_convert2sec $1 tstart=$tseconds # convert end time func_convert2sec $2 tstop=$tseconds # input file inputfile=$3 if test -e $inputfile; then echo "Converting $3 from $tstart sec to $tstop sec ..." echo "" else echo "File $inputfile does not exist" exit 1; fi # convert using ffmpeg2theora strdate=`date`; strorga="LCA"; strcopy="LCA 2007"; strlicense="Creative Commons BY SA 2.5"; strcommand="ffmpeg2theora -s $tstart -e $tstop --date '$strdate' --organization '$strorga' --copyright '$strcopy' --license '$strlicense' --sync $inputfile" echo $strcommand; sh -c "$strcommand";

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Ralph Giles made an improved version of the VOB2Theora script. It can be found at http://mirror.linux.org.au/linux.conf.au/2007/video/VOB2Theora_v2.sh.