Need To Add Extra Attributes To xVid Shows

[dkingsho]

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure where to post this question so I thought this area might be a start.

I've got a media box setup at work and we're recording shows and using Crunchie and dvr-ms toolbox to convert the shows. We then make them available on a server for all staff to access. This all works well and staff are using the shows.

However we've been told we need to add copyright information into each files attributes so as with all copyright we can state where and when it was recorded. Then we also need to state the copyright act in our state so it's all above board.

Has anyone had experience with this? I've looked around and can not find anyway to add extra attributes to AVI files (nor xVid) .

The plan I had was I'd run a script to extract the essential information from the dvr-ms before it's converted to xVid and then have a script that puts that info into the files attributes.

Don't know if this can be done, calling all experts for some help.

[ExtremePC]

Originally Posted by dkingsho

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure where to post this question so I thought this area might be a start.

I've got a media box setup at work and we're recording shows and using Crunchie and dvr-ms toolbox to convert the shows. We then make them available on a server for all staff to access. This all works well and staff are using the shows.

However we've been told we need to add copyright information into each files attributes so as with all copyright we can state where and when it was recorded. Then we also need to state the copyright act in our state so it's all above board.

Has anyone had experience with this? I've looked around and can not find anyway to add extra attributes to AVI files (nor xVid) .

The plan I had was I'd run a script to extract the essential information from the dvr-ms before it's converted to xVid and then have a script that puts that info into the files attributes.

Don't know if this can be done, calling all experts for some help.

What your asking for is called adding "tags" to the file. There are a number of methods to do this, the easiest way is to just right click on the divx file - properties - summary, then double click on any of the entries to edit.

[dkingsho]

Have u ever tried doing this to an xVid or AVI file?? most if not all of the "summary" tags are greyed out and some reading through Google suggests the information can't be added to AVI files because there is no header to attach them too.

I found an app that did it to any AVI whether it be divx or xvid but it was only ever readable through it's own app and not basically in Windows.

[logifuse]

Do you need to add a "have you every bought or rented a video that wasn't quite right" style bit at the start? There must be a way of having that as a 1 page thing & then just repeating the frame 125 times (i.e. 5 seconds) & you could do the same with a second page with the file's details. Sorry, I'm not sure what app you would need to do it with, but it must be doable.

Justin

[ExtremePC]

Originally Posted by dkingsho

Have u ever tried doing this to an xVid or AVI file?? most if not all of the "summary" tags are greyed out and some reading through Google suggests the information can't be added to AVI files because there is no header to attach them too.

I found an app that did it to any AVI whether it be divx or xvid but it was only ever readable through it's own app and not basically in Windows.

Lets see;

abcAVI Tag Editor
MID - Tag Editor

30 sec. in google.

[dkingsho]

I've tried abcAVI tag editor and it works but the tags are only vewable inside the application. when you transfer the files to another machine they aren't viewable through Windows Explorer which I need them to be.

Basically I want extra tags in the file summary so we know who the author is, what channel it's on, when it was recorded and our own personal copyright notice.

[eepunk]

Originally Posted by logifuse

Do you need to add a "have you every bought or rented a video that wasn't quite right" style bit at the start? There must be a way of having that as a 1 page thing & then just repeating the frame 125 times (i.e. 5 seconds) & you could do the same with a second page with the file's details. Sorry, I'm not sure what app you would need to do it with, but it must be doable.

Justin

I haven't played with it for a while, but Virtualdub can do it. It can also be run as a script to join files, so you could automate the joining of the copright to the crunched file.

So potentially, you could copy the dvr-ms info to a file convert it to a graphic then use vdub to change that to a stretch of film that could be joined to your crunched file, and I'm fairly certain the whole thing could be automated.

E.E.

[arkay]

mencoder that comes with crunchie can also concatenate avi files very simply. The only stipulation being is that the avi file to join to the crunched clip must be in the same format with the same framerate and audio rate etc.

If you were to generate the "copyright info" avi file for each crunched show then joining them can be automated very easily.

What you'd use to auto generate the copyright avi I'm not sure.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[impact]

I am all confused as to what the requirement is, and the solutions offered.... and gee I want to know where you work, so I can work there and watch TV too!!!!

I thought you needed to add attributes to an xvid file to contain details about the program and source, and of course when you use crunchie you loose the program details...

Then there is talk about merging avi files so you can have an intro picture containing this information or something? And lastly they need to be visible in explorer..

Now Im confused as to why you need to merge files, why you need to do all this - when the solution is fairly simple...

Digress for a moment - I have used Crunchie since day one... its a fantastic tool, but has always lacked some things that I would have liked to see... So I modified it - to suit my purpose.
I strip all the metatags out of the dvrms file before crunchie runs, then after crunchie has finished I inject the metatags back into the avi files... So I preserve things like show description etc. Sme fields map well, some nt so well, some not at all... ie I find no use to inject the runtime - as much as I would like to, after using an edit program the runtime is wrong (as the edit process does not update it)
When I get bored I can use oine of the utils above to go through and manually update fields or copy in new descriptions....

In my Vista machine, I no longer use the Videos screen, instead I use my own application that shows the files (based upon directory structure), and displays the description from the metadata of the avi files... Nice and neat, and far better for my purpose.

Relevance to your problem? Well I am just showing a high level way that is possible to preserve the meta data and with a little programming you could hard code things like - it comes from ch2 therefore the copyright string = "Copyright ABC Television" etc - so its easy to populate the data..

But you need to show it - and you mentioned Explorer... All the metadata tags (or most) are available for display - right mouse click on the title bar that normally has Name / Date / Filesize etc.. then click on More and you can choose which tags to display - one of the tags is Copyright, so if you are populating that field with useful data it would be displayed in the file listing...
- Your problem of course, is you need to do this manually once for each machine, or set up something to ensure that the file listing format does not change...

Anyway - just adding a few cents here, as I have followed the thread but not commented previously - and it just seems confusing now on what your trying to achieve - might help you out a little - or not..

[arkay]

The fact that the tags are not immediately visible in explorer was the reason why embedding it in the video itself was suggested.

Cheers,

Arkay.