I (VI) wanted to batch convert many avi's of my daughter into vcd's. Grandparents don't settle for less :). The process takes a long time. At home, I'm stuck with windows. I've found that the freeware encoder at [L1 ] works well. But there are a few things I'd like. A batch convert mode or at least a complex enough command line to do encoding and exit. Also on my home PC, avi2vcd crashes if I encode twice in a row. I have to exit the program after each convert.
Here's a script using cwind to automate this. cwind is a wonderful package, and I've used it in all kinds of situations. This is using version 1.4.
package require cwind # Procedure to convert one avi file to a pal format in a subdir # called pal. Fix path to avi2vcd below. proc do_conv {fn} { if ![file exists $fn] { puts "Error Can't find file $fn" } set target [file join pal [file root $fn].mpg] # Do not reconvert if we already have a newer mpg if {[file exists $target] && ([file mtime $target] > [file mtime $fn])} { puts "Target \"$target\" is newer than source \"$fn\", not converting" return 1 } set start [clock seconds] puts "Will convert $fn into $target at [clock format $start]" file mkdir pal file delete $target # Fix this path to point to your own executable exec start c:/tools/avi2vcd/avi2vcd.exe & ::cwind::waitwind "avi2vcd*" 20 # Raise it. ::cwind::show "avi2vcd*" # Move to Source File ::cwind::send |TAB| |TAB| ::cwind::send [file nativename [file normalize $fn]] # Move to Target File ::cwind::send |TAB| ::cwind::send [file nativename [file normalize $target]] # Move to Format. First go all the way up and down to # whatever you want. One down gets you to PAL ::cwind::send |TAB| |TAB| |TAB| ::cwind::send |UP| |UP| |UP| |DOWN| # Start the convert ::cwind::send |TAB| |TAB| |TAB| |TAB| |TAB| |RET| set t [::cwind::gettext] # avi2vcd puts out a dialog box to say it's ended # remove the puts if you don't want to see the messages # we check every 5 seconds to see if a dialog box (no title) # has been displayed while {$t != ""} { after 5000 set t [::cwind::gettext] puts $t } set end [clock seconds] puts "Done in [expr $end - $start] seconds" # Remove the dialog box ::cwind::send |RET| after 5000 # Raise window, in case it's gone away ::cwind::show "avi2vcd*" after 1000 # Move to the exit button and exit ::cwind::send |TAB| |RET| # Probably could be shorter, but program has to exit # otherwise the delete below doesn't work. after 5000 # Delete the log file that avi2vcd creates file delete [file root $target].log #Probably not needed again but prevent multiple invocations #in parallel. (or maybe could be shorter) after 5000 } # Procedure to run the encoder on all the avis in the current # directory proc do_all_avis {} { foreach avi [glob *.avi] { do_conv $avi } } do_all_avis