MCEBuddy2x

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My Configuration

My Monitor Locations

I have requirements to move/convert video files from five different locations on a regular basis on my computer:

  • NextPVR default folder - to pick up normal TV recordings two weeks after the recording finished, acting as an archiving system for things we've not got round to watching.
  • NextPVR fasttrack folder - to pick up files 1 minute after the recording finished, mostly used to pull kid's TV shows out of NextPVR on the day they were recorded and put them into a single location for watching.
  • NextPVR movies folder - again this takes recordings two weeks since they were made and archives them into the media server. This is used to filter the files to a different destination in the next step.
  • Google drive tv show folder - allowing me to drop files into my system wherever I am.
  • Google drive movies folder - for the same reason that I separate out NextPVR tv shows and movies - this also allows me to pick up MP4 files wherever I am and get them processed into my media server.

Obviously, I've not been specific on where the monitor locations (watch folders) are located on my computer here as this will likely be different for everybody. The process for setting them up is pretty simple, just giving them a clear name, selecting the location they are to monitor, selecting whether subfolders should be monitored (in my case, they are in the NextPVR folders as every recording is saved to a series/movie folder, but in my google drive folders, I specifically don't want MCE Buddy to monitor subfolders as my movies folder is within the videos folder used for tv shows) and adding any file filters that might be required (if you want to ignore certain files).
After that, click into Expert Settings, which in this case really aren't that expert.

Here I've selected my options for whether the original file gets archived, deleted or has no further action, selected an archive folder and added any folder exclusions - to avoid getting into any loops, I've set my MCEBuddy archive folder as an exclusion here.

As a side note - I've set my NextPVR files to be archived so I can reprocess them if necessary. In the unlikely event of something going wrong with a conversion, that allows me to pick the file back up and drop it back into the original folder and reprocess.
This was useful when I was configuring the system, but has now just resulted in an extra housekeeping task to keep the archive folder empty after I'm happy with all conversions.
Since getting all of my settings correct for my own requirements, I've not had to reprocess a file (the most significant use of this archive in the past was to reprocess files that had been output with the same filename - I've now corrected this in my MCEBuddy settings so duplicate filenames get numerated rather than overwritten).

Next is the section where I've selected the delay before a file gets processed.

The delay entered here is the delay from the last time a file was written to - it's sensible not to have this too short (especially in the case of files transferred in from an external computer), but locally generated files really can have a short delay here.

This is also where you can restrict files from being reprocessed.

The first tick box (Monitor converted videos) allows you to decide whether MCEBuddy should convert a file that has been output from MCEBuddy. It's suggested that this can be used for daisy chaining conversion tasks, but if those conversion tasks re-encode the video, it is better to always work on the original. Keeping this box unticked will help avoid quantisation errors due to reprocessing the same video again and again.

Where you are archiving/deleting correctly, you can safely use the Re-monitor recorded videos - this will keep processing the same file every time it appears in the monitor location and is very useful for reprocessing files that didn't convert correctly.
If you are struggling to reprocess a file that has previously gone through MCEBuddy, check your settings here.

So after I'd set up all of my monitor locations with their various delays, I just needed to point a conversion task at them

My Conversion Tasks

Initially, I didn't fully grasp how powerful this section is and I ran a single conversion task for everything.

Since then, I've worked out how to apply certain tasks to certain folders and get use MCE Buddy as a filtering tool.

I have four conversion tasks set up:

  • Convert to MP4 - this takes tv shows in most video formats and converts them to a common output format.
  • Move MP4 - this applies no conversion, but just renames and moves tv shows to their correct final destination.
  • Convert movie to MP4 - used in combination with the movie folders above, this does the same conversion task, but moves the movie to a different desination.
  • Move Movie - again, no conversion here, but drops movies into the right place after renaming them in a common format.

Starting with the most simple ones - the Move MP4/Move Movie tasks have very few settings.

After giving them their names, I have to have a profile selected, but later on I will tell the task not to carry out any conversion, so what is selected here is irrelevant.
Following this, I've set my destinations - this is why I've got what appear to be duplicate tasks for tv shows and movies. There is probably a complicated way of getting round this, but the method I've used doesn't cost in terms of performance, so I've left it there.
One move task has /videos/ as its destination (for tv shows) and the other has /movies/

I've chosen not to remove any ads as I'd rather manage that myself. I found in testing that ad removal added a lot of duration to the overall task and I was never confident in the work it had done - there wasn't an easy way to confirm it had removed the right things and not the wrong things. I'll cover my ad removal process in a later article.

Then it's into Advance Settings where most of the work happens in these tasks. Both of my move MP4 tasks have the following options selected: Rname and sort by video information - this gives me a common filenaming format. Rename without converting - this disables the profile that was selected earlier and just does a move operation.

A little further down, I do a filename match and specify *.mp4, so only MP4 files get picked up (this allows me to be more generic in my monitor location config, in case I use those for multiple tasks).

Then I go into Expert Settings for the next step.

I've left Download Information as selected, it allows MCEBuddy to download programme data from the internet.
In the Selection Filters box, I've selected Select Monitor Locations and restricted the monitor locations down to the relevant folders. This would stop MCEBuddy from processing an MP4 that has been dropped into the wrong folder and also allow me to separate off the movies and tv show conversion tasks without one jumping in and working on the others files.

Since I want these quick move tasks to complete as soon as possible rather than waiting behind a queue of .TS > .MP4 conversions, I've ticked the "Insert at top of queue" box here.

Finally, at the bottom of the window is where I've selected "Do not overwrite files" to ensure duplicate files get numerated rather than overwritten (an essential in my opinion).

The two conversion tasks are similar in set up - I've chosen to go with MP4 High Quality for both, with no ad removal and the two tasks directing their outputs to /videos/ and /movies/ as necessary.

In Advanced Settings, I've made sure that Rename and sort by video information is selected, but Rename without converting is not.
(At some point early on in my experience with MCEBuddy, I inadvertently had this selected while I was processing Windows Media Center recordings. While I was impressed with the speed of not converting files, it meant that I had a load of files pushed into my media server which is simply couldn't read!).

I've set my filename match to .ts and set my Max video width to 1920 (preserving pixel count on HD material), selected Detect and optimize video quality and also selected Select best soundtrack (to ensure I don't accidentally end up with just the audio description tracks!).

In Expert Settings, I've gone for the same (standard) Media Information Management settings, selected the relevant folders (NextPVR movies for the movie conversion task and NextPVR default and fasttrack for the TV show conversion task).

I've selected "Disable Cropping" and "Hardware Acceleration" and again Selected "Do not overwrite files".

General Settings

There's not a great deal I've done in here for my long-term configuration. As previously mentioned, I used the Scheduling options to get through the bulk of conversions from Media Center overnight, but since I'm into normal operation, I just process files as and when they are available. I've set the CPU options reasonably low, so I don't have such a massive throughput that this causes me a problem with day to day tasks.

Into System settings at the bottom of the window, all I've done is select "Limit processor utilization" and selected the first three tickboxes (I think this means I'm using 12 (of 16) cores max, but in reality I could lower this at the expense of conversion duration).

Finally, in the main window, I've set MCEBuddy's priority to Normal. Sometimes I will put this up to high if I want to push a conversion through, or drop it to low if it is interfering with general computer use, but Normal generally does the trick.