In the GUI add a Transcode tab to the properties/preview box.
The tab lists all available devices and then has field for whether the file needs transcoding, to what format, and a button to add the file to a list of files to be transcoded.
EG
Code:Movie1
------
Device Transcode to Transcode state Start Transcode
--------------------------------------------------------------
Samsung B MKV Pending (3 of 6)
PS3 MP4 Complete
HTC MP4 Not started <Button>
Thanks for the suggestion! Something along those lines is planned and I'm happy to see some visuals from you here :)
Dennis and Conceiva,
Has there been any progress on a pre-transcode option - ie the ability to transcode in advance?
My pc is a bit slow and an option to start transcoding in advance would be helpeful!
Yes, it's being tested now and we're working on making it easy and powerful to use. Shouldn't be too far away now - thank you for your patience!
Cool, no need for another thread, these are precisely the items I was wishing for. +1
I see it's been over 2 months since the pre-transcoding has been tested - just wondering how much longer before it is released.
Thanks
We're confident of a pre-Christmas release. Thanks for your patience.
+1 for this feature... it's what would take Mezzmo from good to great in my opinion.
Being able to force or queue transcoding seems like a really necessary feature to me. Most files don't play well to my TV unless they have been transcoded first. I have a slow laptop I guess, because it sometimes takes hours to transcode a video file. I have to fire up Mezzmo and the TV, start playing the file on the TV, pause it, let the transcode finish (again... could take hours...) and THEN I can finally watch the video on my TV. Not an optimal experience at all.
But... if I could just pop a video file into my Mezzmo library and tell it to begin transcoding, that would at least make the whole thing a little easier. So glad to hear this feature is coming soon!
While I'm on the subject... making transcoding a more transparent process and giving the user more control in general would be awesome. For example, why are transcoded files named like this: 33-mpegts-libx264-ac3.mzt
Why not the copy the file name of the original source video file, so it's obvious what the content of the .mzt is?
So if I'm transcoding a file named "Most Awesome Video Ever.avi" the transcoded file is "Most Awesome Video Ever.mzt"
Also, is it possible to import an .mzt back into Mezzmo?
Thanks for the suggestion with regards file naming and copying over the original file.
With regards copying over the original file, you may have multiple devices in your home and they may have quite different supported file formats. For example, your Panasonic Viera TV may prefer playing MKV (H264,AC3), but your Xbox 360 prefers playing WMV. So, you will need multiple transcoded files for multiple devices. We're finding most users are now having multiple DLNA devices in their home.
Perhaps the ability to "Save As..." an .MZT file to a location on your computer is useful. We'll discuss it more and consider it for a future version.
Cool, thanks for the reply. Even if I can just import .mzt files, that's enough for me. I can go into the TranscodingFiles directory, figure out which one belongs to which video, copy it, etc. But so far I haven't found a way to then re-import that .mzt into my library.
You cannot re-import an MZT file into Mezzmo since MZT is not a valid media file format extension - it is an internal file extension only used by Mezzmo's transcoder engine. If you know what the file format should be, then you can copy the MZT to another folder location and replace the MZT file extension with what it should be (such as MKV, AVI, etc.). Once done, you can add this into Mezzmo.
So, it should be easy for you guys to add .mzt as a valid file for Mezzmo to import? Maybe that could be added to a future release, so we can keep the .mzt extension. Just a thought! Thanks for the reply!
Thanks for the idea. I think we'll keep MZT as an internal format for now and not expose it. But we will certainly consider letting you copy MZT files to another location as an AVI, MPG, MKV, etc. We'll discuss this more and add it to our "to-do" list.
Just an update - Mezzmo v2.5 has been released and it includes the 'pre-transcoding' features and new Transcoding pane that have been discussed in this thread.