HandBrake

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:46 am**

Description of problem or question:

Calling Handbrake from within a Bash script, I am unable to process more than one file from a given folder. Using a While loop, Handbrake simply exits after processing the first file.

To be clear, the encoding process works as expected for the first file. The script simply terminates after that point. The only errors that appear in the Handbrake output are the typical errors associated with scanning for and not finding Bluray or DVD content.

My preference was to leverage HandBrake's Queue functionality but it seems said functionality is either missing from HandBrakeCLI or is present in a separate binary of which I am unaware.

HandBrake version (e.g., 1.0.0):

HandBrake 1.2.1

HandBrake Log Snippet

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username@video-proc:~$ ./convertHand.sh 
Converting /home/username/Converted/Family Guy-Quagmires Dad.mpg to .MP4...
Cannot load libnvidia-encode.so.1
Cannot load libnvidia-encode.so.1
Cannot load libnvidia-encode.so.1
Cannot load libnvidia-encode.so.1
[05:22:13] hb_init: starting libhb thread
[05:22:13] thread 7f40736b1700 started ("libhb")
HandBrake 1.2.1 (2019021900) - Linux x86_64 - https://handbrake.fr
4 CPUs detected
Opening /home/username/Converted...
[05:22:13] CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100U CPU @ 2.30GHz
[05:22:13]  - Intel microarchitecture Skylake
[05:22:13]  - logical processor count: 4
........

x264 [info]: frame I:263   Avg QP:14.70  size: 72240
x264 [info]: frame P:11377 Avg QP:17.63  size: 12984
x264 [info]: frame B:32201 Avg QP:23.46  size:  1758
x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames:  1.2%  1.7%  2.3% 94.8%
x264 [info]: mb I  I16..4:  5.8% 57.1% 37.2%
x264 [info]: mb P  I16..4:  0.7%  3.2%  1.3%  P16..4: 39.7% 16.9% 13.8%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:24.3%
x264 [info]: mb B  I16..4:  0.0%  0.2%  0.1%  B16..8: 26.2%  4.3%  1.4%  direct: 1.7%  skip:66.0%  L0:37.9% L1:53.0% BI: 9.1%
x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:59.4% inter:43.5%
x264 [info]: direct mvs  spatial:100.0% temporal:0.0%
x264 [info]: coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 77.4% 87.0% 76.0% inter: 10.7% 15.6% 6.4%
x264 [info]: i16 v,h,dc,p: 53% 24%  8% 15%
x264 [info]: i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 16% 12% 13%  7% 10% 11%  9% 10% 11%
x264 [info]: i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 17% 12%  8%  8% 12% 12% 10% 10% 11%
x264 [info]: i8c dc,h,v,p: 41% 23% 23% 13%
x264 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:1.6% UV:1.5%
x264 [info]: ref P L0: 63.8%  8.8% 16.6%  5.5%  5.3%  0.1%  0.0%
x264 [info]: ref B L0: 84.2% 11.2%  3.6%  1.0%
x264 [info]: ref B L1: 93.2%  6.8%
x264 [info]: kb/s:1220.65
[06:01:35] mux: track 0, 43841 frames, 223303107 bytes, 1220.63 kbps, fifo 4096
[06:01:35] mux: track 1, 68582 frames, 29261452 bytes, 159.95 kbps, fifo 4096
[06:01:35] mux: track 2, 45721 frames, 46817714 bytes, 255.92 kbps, fifo 4096
[06:01:35] libhb: work result = 0

Encode done!

HandBrake has exited.

Operating system and version

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Code Snippets
This while loop leverages a txt file containing a list of file paths and names for all files to be processed.

Contents of text file

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/home/username/Converted/Family Guy-Quagmires Dad.mpg
/home/username/Converted/Daniel Tigers Neighborhood-The Class Votes; The Neighborhood Votes.mpg
/home/username/Converted/Sesame Street-How to Build a Dinosaur.mpg
/home/username/Converted/Daniel Tigers Neighborhood-Daniels Allergy; Allergies at School.mpg
/home/username/Converted/Last Man Standing-The Wolf Returns.mpg

While Loop

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homeDir="/home/username"
finalDir="/home/username/Complete"
comcutOutputFolder="/home/username/Converted"

touch handBrakeFiles.txt

find "$comcutOutputFolder" -ctime -1 -print | grep .mpg > handBrakeFiles.txt

while read line; do
echo "Converting $line to .MP4..."
handName=$(basename "$line" .mpg)
HandBrakeCLI --preset "HQ 480p30 Surround" -i "$line" -o "$finalDir"/"$handName".mp4

done < handBrakeFiles.txt

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:25 am**

Wouldn't you need to tell Handbrake to close every time?

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:24 pm**

musicvid wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:25 am Wouldn't you need to tell Handbrake to close every time?

Not sure I understand what you mean. Handbrake is closing on its own and breaking the while loop in the process.

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:51 pm**

Your wrapper may not like HB's exit code or that HB outputs to stderr in normal operation. Try redirecting stderr /dev/null or similar.

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:54 pm**

I presume you've tried the script without the HandBrakeCLI invocation to see if it is acting correctly?
You might also try redirecting stderr to a file to see if an error is occuring. Don't know, does bash exit a while loop if a command returns an error status?

Mark

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:06 pm**

mbutler wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:54 pm I presume you've tried the script without the HandBrakeCLI invocation to see if it is acting correctly?
You might also try redirecting stderr to a file to see if an error is occuring. Don't know, does bash exit a while loop if a command returns an error status?

Mark

Correct, I am testing this Handbrake workflow separately from the main script to ensure other aspects won't interfere. Once the conversion script works independently, it will be added to the all-in-one script and tested again.

Based on the above suggestions, I modified my Handbrake command to:

Code: Select all

/usr/bin/HandBrakeCLI --preset "HQ 480p30 Surround" -i "$line" -o "$finalDir"/"$handName".mp4 > /dev/null 2>&1

Unfortunately, my script still exited prematurely.

Posted: **Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:37 pm**

Solved!

I managed to find the answer in this Stack Overflow post. Turns out, HandbrakeCLI somehow leverages the same stdin as my script which in turn causes the behavior I experienced. Adding

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echo "" |

in front of my HandBrakeCLI command prevents the loop from terminating prematurely. The new HandBrakeCLI command looks like this.

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echo "" | /usr/bin/HandBrakeCLI --preset "HQ 480p30 Surround" -i "$line" -o "$finalDir"/"$handName".mp4

Posted: **Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:34 am**

I would think a subshell would be sufficient, plus you could process more than one job simultaneously with some additional modification.

Posted: **Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:37 pm**

Wow, I didn't expect that! My scripts use ksh, so maybe I'm bypassing some of the bash behavior.

Mark

Posted: **Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:13 pm**

Where you do:

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handName=$(basename "$line" .mpg)

The $(...) is a subshell. Instead of running the enclosed command in the same shell instance as your script, it spawns another instance.

I suspect something like the following would work (provided you supply absolute paths):

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result=$(/usr/bin/HandBrakeCLI --preset "HQ 480p30 Surround" -i "$line" -o "$finalDir"/"$handName".mp4 >/dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)

This stores the exit code in $result, which you can use to check and print status while continuing to encode other jobs.

I suspect there's no concern about handBrakeFiles.txt being modified during the encode in your case; however, I would use mktemp or an in-memory array or both to be sure.

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listFile=$(mktemp)
find "$comcutOutputFolder" -ctime -1 -print | grep .mpg > $listFile

HandBrake

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Re: [Bash]Unable to convert multiple files within a folder.