CPV - Convert and Proxy Video

High quality, high speed shell script for converting and creating files for use in video editing software.

• Losslessly converts video files to the .mkv container for compatibility with video editing software

• Optionally creates lower resolution proxy files for editing to save CPU (for replacement on final render)

Some video editing software does not like certain file formats (like .MTS), and often you need to create much lower resolution versions of your source video to be able to edit without the CPU overloading.

If your software does not support making proxy files then you need to create them yourself and manually replace them for the final render. The new version of Blender 2.8 will do this for you automatically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRhTiFAHL1k, but you might not be lucky enough to be using that :)

Tested for use in Reaper using FFmpeg as video decoder.

Dependencies

Requires FFmpeg installed and available on the command line.

Usage

Download the script to a folder in your PATH so you can run it, and make it executable: direct link to script to copy/paste

cpv [options] [filename]

Optional arguments:

-c  specify container (defaults to .MTS)
-i  specify input file
-a  proccess all files in the directory

Examples:

cpv -i test.MTS     convert file to .mkv
cpv -c .mp4 -a      convert all files with .mp4 extensions in current directory
cpv -a              convert all files in current directory with default .MTS extension

Editing proxy file defaults

You can edit this line of code in the script:

local video_settings="libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 0 -vf scale=480:-1"

-crf 0 lossless encoding for speed/low CPU use, but very large file FFmpeg H.264 Video Encoding Guide

-vf scale=480:-1 reduce resolution to 480p preserving aspect ration FFmpeg Filters Documentation