Year: 2014

Batch Handbrake video file conversion with Python

Steven A. Cholewiak 3 Comments

I needed a quick little piece of code that would go recursively iterate through a folder and its subfolders and convert all of the video files to H.264, so I took advantage of the Handbrake command line interface (CLI) and Python 2.7.x to do the work for me. This code snippet is not long or elaborate, but does the job, so hopefully it will be helpful to others.

Note that the Handbrake CLI options are defined in runstr. As-is, the script will convert videos with AVI, DIVX, FLV, M4V, MKV, MOV, MPG, MPEG, and WMV extensions to H.264 MP4s with the following options:

  • “Normal” preset
  • Two-pass encoding
  • Turbo first pass, which “significantly boost[s] the speed of the first pass – with minimal effect on quality”

GoPro SuperView-like adaptive aspect ratio

Steven A. Cholewiak 1 Comment

For Christmas, my parents got me a fantastic gift for photographers and outdoors enthusiasts, a GoPro Hero3+ Silver Edition digital camera (Amazon). If you are not familiar with GoPros, they are small action cameras that have a very wide-angle lens and come with a water-resistant case. It’s a fantastic little camera that packs a lot of punch for such a compact package.

There are a number of GoPro editions, but the newest one are the Hero3+ Silver and Black. The Silver Edition is very similar to the GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition (Amazon), but omits a few features, including some very high-resolution video recording modes and a feature that GoPro calls “Superview”. This post talks about a way that I attempted to emulate their Superview mode in MATLAB and put together an adaptive aspect ratio function that allows one to change the image’s aspect ratio while maintaining “safe regions” with minimal distortion.

This function allowed me to resize 4:3 images and video, like this one:

To a wider aspect ratio, for example 16:9:

Click through for info on how I implemented the code.

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