automkv - Automatic MKV converter, with (we hope) smart behavior
automkv [global-options] [ [file-options ...] [file ...] ... ]
Global Information Options: -? | --help Display brief help message and exit. -S | --show Display specified information and exit. -M | --man Print the manual page and exit. -R | --readme Print the README for the program, and exit. -V | --version Print the version information and exit. Global Processing Options: -n | --no-operation | --nop Report what would be done, but don't do it. -v | --verbose Report on what's being done. -A | --assume Assume some data about the files. -D | --debug Provide debug output. -L | --default-language Default language for all streams. -O | --outdir Set path to output directory. -P | --default-presentation Default name for all grouped content.
automkv is currently in alpha state and, as such, may not be suitable for any particular use. In fact due to how far it yet has to go before meeting its minimal design specs, if it IS currently suitable for some task, it is unlikely to remain that way as it evolves.
automkv attempts to intelligently determine how to convert one ( or more) files into a .mkv file, incorporating all available metadata as it does so. So far, its still pretty dumb, fails to actually include much of the metadata is manages to deduce.
automkv is intended to be able to look at a set of media files in a directory tree, probe their contents, and (perhaps using additional information provided on the command line) deduce the relationships (if any) between the files, and gather all relevant metadata about the related files.
Once all the metadata for a file or set of related files has been gathered, then automkv is supposed to work out which files can usefully be combined, and in which ways, and carry that out, such as merging subtitle or commentary files with their .avi file, or joining together two halves of a long movie into a single file, all controlled by a user policy that also dictates the final output file names of the newly created .mkv files.
It is hoped that automkv will eventually be sophisticated enough to be allowed to run as a directory monitor, automatically converting all files that are stored in the monitored directories. That day is currently still a long way off.
In practice, it is currently often necessary to assist automkv by giving it assumptions on the command line, such as what to assume the episode name of a tv series is. How it makes use of this extra data is both under-documented and undergoing rapid flux at the moment. I fear that this documentation is likely to always lag behind the reality until version 1.0 comes out.
Prints a brief help message, and exits.
Prints the requested information, then exits. This option can be invoked multiple times to request multiple types of information, or a single comma-separated string can be passed to specify the desired information types. Currently allowed queries are:
List all accepted language codes.
Lists all tags accepted by the --assume option. At least, this is the theory. Currently all possible tags are accepted, and most are ignored. Once the internal processing model settles down, this will provide actual information.
Prints the manpage for the program, and exits.
Prints the version of the program, and exits.
Asks automkv to produce more information about its internal processing. Currently this doesn't do much as automkv is often already too verbose.
Asks automkv to dump various data structures as it works, so that one can attempt to figure out what its doing, and debug it. Even if you are not trying to fix the progam, this can be useful just to see what internal processing tags are being used. These are good candidates to use to tweak automkv's behavior using the -A flag below.
Tells automkv to assume something about file it is processing. This can be used to provide information to automkv that it would not otherwise be able to gather. A full set of accepted tags and their meanings can be gathered by calling automkv with '--show tags', but here's a partial list:
This tells automkv to what to assume for the untagged part of the filename, rather than deriving it by stripping tags off the filename.
If automkv knows the name of the show, it will assume that the file stem is an episode name.
If automkv knows the total number of seasons it will ensure that no more digits are used for an episode number than will be required. It will also use the number of episodes to produce tags like 'xx of yy' for files that lack a season number (such as miniseries and documentaries).
Tells automkv how many seasons there are in a show. This is useful to make it use more or few digits in a season name.
Specifies the language to be assumed for all stream content that doesn't otherwise have a specified language. This takes a 3-letter ISO code for the language. The current list of accepted ISO codes can be determined from the "--show lang" option.
If no default language is specified, the default-default is English (eng).
This gives a default 'presentation' name that is used as an internal title of all tracks which follow (and which do not explicitly specify titles or presentation names of their own) until changed by another use of this option.
If not set, the default for this is 'Feature' which means that all sound, video and subtitle tracks which are found will default to a title of 'Feature' to indicate that they are part of the main feature presentation.
To install automkv, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm automkv
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install automkv
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.