Day: February 16, 2010

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WTV Files: A Better Way?

OK, I’ve been right-clicking on Windows Media Center .wtv files and selecting “Convert to dvr-ms” one at a stinking time so I can then convert that to a format that’s able to be written to a DVD for playing anywhere, and it’s gotten old already. Yeh, yeh, call me lazy. Call me doubly lazy, since I could just set up another external drive (but make it a humongous 1.5TB drive, cos the files are about 3GB per hour of recorded video) to store the things on. But. keeping wtv files isn’t in the cards for me anyway, since some programs also record with DRM junk that voids the recording after a given period of time. Not appreciating DRM. (Anti-DRM: I still have some old Tom Baker “Dr. Who” episodes on VHS. No making unplayable by remote DRM management for those puppies, and I’m NOT accepting it now for new recordings.)

Dug around, and other folks feel the same way. Here’s a possible solution: WTVWatcher. I’ve scanned the thing for malware every which way from Sunday and it has come up clean so far. Does it work? Well, yes, it does. It watches the folder I specified (NOT my Recorded TV folder, another one where I put recordings I want converted), and then automagically converts whatever .wtv files are in the folder to dvr-ms. From there, I can convert the dvr-ms files into whatever I want to burn to optical media. Heck, for the shows that are going to be viewed on the old analog TV, that can even be avi onto CD! It’s as good as old VHS…

WTVWatcher uses the WTVConverter.exe app that’s included in the \\Windows\ehome folder where WMC resides. It’s the same app that’s invoked when using the right-click>convert to dvr-ms context menu schtick, but the script just automates it by watching the folder specified by the user and converting any and all .wtv files there. Easy-peasy, and seems to work just fine.

One word of caution: when the thing converts .wtv files to .dvr-ms it also automatically deletes the .wtv files. For me, this is a good thing. YMMV.

Additional thought: I had attempted to use WTVConverter on one .wtv file and kept getting a “WTVConverter cannot convert the file from wtv to dvr-ms… ” error, and this whether I attmpted to perform the conversion via the RIGHT-CLICK context menu or via the command line. But this lil script that uses WTVConverter to do its work churned right on through the file and produced a usable dvr-ms file. Strange. But good.

BTW, I hate commercials, so…

Trying out LifeExtender to remove commercials from dvr-ms files. I’ll drop back by to comment on how it does its job. It was written for Vista, hence the tailoring for .dvr-ms files, and hasn’t been updated for almost 2 years. I hope that’s because it works just fine the way it is. 😉

Update: OK, LIfeExtender (so-called, because it gives one back the minutes that commercials steal *heh*) does work, and as far as I can tell hasn’t caused any video loss, but be warned: it’s a slow process. I had to just let it run while I went on and did other things, but it took several hours to scan and remove commercials from 10 programs–all but one just one-hour programs. Do note that LE isn’t perfect. It glitched up a tad on one episode of one show, inserting 20 minutes of blank screen, though none of the show was lost, and every now and then, tiny pieces of commercials remain. Still, it’s a heck of a lot handier than editing the files manually.

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One of the “Seven Deadly Sins”

Of course, selecting seven sins as being somehow more “deadly” (or in some formulations “cardinal” or “capital”–more important–or “mortal”) is silly. Even those “lesser” sins labeled as “venial” can be as destructive.

And I fear that just that is so with our society. As we have denigrated the very concept of “sin” we have pejorated as well the truth of virtue. But that should be the subject of another post, I suppose, since this is addressed to just one of the so-called “deadly sins”–despair.

It’s hard to not throw ones hands in the air and simply give up in the face of the veneration of lies and the utter stupidity of the masses, especially in a society that was once governed as a representative republic with powers of governance that were diffused and acknowledged as simply loaned to government by a watchful and wary people. As we have, as a nation, regressed toward more and more democracy, power has naturally become more and more concentrated in the hands of demagogues and poltroons, as is the nature of democracies. For,

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

And that is what can lead to despair. *sigh*

Of course, one ought to also simply factor the selfish, auto-enstupiation of the masses into ones efforts to prevent the scoundrels, poltroons and outright evil soi disant “elite” from gutting society for their own short-term gain, I suppose. The problem then is finding a banner-carrier for reason whose charisma can appeal to the self-enstupiated, who are only appealed to by flash and sizzle and care nothing for substance, one who can resist the corruption of popularity bought through charisma and nevertheless remember his principles.

Such are found rarely in any generation. But in a time such as this, when self-styled elite rule through the approbation of the Mass Man thus largely negating any appeal to reason, I suppose those few who still attempt (and, like me, still often fail) to grasp at a straw of reason ought to be, like Diogenes searching for the mythical honest man, be searching for this paragon of virtue who nevertheless can appeal to Mass Man.

Perhaps as counter to despair, one might embrace a righteous anger, though it’s difficult to avoid unrighteous wrath once one has started down that path…

Whatever one does, avoiding the chief sin of the liars, poltroons, scoundrels and outright evil “elites” is essential. In pursuing justice and mercy, we must embrace an honest appraisal of our own actions, avoiding the pride of those who have for so long grown ever more powerful and who now bid to destroy this society, while falsely claiming to better it (Yes, Ø! I am talking about you and all your co-conspirators).

Of course, that does mean I’ll have to ameliorate my own disdain for those who, by their own selfish self-enstupiation and intellectual and moral laziness, have defined themselves as the lowest common denominator of Mass Man. I cannot erase my disgust for such, but I suppose I can at least say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

But I reserve the right–no, the duty!–to mock rap “music” with jeers, catcalls and loud, wet raspberries. *heh*