Plex PostProcessing Script for DVR(Beta) on Ubuntu 14.04 Server
If you're like me, you probably just want a no-frills/no-fuss script to convert your recorded content from Plex DVR, down to a much smaller file size. Personally, I wanted to downsize more significantly, so I convert to 720p as well. Your mileage may vary and you can play with handbrake's settings to get just the right config for you.
I was getting frustrated trying to get FFMpeg and Comskip working / built / installed so I basically went the easy route and just installed handbrake CLI (for headless operation) and a very, very simple script to do the conversion. All seems to be working fine in its current state so I'm happy to share with the world.
UPDATE: I've added an FFMPEG branch which support FFMPEG instead of HandBrake CLI. I'll probably only be working in this branch for a while since I was having issues with audio synch with HandBrake. If you want to grab the FFMPEG version, make sure you clone the right branch, ex.
git clone -b FFMPEG-Branch https://github.com/nebhead/PlexPostProc
Handbrake CLI
If you already have handbrake installed from the default repository, you'll want to remove it first. Last I checked, the default version dropped support for h264 natively.
sudo apt-get purge handbrake
Now install this repository and the handbrake-cli (command line interface) software.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install handbrake-cli
First you will need to get the script onto your machine. You can do this by cloning my git repository or simply downloading and placing in a directory of your choice.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/nebhead/PlexPostProc
cd PlexPostProc
sudo chmod 777 PlexPostProc.sh
Now go to Plex's webui and go to server settings > DVR (Beta) > DVR Settings
From there you should be able to enter the path to the post processing script and you should be done.
For example:
\home\[your-username]\PlexPostProc\PlexPostProc.sh
Where [your-username] is replaced with your username.
That's it.
Happy Post-Processing!
It has been noted that in some cases (for example on MacOS or FreeBSD OSes) the script will fail due to the fact that the FFMPEG or Handbrake binary is not found on the system. In these cases, you may need to modify the script to include the full path to the executable.
For example, change this line:
HandBrakeCLI -i "$FILENAME" -f mkv --aencoder copy -e qsv_h264 --x264-preset veryfast --x264-profile auto -q 16 --maxHeight 720 --decomb bob -o "$TEMPFILENAME"
To this:
/usr/local/bin/HandBrakeCLI -i "$FILENAME" -f mkv --aencoder copy -e qsv_h264 --x264-preset veryfast --x264-profile auto -q 16 --maxHeight 720 --decomb bob -o "$TEMPFILENAME"
Where "/usr/local/bin" is the path to the executable.