Recursively convert media directory from HEVC to h.264 with ffmpeg - macos

Question

I have media server with two directories: Movies and TV Shows. Within each of those directories, each entry exists in a sub-directory which contains the video file and subtitle files.
I've scoured the web and have found an excellent perl script from Michelle Sullivan, posted here:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
open DIR, "ls -1 |";
while (<DIR>)
{
chomp;
next if ( -d "$_"); # skip directories
next unless ( -r "$_"); # if it's not readable skip it!
my $file = $_;
open PROBE, "ffprobe -show_streams -of csv '$file' 2>/dev/null|" or die ("Unable to launch ffmpeg for $file! ($!)");
my ($v, $a, $s, #c) = (0,0,0);
while (<PROBE>)
{
my #streaminfo = split(/,/, $_);
push(#c, $streaminfo[2]) if ($streaminfo[5] eq "video");
$a++ if ($streaminfo[5] eq "audio");
$s++ if ($streaminfo[5] eq "subtitle");
}
close PROBE;
$v = scalar #c;
if (scalar #c eq 1 and $c[0] eq "ansi")
{
warn("Text file detected, skipping...\n");
next;
}
warn("$file: Video Streams: $v, Audio Streams: $a, Subtitle Streams: $s, Video Codec(s): " . join (", ", #c) . "\n");
if (scalar #c > 1)
{
warn("$file has more than one video stream, bailing!\n");
next;
}
if ($c[0] eq "hevc")
{
warn("HEVC detected for $file ...converting to AVC...\n");
system("mkdir -p h265");
my #params = ("-hide_banner", "-threads 2");
push(#params, "-map 0") if ($a > 1 or $s > 1 or $v > 1);
push(#params, "-c:a copy") if ($a);
push(#params, "-c:s copy") if ($s);
push(#params, "-c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p") if ($v);
if (system("mv '$file' 'h265/$file'"))
{
warn("Error moving $file -> h265/$file\n");
next;
}
if (system("ffmpeg -xerror -i 'h265/$file' " . join(" ", #params) . " '$file' 2>/dev/null"))
{
warn("FFMPEG ERROR. Cannot convert $file restoring original...\n");
system("mv 'h265/$file' '$file'");
next;
}
} else {
warn("$file doesn't appear to need converting... Skipping...\n");
}
}
close DIR;
The script performs perfectly - as long as it is run from within the directory containing the media.
My question: Can this script be modified to run recursively from the root directory? How?
Thanks in advance.
(Michelle's script can be seen here: http://www.michellesullivan.org/blog/1636)

Answer 1

Why do you want to run recursively? Do you mean that you want to run it on all the files under a particular directory?
In this problems, I'd rather separate the part that generates the list of files to process from the processing. With a long list of files, I might take the lines from standard input instead:
while( <> ) {
...
}
Pipe the list into the script:
$ find ... | script
Or take it from a file:
$ script list_of_files.txt
With a short list, I might use a favorite xargs trick:
$ find ... -print0 | xargs -0 script
In that case I go through the command-line arguments:
foreach ( #ARGV ) {
...
}
If you want to do all of this in the program, you can use File::Find.
Beyond that, it sounds like you are asking someone to do the work for you.