I’ve picked a few video podcasts that I like to watch. But because there is a lot of info there, quite some time ago I decided to start archiving them and make them accessible from everywhere I have internet. That involved a simple web page and converting every episode to flash to avoid codec problems. The best part is, that all of them have some type of rss feeds and make it easy to get the url to the video file, a description and some other useful info. So I sat down and wrote the following script:

1. #!/usr/bin/perl -w
2. # This script gets the latest Systm Podcast feed.
3. # It will check if the episode is downloaded and if not,
4. # it will download it, generate a .flv video, look for the
5. # $flag entry in index.html and will insert html code for
6. # the downloaded episode.
7. #
8. # Requires: ffmpeg, flvtool2, mencode and convert (IM)
9. #
10. #
11. # by Georgi Todorov
12. #
13. #
14. use strict;
15. use XML::RSS;
16. use LWP::Simple;
17. use Date::Format;
18. use Date::Parse;
19.  
20. my $duration;
21. my $image;
22. my $url2parse;
23. my $title;
24. my $url;
25. my $desc;
26. my $ep=0;
27. my $fname;
28. my $class;
29. my $line;
30. my $i=0;
31. my $date;
32. my @asdf;
33. my @splitted;
34. my $extension;
35. my $enc;
36. # Create new instance of XML::RSS
37. my $rss = new XML::RSS;
38. # Get the URL, assign it to url2parse, and then parse the RSS content
39. $url2parse = get("http://revision3.com/systm/feed/quicktime-high-definition");
40. #print $url2parse;
41. $rss->parse($url2parse);
42. # Print the channel items
43. #print $rss->as_string;
44. open OLDINDEX, "<index.html";
45. open NEWINDEX, ">newindex.html";
46. my $flag = "<!--start-->";
47. while ( $line = <OLDINDEX>){
48. chomp($line);
49. if ($line eq $flag){
50. print NEWINDEX $line."\n";
51. $i = 1;
52. }
53. if ($i == 0){
54. print NEWINDEX $line."\n";
55. }else{
56. foreach my $item (@{$rss->{'items'}}) {
57. next unless defined($item->{'title'}) && defined($item->{'enclosure'});
58. $date = time2str("%A, %B %o, %Y", str2time($item->{'pubDate'}));
59. $date =~s/ +/ /gi;
60. $url = $item->{'enclosure'}->{'url'};
61. @asdf = split(/\//, $url);
62. $ep = $asdf[$#asdf-1];
63. $ep =~s/^0*//;
64. $title = "Episode ". $ep;
65. @splitted = split(/\./, $url);
66. $extension = $splitted[$#splitted];
67. if ( $ep%2 == 0 ){
68. $class = "left";
69. }else{
70. $class = "right";
71. }
72. $fname = "Systm Episode ".$ep." (".$date.")";
73. $desc = $item->{'description'};
74.  
75. print "-------- Working on $title --------\n";
76. print "Looking for $fname.$extension ...";
77. if (-e "$fname.m4v")
78. {
79. print "found. Skipping.\n";
80. }elsif (-e "$fname.flv")
81. {
82. print "found. Skipping.\n";
83. }else{
84. print "not found. Downloading:\n";
85. system ("wget $url -O \"$fname.$extension\"");
86. print "Generating a Thumbnail and Encoding:\n";
87. system ("ffmpeg -y -i \"$fname.$extension\" -f image2 -ss 100 -vframes 1 -an out.jpg");
88. system ("convert out.jpg -resize x100 -quality 95 \"images/$fname.jpg\"");
89. system ("rm out.jpg");
90. system ("./encode2 \"$fname.$extension\" \"$fname.flv\"");
91. system ("flvtool2 -UP \"$fname.flv\"");
92. $duration = `/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i \"$fname.flv\" 2>&1|grep Duration|cut -d \":\" -f 3,4|cut -d \",\" -f 1`;
93. print NEWINDEX "<div class=\"$class\">\n";
94. print NEWINDEX "\t<div class=\"imglt\">\n";
95. print NEWINDEX "\t\t<img src=\"images/$fname.jpg\" alt=\"$fname\" /><br />\n";
96. print NEWINDEX "\t\t<a href='javascript:flowPlayerOpenFullScreen(\"$fname.flv\")' class=\"download_button\" >Play</a>\n";
97. print NEWINDEX "\t\t<a href=\"$fname.mov\" class=\"download_button\" >Download</a>\n";
98. print NEWINDEX "\t</div>\n";
99. print NEWINDEX "\t<b>$title ($date)</b<br />\n";
100. print NEWINDEX "\t<b>Length:</b> $duration\n";
101. print NEWINDEX "\t<p>$desc</p>\n";
102. print NEWINDEX "</div>\n";
103. if ($class eq "right"){
104. print NEWINDEX "<div class=\"clear\">\n";
105. print NEWINDEX "\t&nbsp;<br />\n\t&nbsp;\n";
106. print NEWINDEX"</div>\n";
107. }
108. }
109. print "-------- DONE --------\n";
110.  
111. }
112. $i = 0;
113. }
114. }
115. close OLDINDEX;
116. close NEWINDEX;
117. system("mv index.html oldindex.html&&mv newindex.html index.html");
118.  
119. Свалете този код/download this code: updatepodcast.pl

It works pretty good for now. encode2 just contains the looooong mencoder command for encoding to flv:

1. mencoder "$1" -o "$2" -of lavf -ovc lavc -oac lavc \
2. -lavfopts i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames \
3. -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=800:autoaspect:mbd=2:\
4. mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3:predia=2:dia=2:precmp=2:\
5. cmp=2:subcmp=2:preme=2:turbo:acodec=mp3:abitrate=56 \
6. -srate 22050 -af lavcresample=22050
7. Свалете този код/download this code: encode_to_flv

• While choosing look for: moisture, bright color, even cut (for even cooking) and NO ODOR!
• The best cut is around the spine of the animal. The further from the legs and the head, the more tender. Ribeye or prime rib cuts are very good
• Store at the bottom of the fridge never above 40 degrees F.
• Best cooked in cast iron skillet.
• Season with plenty of salt, some pepper and rub with canola oil(or other oil with high burning point).
• Cook for 30 secs on each side in the hot skillet on high heat, than put in a 500 degree oven for about 4 minutes for MR
• Do not cut the stake for at least 4 minutes after it is out of the oven

For quite some time now I’ve been watching various food and cooking shows on the food network and other channels and they do teach quite a lot. However without practice I forget many things, so I decided to start writing them down. And using my blog, they could be useful to someone else too. The new category for that is called “Cooking notes“.

Around January this year, while we were in one of the big stores here, we found ourselves next to the puzzle isle. So we decided to get a puzzle for ourselves. Of course, typical for us, we wanted the most complicated one. For 10 bucks we ended up getting The Chase by John Hyde with size around 27×20 inches with 1000pcs. We started solving it before the semester and we did the majority of it. However the semester started and we couldn’t finish it. Two days ago, we remembered about it and decided to finish it. We put it on the table and about 4 hours later we had it done. We had the most difficult part left – the one with all the black pieces, where only the shape of the piece was our guide for solving as they were all black. Here is how it looks:

The videos for the graduation ceremony (no sound at the beginning) and the other footage that we shot while my guests were here are ready:
Graduation
Guests in May