otr is a command line tool that decodes and cuts video files from Online TV Recorder (OTR). It is running on Linux, and macOS.
Supported architectures are:
- x86_64/amd64
- AArch64/arm64, incl. platforms such as Raspberry Pi 4 and Apple Silicon, M series
otr decodes OTRKEY files (i.e., encoded video files downloaded from OTR). The decoding functionality is based on the work of eddy14, who reverse-engineered the OTRKEY file format, see his blog post [German, mirrored by PyroPeter].
Decoding includes verifying the checksums of the OTRKEY file and the decoded file.
otr cuts videos by using FFmpeg together with FFMS2. Cutting is done accurate to frames. I.e., even if a boundary of a cut interval is not at a key frame,cutting is done exactly at that boundary. To achieve this, parts of the video might have to be re-encoded.
With respect to cut list determination and selection, there are two different options:
-
otr downloads and selects cut lists from the cut list provider cutlist.at automatically
If multiple cut lists are available, otr prefers those with a high rating.
-
Cut intervals can be specified on the command line
This option can make sense if cutlist.at cannot provide a cut list for a video. In this case, the cut intervals could be determined manually with a video editor (on Linux, Avidemux, OpenShot or Shotcut can be used, for example), and fed into otr on the command line. otr can upload such self-created cut lists to cutlist.at to make them publicly available.
otr tries to process files as fast as possible. Video files are decoded sequentially (i.e., one by one), but each files is decoded using concurrent threads to leverage the cpu capabilities to full extend. For cutting, FFmpeg's multithreading capabilities are used.
It is possible to create a dedicated mime type for otrkey files. otr can be defined as default application for it. This repository contains the required files for Linux.
Though being a command line application, the usage of otr is quite simple. If, for example, you have downloaded some OTRKEY files from OTR, the command otr process processes all files (i.e., they are decoded, cut lists are downloaded and the files are cut). With the dedicated mime type, it is even simpler: A double click on an OTRKEY file starts otr. In addition, otr has dedicated sub commands for decoding and cutting videos which offer further options.
This works for both, Linux and macOS. Make sure to install FFmpeg and FFMS2 (the binary ffmsindex is required), since otr requires both for cutting videos.
To download otr, clone this repository via
git clone https://gitlab.com/mipimipi/otr.git
After that, build otr by executing
cd otr
make
Finally, execute
make install
as root to install otr.
For Arch Linux (and other Linux distros, that can install packages from the Arch User Repository) there are the AUR packages otr and otr-git. These packages are also available as binaries via the nerdstuff repository.
For Linux, the resources folder of this repository contains two files to create a dedicated mimetype for OTRKEY files and to make otr the default application for that type. Just copy them to the corresponding folders of your machine:
cp resources/otr.desktop /usr/share/applications/.
cp resources/otrkey_mime.xml /usr/share/mime/packages/.
Since otr is then the only application that can process files of the new mime type, it should now be called automatically if you double click on an otrkey file.
See Manual installation. If Quicktime is your preferred player, a plugin might be required depending on the video file format. Otherwise, a different player must be used - VLC for example.
otr can be configured by creating a configuration file in JSON format. It is named otr.json and must be stored in the default configuration directory of your OS. That is ...
<XDG-CONFIG-HOME-DIR>on Linux, whereas in most cases<XDG-CONFIG-HOME-DIR>equals to~/.config~/Library/Application Supporton macOS
The configuration file has this structure:
{
"working_dir": "<PATH TO YOUR OTR WORKING DIRECTORY>",
"decoding": {
"user": "<YOUR OTR USER>",
"password": "<YOUR OTR PASSWORD>",
},
"cutting": {
"min_cutlist_rating": <MINIMUM CUT LIST RATING>
"submit_cutlists": <true/false>
"cutlist_at_access_token": <ACCESS TOKEN REQUIRED FOR CUTLIST.AT>
"cutlist_rating": <DEFAULT CUT LIST RATING>
}
}
All parameters are optional and/or have default values, or can be overwritten by a corresponding command line parameter. This table explains the details:
| Parameter | Description | Mandatory | Default | CLI parameter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
working_directory |
Working directory of otr | Optional | ~/Videos/OTR on Linux, ~/Movies/OTRon macOS |
No |
user, password |
Access data for Online TV Recorder | Mandatory for decoding videos | There is no default | Yes (--user/-u and --password/-p) |
min_cutlist_rating |
Minimum rating that a cut list from cutlist.at must have to be accepted by otr for cutting videos | Optional | If the parameter is not given, all cut lists are accepted | Yes (--min-rating) |
submit_cutlists |
Whether self-created cut lists are submitted to cutlist.at or not. To upload cut lists, an access token for cutlist.at is required | Optional | If the parameter is not given, self-created cut lists will not be submitted | No |
cutlist_at_access_token |
User-specific access token for cutlist.at | Mandatory for uploading self-created cut lists | There is no default | No |
cutlist_rating |
Rating for a self-created cut list | Optional | If the parameter is not given, the rating will be 0 (i.e., the cut list will be treated as a dummy and not be offered to other users) | Yes (--rating) |
otr requires a working directory. In this directory, the sub directories Encoded, Decoded and Cut are created. Thus, the directory structure is like so:
<otr working dir>
|
|- Encoded
|
|- Decoded
| |- Archive
|
|- Cut
There, video files are stored depending on their processing status. I.e., Cut contains the video files that have been cut, Decoded the decoded files that have not been cut yet (it can happen that a video can be decoded but cannot be cut because cut lists do not exist yet). If videos have been cut, the uncut version is stored under Decoded/Archive to allow users to repeat the cutting if they are not happy with the result.
otr has different sub commands.
otr process processes all video files that are either submitted as command line parameters, or stored in the working directory.
otr requires a certain schema for the name of video files (that is the schema OTR uses as well). See schema in pseudo regular expression notation for encoded and decoded files:
<name-of-video>_YY.MM.DD_hh-mm_<TV-station>_<a-number>_TVOON_DE.mpg(.|.HQ|.HD).<format>(.otrkey)?
otr decode allows decoding a single video. See the command line help for details.
otr cut allows cutting a single video. The cut list that is used for that can either be selected and downloaded automatically from cutlist.at, or submitted via command line parameters (either as file or as dedicated cut intervals) - see the command line help for details.
If self-created cut lists are used (i.e., dedicated cut intervals with otr cut --cutlist ...), otr can generate corresponding cut list files and upload them to cutlist.at automatically to make the cut lists publicly available. This requires a registration at cutlist.at (i.e., an access token - $$FRED). Furthermore, the otr configuration must be set up accordingly. If required, the attributes of such cut lists can be adjusted on the cutlist.at web site, after the upload.
The generated cut list files are stored in the sub folder OTR of the user-specific cache directory of your OS (that is typically <XDG-CACHE-HOME-DIR> - i.e., in most cases ~/.cache - on Linux, ~/Library/Caches on macOS). After they were uploaded, these files are no longer required and can be deleted.
The command line flag --verbose/-v defines how detailed the message output of otr is. With --quiet/-q, there are no messages, See command line help for further details.