The VideoLAN Forums

I'm often using VLC to stream live MPEG2 TS stream to harddisk.
Is it possible to incorporate a timer function i VLC?
It would have been much easier to record with a timer i.e (hours,min) when you stream to harddisk.

This is possible in the next release trough the use of a time filter and the new picture filters system that can burn images into original images. It's quite advanced stuff though.

A sample command-line, lots of options, is:
vlc dshow:// :dshow-vdev="CompUSA PC Camera" :dshow-adev="none" :no-dshow-config :dshow-size="320x240" :sout=#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=128,scale=1,sfilter=marq:logo:time}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=:1234}} --time-x=0 --time-y=226 --marq-x=0 --marq-y=0 --marq-marquee="hello world" --marq-timeout=0 --rc-extend --logo-file=vlc32x32.png --logo-x=297 --logo-y=0 --freetype-font=c:\cygwin\home\arkfonts\AerialMono.ttf --sout-transcode-fps=5.0 --extraintf="rc" --rc-host="192.168.2.50:20" --rc-quiet

sfilter=marq:logo:time means you want a general text string, plus a .png graphics logo, plus a time string.

For logo, you control the file name, XY location (measured from upper left corner of the window), and transparency (--logo-transparency=number, where number is 0 to 255)

For marquee, you control the contents of the text string, plus location on screen.

The time string can actually be formatted pretty much however you want, and can include text; use --time-format="my formatted time, in quotes", for example:
--time-format="The time is: %H:%M:%S"

If you don't actually put in any time formats (e.g., %H), time-format can be used as another generic text string.

--freetype-font lets you substitute a different font type. I happen to like a mono-spaced font, so the time/date doesn't jitter.

--sout-transcode-fps is something to control the framerate of the output stream. In this case I cut it to 5 frames per second -- for a given bandwidth, lower fps normally translates to better quality, though it doesn't handle fast motion as well.

You can absolutely use the sfilter switches to superimpose time, logo, marquee text, in your output stream to disk. The only "requirement" is that you must be transcoding, which does use a bit of CPU.

If I understand you right, what you really wanted was for vlc to be able to start reading at a given time, and keep on for a given duration? not actually putting the time into the video frames?

If so, then this can probably be done using the feature set called vlm, which is rather new and a bit poorly documented/little user friendly

Maybe I did'nt express myself too good:

When streaming live Mpeg2-ts to harddisk (recording to disk) I want to be able to set when to start the recording and when to stop the recording to disk. Such as; start recording:16:00 stop recording:18:00.
Or maybe just a stop timer. I start the recording manually and VLC let me specifiy when it should stop (in hours and minutes).

There are scheduler programs that can start programs at specified times or intervals. you can use the same way to stop the recording.

Apologies for my off-the-mark answer

Apologies for my off-the-mark answer

Well it actually helped me

Thanks!

There are scheduler programs that can start programs at specified times or intervals. you can use the same way to stop the recording.

Yes, but an incorporated scheduler would have more powerfull control over the functions of VLC. (I realy don't know if that kind of advanced control is possible with the normal windows scheduler or any other scheduler).

i would like this also, i use VLC for recording digital tv streams on a college network, currently i use a program called 'macro express' to simply control the action of loading playlist files set to save the stream to file.

it's a bit amaturish and it meant additional software had to be purchased, an incorporated recording scheduler would be great.