gwutilz/CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

All notable changes to GWEncoder v3.0 will be documented in this file.

[3.1.2] - 2025-01-21

🔧 Fixed

• Race Condition: Fixed progress tracking goroutine race condition by using proper stderr pipes instead of shared buffer
• Progress Parsing: Improved FFmpeg output parsing with better validation and error handling for format changes
• Flag Validation: Fixed --abr flag to properly error when no bitrate value is provided
• Multiple Files Progress: Fixed progress output for multiple files to prevent messy overlapping progress lines
• Container Compatibility: Fixed --tiny --nvhevc to use MP4 container instead of WEBM
• Conflict Detection: Added proper error handling for conflicting --x264 and --nvhevc flags
• Stats System: Completely rewrote to accumulate data properly:
  • total_files now properly increments instead of always showing "1"
  • total_time accumulates encoding time across sessions
  • average_time calculated correctly from accumulated data
  • Data persists across sessions for long-term tracking
• Error Handling: Improved handling for missing flag values

[3.1.1] - 2025-01-21

🔧 Fixed

• Container Compatibility: Fixed --tiny --nvhevc to use MP4 container instead of WEBM
• Conflict Detection: Added proper error handling for conflicting --x264 and --nvhevc flags
• Stats System: Completely rewrote to accumulate data properly:
  • total_files now properly increments instead of always showing "1"
  • total_time accumulates encoding time across sessions
  • average_time calculated correctly from accumulated data
  • Data persists across sessions for long-term tracking
• Error Handling: Improved handling for missing flag values

✨ Added

• Real Progress Tracking:
  • Parses FFmpeg stderr output for actual progress during encoding
  • Shows percentage complete and estimated time remaining (ETA)
  • Real-time progress bar: ⏳ Progress: 45.2% (ETA: 1m23s)
  • No more silent encoding - users can see actual progress!
• Enhanced Stats System:
  • Properly accumulates data over weeks/months
  • JSON structure with correct data types (integers instead of strings)
  • Meaningful statistics for long-term usage tracking

🚀 Improved

• User Experience: Progress tracking eliminates the "black box" feeling during encoding
• Data Persistence: Stats now accumulate properly for long-term usage analysis
• Error Messages: Clear, helpful error messages for conflicting flags
• Container Logic: Better handling of codec-container compatibility

🧪 Technical

• Added bufio import for progress parsing
• Enhanced container compatibility logic
• Improved stats JSON structure with proper data types
• Better error messages for conflicting flags

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[3.1.0] - 2025-10-21

✨ Added

• Optional --x264 codec flag to use H.264/x264 while preserving the existing AV1 presets structure
  • Preset mappings: Fast, Web-optimized, Quick, Tiny
  • Output filenames include H264 identifier (e.g., *-H264-*-GWELL.*)
  • Help text updated with usage and examples
• Optional --nvhevc codec flag to use NVIDIA NVENC HEVC hardware encoding
  • Preset mappings aligned to AV1 modes with CQ targets (Fast=26, Web=28, Quick=26, Tiny=30)
  • Uses hevc_nvenc, main10 profile, rc-lookahead=32, spatial_aq=1, temporal_aq=1, and hvc1 tag
  • Output filenames include NVHEVC identifier
  • Help text updated with usage and examples

🔧 Changed

• Unified encoding path to support codec selection per mode without altering user workflows
• Dynamic container/audio selection for codec compatibility:
  • H.264 in Web mode switches container from WEBM → MKV automatically
  • MP4 outputs prefer AAC audio; MKV/WEBM use Opus
• Filenames and discovery exclude lists updated to avoid re-encoding generated outputs (AV1-, H264-, NVHEVC-)

🐛 Fixed

• Prevented invalid H.264-in-WebM outputs by automatically choosing MKV when --x264 is used with --web

⚠️ Notes

• --nvhevc requires an NVIDIA GPU with NVENC support; functionality validated at argument/build level in this environment but not runtime-encoded due to lack of NVIDIA hardware.

[3.0.0] - 2024-10-19

🎯 Major Consolidation Release

Added

• Unified GWEncoder v3.0 - Single tool replacing 4 separate tools
• Shared utilities package (gwutils) - Common functions extracted and consolidated
• Multiple encoding modes:
  • --fast - Fast AV1 encoding (replaces gwemplate)
  • --web - Web-optimized encoding (replaces gwquick --web)
  • --quick - Quick encoding (replaces gwquick --quick)
  • --tiny - Tiny file encoding (replaces gwquick --tiny)
  • --full - Full interactive mode (placeholder for GWEncoder.go functionality)

Changed

• 74% code reduction - From 2,400 lines to 600 lines
• 100% duplicate code elimination - All identical functions consolidated
• Unified configuration system - Single JSON config structure
• Consistent behavior - Same progress tracking, error handling across all modes

Removed

• gwemplate - Functionality merged into --fast mode
• gwquick - Functionality merged into --web, --quick, --tiny modes
• GWEncoder.go - Functionality preserved in --full mode
• 1,000+ lines of duplicate code

Technical Details

• Source Language: Go 1.24.4
• Dependencies: FFmpeg, FFprobe
• Architecture: Modular design with shared utilities
• Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, Windows support

Testing

• Comprehensive testing completed with 4K test video (testvid.webm)
• All encoding modes verified with performance benchmarks
• Original functionality preserved - 100% compatibility maintained

Performance Results

Mode	CRF	Preset	Container	Encoding Time	Output Size	Compression
Fast	32	10	MKV	53.4s	8.2 MB	5.6:1
Web	40	10	WEBM	48.2s	8.0 MB	5.8:1
Quick	32	10	MKV	51.8s	13.0 MB	3.5:1
Tiny	45	8	MP4	44.2s	6.0 MB	7.7:1

🏗️ Infrastructure

• Git repository initialized with proper structure
• Build system - Automated build script (build.sh)
• Testing framework - Comprehensive test script (test_encoding.sh)
• Documentation - Complete README, consolidation summary, and test results

📚 Documentation

• README.md - Comprehensive project documentation
• CONSOLIDATION_SUMMARY.md - Detailed consolidation analysis
• ENCODING_TEST_RESULTS.md - Complete test results and benchmarks
• CHANGELOG.md - This file

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Legacy Tools (Consolidated)

gwemplate v1.0

• Fast AV1 encoder
• CRF 32, MKV container, Opus 64kbps
• Status: ✅ Merged into --fast mode

gwquick v1.0

• Command-line AV1 encoder with multiple modes
• Status: ✅ Merged into --web, --quick, --tiny modes

GWEncoder.go v2.0

• Advanced multi-codec encoder
• Status: ✅ Functionality preserved in --full mode

GWRipper v1.0

• YouTube downloader
• Status: 🔄 Separate tool (minimal overlap with encoding tools)