the job-processor

is a standalone system service. It works in the underground without user interface. When it works it documents its doing in logfiles.

The service is quite simple - it looks for a released job. When one is found it searches a converter that is defined to create the desired target.
If such a converter is found, it passes the control to the converter. Otherwise the job will be marked as failed and it keeps on looking for the next job.

Beside the application log, the job-processor writes a log specific to the current job. That log has the job-title as filename and the extension .log - and you'll find that file at the directory for the temporary files (entered at installation time).

The converter is a process definition, which may consist of different working steps. At the moment there's a DVD-converter, which creates DVD-images and a MKV-converter, which creates mkv-archives from a VDR-recording. The DVD-converter consist of 6-7 steps, depending on whether it should burn the image to disk - the MKV-converter is a singlestep conversion. Converter usually use external tools to perform certain tasks.

The DVD-converter converts vdr-recordings into a format compatible to DVD and generates a menue, that is played on disc insertion in a dvd player. That menue will be generated using the template selected by the Job-Editor and created by Theme-Editor and Skin-Editor.

The generated menue depends on the recordings, as well as on the job-settings. Mainly the choice of audio selection. If audio selection is "selected tracks" or "all tracks", a recording may contain several audio tracks. If it does, a language menue will be generated on the fly. If the recording has a description, the DVD-converter will generate as many description pages as needed to display the whole story. Action buttons like "next" and "previous" will be generated as needed. A recording without description will be started from the main menue.
If the job has attached bonus items, a separated menue will be created, as well as a bunch of description pages for each bonus item.

If the main menue contains a button "play all", the code to play all recordings as a single one will be added.

The job-processor will be started from the GUI using the settings-dialog. To really start the service, you'll need the service-manager installed and running. Each service needs access to the database and the job-processor furthermore needs access to the VDR-recordings and external tools.