VLC bash transcoding script destination directory

Question

Well, I have such transcoding script:

#!/bin/bash
acodec="vorb"  
arate="256" 
ext="ogg" 
vlc="/usr/bin/vlc" 
fmt="mp3" 

for a in *$fmt; do 
$vlc -I dummy -vvv "$a" --sout "#transcode{acodec=$acodec,ab=$arate,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ogg,dst=\"${PWD##*/}/${a%%.*}.$ext\"}" vlc://quit 
done

But I want to place output files in other separate directory with the same name as source. For example, if I convert all files from folder

/usr/tmp/pop_music

I want to place converted files in directory

/$user/pop_music

I've made all possible variations and always get error. With the current (above) variant I get error:

[0xb500abe0] main stream out debug: destroying chain... (name=(null))
[0xb500abe0] main stream out debug: destroying chain done [0xb5000588] main stream output error: stream chain failed for `transcode{acodec=vorb,ab=256,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ogg,dst="1/Alabama - If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band).ogg"}'
[0x95be4f8] main input error: cannot start stream output instance, aborting
[0x96985a8] main playlist debug: finished input
[0x96985a8] main playlist debug: dead input

I tried to specify in dst:
1) 1/XXX.ogg
2) /1/XXX.ogg
3) 1\XXX.ogg
4) \1\XXX.ogg
but with no luck...

Answer 1

If the output directory does not exist, VLC fails with that exact message.

This is a small expansion of the script. In the current state it takes directories as arguments and loops through them. If no argument is given, it looks for files in the current directory. Output files are written to the home directory, under a subdirectory named as the parent directory of each given file. The output directories are created upon invocation to avoid the error message.

#!/bin/sh
usage() {
    cat <<-USAGE 1>&2
    usage: ${0##*/} [DIR ...]

    optional arguments:
      DIR   directories to search. Use current directory if none are given.
    USAGE
    exit 1
}

error() {
    printf '%s: error: %s, aborting.\n' "${0##*/}" "$1" 1>&2
    exit $2
}

transcode_dir() {
    indir=$(readlink -f -- "$1")
    outdir="$HOME/${indir##*/}"

    ! mkdir -pv -- "$outdir" && error "cannot create directory \"$outdir\"" 3

    cd -- "$indir"
    for a in *.$fmt; do
        $vlc -I dummy -vvv "$a" --sout "#transcode{acodec=$acodec,ab=$arate,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ogg,dst=\"$outdir/${a%.*}.$ext\"}}" vlc://quit
    done
    cd - 2> /dev/null
}

while getopts "h" option; do
    case $option in
        h|\? )  usage;;
    esac
done
shift $((OPTIND-1))

acodec="vorb"
arate="256"
ext="ogg"
vlc="/usr/bin/vlc"
fmt="mp3"

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    transcode_dir .
else
    while [ $# -ge 1 ]; do
        [ ! -d "$1" ] && error "not a directory: \"$1\"" 2
        transcode_dir "$1"
        shift
    done
fi

A lot of lines, but most of it is just pasted boiler-plate code (feel free to ask if any part is unclear). I changed the interpreter to #!/bin/sh since no Bash specific constructs are used. I moved the transcoding part to a function for clarity.