Archive example

Fictional shelf. Do not point this at a real family archive. Names are generated.

Before

archives/sample-shelf/
  2010-09-24-Recording011.AVI
  16-05-24-17-19-01.MOV
  picnic-clip.wav
  porch-talk.mp3

File	What the tool can establish
`2010-09-24-Recording011.AVI`	Date from the filename. No clock in the name, so none is invented
`16-05-24-17-19-01.MOV`	Known filename encoding. Normalized to `2016-05-24_17-19-01`
`picnic-clip.wav`	No date in the name. Embedded `creation_time` is used when ffprobe has it. Otherwise the basename stays
`porch-talk.mp3`	Already a normalized MP3. Planned as `skip (normalized)`

--prefer-mtime is a separate choice. It prefixes MTIME_ so a filesystem time is not presented as a recording time.

Planned first run

mediatuna "./archives/sample-shelf" --dry-run --output "./converted"

Source	Planned status	Output under `./converted`
`2010-09-24-Recording011.AVI`	`convert → mp4`	`2010-09-24-Recording011.mp4` (date-only stem, no invented clock)
`16-05-24-17-19-01.MOV`	`convert → mp4`	`2016-05-24_17-19-01.mp4`
`picnic-clip.wav`	`convert → mp3`	`YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SSZ_picnic-clip.mp3` only if `creation_time` exists, else `picnic-clip.mp3`
`porch-talk.mp3`	`skip (normalized)`	unchanged source

Recommended next steps after the table looks right:

mediatuna "./archives/sample-shelf" --sample 20 --output "./samples"
mediatuna "./archives/sample-shelf" --output "./converted"

--sample writes a short clip. --output writes new files beside a copy of the source tree. The originals stay unless you later pass a delete or archive flag and confirm.

Next run

Same command, same --output, same quality flags:

Source	Next status
converted video or audio	`skip (exists)` when the dest still probes as a usable MP4 or MP3
`porch-talk.mp3`	`skip (normalized)`
`--resume` after an interrupted batch	`skip (resumed)` when that input is marked complete and the dest still verifies

A new --output, --quality, --audio-quality, --deinterlace, --reencode-audio, or other run-key change is new work. --force bypasses skip and resume.

Encoding is lossy. The new files are access copies, not a perfect archive of the originals.