Debian Multimedia :: Force Mencoder To Stop Streaming?

Is there a way to instruct mencoder to stop streaming/recording after a specified period associated with a loss of signal?I use mencoder to record over-the-air television recordings. Most of the time there are no problems.Occasionally a station's transmission signal disappears, caused by quirky atmospheric conditions, usually at night.Noticing these signal outages is easy by the mencoder error message:dvb_streaming_read, attempt N. %x failed with errno %y when reading %z bytes"Lengthy outages are unbearable because mencoder silently waits forever rather than quit.The significant problem with lengthy signal outages is mencoder continues recording for the time specified by the -endpos parameter. Thus, for example, if the recording is scheduled for 2 hours and there is a 20 minute loss of signal, the recording does not end until 2 hours and 20 minutes after starting.

Generally, when the interruption is lengthy the recording is ruined and I don't care to watch. I would like to programmatically tell mencoder to stop waiting and quit.Is there a way to do this? Say, after ten minutes of no signal, just terminate.I do not notice any parameters that might offer that option, but I could be overlooking something obvious. I tried the -skiplimit parameter with no success.I am aware of the MPlayer/MEncoder Tips and Tricks thread.