Utility: Comskip

[scoful]

I haven't been able to download the STVi that utilizes the EDL. The link is (and has been for some time) dead. Anyone know where I can get it?

[AngelofDeth]

Try it in Firefox instead of IE if you haven't. I have seen missing links in IE that work in Firefox...

[Wheemer]

The is some problem with the formatting of the link in IE I think...

I would post the direct url here, but then the download count would not increase...

Instead I will PM Scoful the direct link... And maybe Opus or someone will see this and fix it somehow.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by AngelofDeth

Try it in Firefox instead of IE if you haven't. I have seen missing links in IE that work in Firefox...

Thanks, that worked. A little disturbing - Microsoft content control???
(Just kidding)

The readme says to install in an STV without the original Comskip - has anybody installed this over the old Comskip successfully? (Comskip was probably the first STVi I added)

[Stuntman]

I'm not having any luck using the dictionary for the CC with comskip.. the log says "Dictionary not processed successfully"... I am using the stock dictionary... any idea why this isn't working? Is there a flag I need to pass to comskip to point to the dictionary?

[scoful]

Since I set up a client I have noticed Dirmon2 stalls out while trying to Comskip process a file that is already deleted. After messing around a bit, I found that stopping the service and restarting it would correct the problem. I set up a little batch file to periodically stop and start the service. I may have something set wrong (polling interval?), but it appears that Dirmon2 doesn't verify the existence of the file immediately before starting comskip. Dirmon2 seems to be waiting for comskip to finish, but it isn't really running.
Any tips?

[blade]

Originally Posted by scoful

Since I set up a client I have noticed Dirmon2 stalls out while trying to Comskip process a file that is already deleted. After messing around a bit, I found that stopping the service and restarting it would correct the problem. I set up a little batch file to periodically stop and start the service. I may have something set wrong (polling interval?), but it appears that Dirmon2 doesn't verify the existence of the file immediately before starting comskip. Dirmon2 seems to be waiting for comskip to finish, but it isn't really running.
Any tips?

What version of Dirmon2 are you running? I've seen lots of post lately about the problem, but haven't experienced it myself. I'm still running v0.5.5 I believe with the latest version of comskip.

[kltye]

I'm getting "Panic, unknown audio format" for HD recordings recorded OTA from my Avermedia card. I have a feeling the lack of audio makes comskip really bad at detecting commercials for my HD recordings, since the settings appear to work great with regular SD files. Any ideas why comskip can't decode OTA HD audio?

[erik]

Because there are soo many formats of digital audio my TS processor is not yet able to decode all of them

Do upload a portion (50 to 100 MByte) of the recording to my FTP server
PM me for the details

[FZ1]

Hi,

I'm a long time user of ShowAnalyzer, but would like to give Comskip a try.

One question I didn't see answered in this thread... Can multiple instances of Comskip be kicked off by DirMon2, and detect commercials simultaneously on live recordings?

[blade]

Originally Posted by FZ1

One question I didn't see answered in this thread... Can multiple instances of Comskip be kicked off by DirMon2, and detect commercials simultaneously on live recordings?

Yes, I often run 4 at once without issue. If you plan to switch from SA to Comskip I believe all you'll need to do is point dirmon2 to comskip.exe instead of SA and add the command line parameter --ini=C:/ComSkip/comskip.ini (this is an example of mine you would of course enter the path where your comskip.ini is located). There is a bug with Dirmon2 where comskip can't find its .ini file without it.

You may also need to edit the .ini file depending on how you want comskip to output the results. I'd highly suggest using edl instead of txt files if you're not already because they're more accurate. When using edl you have to use the comskip imort that supports it.

[FZ1]

Thanks for the help Blade! I'm using it with the .edl stvi for Sage.

I was able to get it running with DirMon2, although quotes around the path were necessary for Comskip to find it's .ini (--ini="C:/ComSkip/comskip.ini").

A few more questions...
-Is there a document explaining the parameters in the .ini?
-Is there a thread I can subscribe to that is updated with each new release?
-Should I be using the sage_framenumber_bug paramater? What's the bug?
-Should I be using the sage_minute_bug parameter? What's the bug?
-Was I correct in having to manually add the default_output=0 parameter to prevent .txt's?

[Enormous]

I can't answer all of your questions, but here are a few:

Originally Posted by FZ1

-Is there a document explaining the parameters in the .ini?
-Is there a thread I can subscribe to that is updated with each new release?

I would start here for documentation, as well as to find the latest version:
http://mk.kaashoek.com/comskip/

-Was I correct in having to manually add the default_output=0 parameter to prevent .txt's?

Yes, I believe that's what I did too.

[hemicuda]

little confused... is it a \ or a / in the path to the ini file? M$ paths use a \; http uses / typically.

[erik]

I found a stupid problem in calculating the commercial size for 60fps recordings.
This caused missing commercials.

From the changelog
Changes in 0.79.61
- Added parameter for ignoring gray side bars, set ignore_side=number of pixels to ignore, check visual using debugwindow
- Bug solved: Long commercials are not recognized on 60fps HD recordings

[hemicuda]

Well nuts... went to grab the newest release and the link seems to be down.

[erik]

Seems to work for me????????

[hemicuda]

sorry, must be on my end. just tried both of the links in your sig and they time out "connecting to" your .com. I'll poke around and see what I can find. tracert resolves the IP, but starts getting timeout responses after about 15 hops. Netherlands area I think.

[erik]

Try the refresh button of your browser.
I moved some time ago to another server.
Maybe its at your side still pointing to the old server

[wheelrandolph]

Hi All,
I've been using ComSkip for a few months now and it works great. I have a few hard drives in my server each with Sage video directories. I only had one changed to UNC paths and directed ComSkip Monitor to it. I am now doing the same with another drive/directory and when I play the video in Sage the commercial marks are NOT present in timeline. The video is marked with "CS" and I can see the EDL and log files in the directory next to the mpg's.
It seems that none of the videos in this new UNC path will show (or skip) the commercials in the timeline. Any ideas.

Thanks, Randy