Possible to automatically skip first few seconds of a recording?

[losingmymarbles]

Does anyone know if it is in anyway possible to have SageTV automatically skip the first few seconds of a recording? I'd like to be able jump ahead of the channel change and my cable box's info bar. All I need is about 5 seconds for both the channel change and info bar to go away.

I vaguely remember some settings for a Hauppauge card to make it end a recording a certain amount of milliseconds early, but I don't know where it is or if there's one for the beginning of a recording too. (that is if there's a setting at all)

If there's anyone who could help me.... I'd be greatly appreciative!

Thanks!

-Chris

[dvd_maniac]

Could you change your default padding to end 1 minute early and start 1 minute early?

This way you will (Probably)miss the credits at the end of shows but it will start recording before the show starts.

I have a 4 tuner setup and so all my shows start a few minutes early so I don't see the info bar my cable box displays, but if you only have one tuner the above might work for you...

[losingmymarbles]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Could you change your default padding to end 1 minute early and start 1 minute early?

This way you will (Probably)miss the credits at the end of shows but it will start recording before the show starts.

I have a 4 tuner setup and so all my shows start a few minutes early so I don't see the info bar my cable box displays, but if you only have one tuner the above might work for you...

Thanks for the tip, but....

The padding will make the recording start or end earlier (or later) but it still wouldn't help with the first few seconds when SageTV changes the channel on the cable box or the cable box and its info bar.

I just find it a little annoying to start a recording and catch a second or two of a show on what ever channel it was on before it changes the channel and go to whatever it was suppose to record. Mostly because, and I don't know if it's like this other places, but many different channels (or even different commercials) are of different volume levels. It might be blaring at first and go very quite, or worse, be quiet and go to a loud channel with an even LOUDER used car commercial. {shiver}

I just want to be able to skip those few seconds between channel changes.

It just seams to me that other people would have found this some what of an annoyance. But I guess it could be just me....

-Chris

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by losingmymarbles

The padding will make the recording start or end earlier (or later) but it still wouldn't help with the first few seconds when SageTV changes the channel on the cable box or the cable box and its info bar.

Sage starts playing from the scheduled time, not the recording start time. So if you added 1 minute padding to the beginning, Sage would effectively start playback one minute into the recording.

[losingmymarbles]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage starts playing from the scheduled time, not the recording start time. So if you added 1 minute padding to the beginning, Sage would effectively start playback one minute into the recording.

So if I have it start recording a minute earlier, would I not I run into the same problem? It would still show it changing the channel. I'd have to make it start a minute late, but then I'd miss a whole minute of the beginning of a show and not just a few seconds. That's the whole thing...... I'd like to have the recording start from when the SHOW starts and not when the channel changes.

I don't know.... maybe I'm being picky but I just find it a little disturbing when I start a show only to have to watch it changing the channel before the show actually starts.

Thanks anyways...

-Chris

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by losingmymarbles

So if I have it start recording a minute earlier, would I not I run into the same problem? It would still show it changing the channel. I'd have to make it start a minute late

That was what stanger just said & dvd_maniac's point was: it automatically skips over the padding & begins playback at the show's scheduled airing time. To view the padded area (and thus the channel change), you would have to rewind to get into the start padding section.

You've now effectively skipped over the area that you don't want to see. But, uless you have multiple tuners, you could run into more scheduling conflicts when you use padding.

- Andy

[blade]

Just add padding to one recording and you'll see what stanger is saying. It will do what you're wanting it to.

[malore]

Adding the following 2 lines of code after the MediaPlayerPlayStateChanged Hook seems to do the trick.

[If] IsTVFile(GetCurrentMediaFile()) && (GetMediaTime() < GetFileStartTime(GetCurrentMediaFile()) + 5000)
[Action] Seek(GetFileStartTime(GetCurrentMediaFile()) +5000)

Attached is an import file that does this.

[briands]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage starts playing from the scheduled time, not the recording start time. So if you added 1 minute padding to the beginning, Sage would effectively start playback one minute into the recording.

Wow... all this time and I never knew that... Learn something new everyday!

There is also an option in SA to "Always mark first n sec as commercial" that might work for this as well.

[losingmymarbles]

Originally Posted by malore

Adding the following 2 lines of code after the MediaPlayerPlayStateChanged Hook seems to do the trick.

[If] IsTVFile(GetCurrentMediaFile()) && (GetMediaTime() < GetFileStartTime(GetCurrentMediaFile()) + 5000)
[Action] Seek(GetFileStartTime(GetCurrentMediaFile()) +5000)

Attached is an import file that does this.

Thanks for the help malore! Well, almost.... I tried running the import, but it didn't work for some reason. That's OK because you got me thinking. (which is always scary)

BTW, malore, this was the first .stvi file I actually peered inside of.... what language is it written in? It looks to me to be java encapsulated in XML, is this correct?

Anyways, I remembered seeing a line in the Sage.Properties file, when I had been poking around SageTV 'inards', that seemed a little curious:

videoframe/time_to_start_into_tv_file_playback=

It was blank as default, so I decided, what the heck, and added 5000 (ms, of course). I restarted SageTV, and started a random recording... sure enough it started 5 seconds into the recording!!! I played around with the number until I got it to skip to exactly where I wanted it to... 8500 ms. This is much better than having to miss a whole minute of a recording!

I love this program more and more every day!!! I mean, damn, SageTV has more 'hidden' features than other DVR's have documented ones... *cough* beyondtv *cough*

I can't wait to mess with the properties file more! (after backing it up first, of course!)

Thanks everyone for posting to this thread! Y'all were a big help! This was my first posting to the forum and I feel confident now that I can post other questions and have them be answered.

peace,
-Chris

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by losingmymarbles

BTW, malore, this was the first .stvi file I actually peered inside of.... what language is it written in? It looks to me to be java encapsulated in XML, is this correct?

I don't know if there's a name for it, but they're not meant to be edited directly, you're supposed to use Studio to edit them.

This is much better than having to miss a whole minute of a recording!

I'm not sure you understand what padding does, you don't "miss" anything. Maybe an example will help. Say you've got a favorite setup, and that one scheduled recording (an "airing") usually starts at 8:00. Without padding Sage will tune the STB and start the recording at 8:00. When you go to watch it, Sage will start playing at the beginning of the airing (ie 8:00). So you'll see the STB display while Sage is tuning it.

Now, say you add 1 minute of padding to that favorite. Now, Sage will tune the STB and start recording at 7:59. When you go to watch it, Sage will still start at the beginning of the airing (ie 8:00). You don't see any less of the show than you did before, but now the tuning is done earlier than the playback starts.

Now, this has the added benefit of if for some reason the show starts a little bit before 8:00, you can now rewind back into the padding and see the show from the start. The padding is not played by default but it is there for you to go back and view.

I have almost all of my favorites setup with 5 minutes of padding start and end, to account for any drifts in my local PC clock, or in case the networks get sloppy. I almost never miss any part of a show with that setup (even when my clock drifted 3 minutes for some reason).

[dvd_maniac]

This is much better than having to miss a whole minute of a recording!


I'm not sure you understand what padding does, you don't "miss" anything. Maybe an example will help.

I think he was referring to my reply when I said :

Could you change your default padding to end 1 minute early and start 1 minute early?

This way you will (Probably)miss the credits at the end of shows but it will start recording before the show starts.

I have a 4 tuner setup and so all my shows start a few minutes early so I don't see the info bar my cable box displays, but if you only have one tuner the above might work for you...

I gave him this solution in case he only had 1 tuner and should have said that I also pad after my shows because I have 4 tuners.

[appelm]

Originally Posted by losingmymarbles

videoframe/time_to_start_into_tv_file_playback=

wow! this works perfectly. 7500 was right for me. I have always wondered if there was a way to do this. This ups the WAF significantly!!

[appelm]

Originally Posted by appelm

wow! this works perfectly. 7500 was right for me. I have always wondered if there was a way to do this. This ups the WAF significantly!!

I've had this setting for quite a while now but I just started experimenting with Comskip. I'm getting some strange results with Comskip not skipping at the right points. Is it possible that this setting above conflicts with the way Comskip figures out where to skip forward?

[Matt-CV]

WOW, nice find ....
videoframe/time_to_start_into_tv_file_playback=
Has fixed one of my bigger issues as well. I asked this question back in 3/2004 and have waited till now to find this... This will be polishing off an already nice system.

Matt

ps- Im really tired of seeing the wifes home fixup shows,,,now all we need is to be able to build profiles (passcoded)