Best way to remove commercials after running ComSkip

[Richdem]

Hi All,

I have just entered into the world of recording TV on my PC and so far have been very pleased. I am now using SageTV with Comskip. Everything works well and the commercials are detected correctly. My question is that I only use my PC for the recording of the show, I actually watch the recordings by streaming the files to either my PS3 in the living room or a 2nd PC upstairs, but doing this I am unable to skip the commercials. What is the best way to remove the commercials after comskip has run leaving just a recording without any commercials? If possible it would be nice to do this automatically after comskip has done it's work.

Many thanks in advance

Richard

[wrems]

IMO, comskipping is not accurate enough. You may end up with a file missing more than just the commercials. Plus, you’re adding overhead/complexity. Regardless, it is possible. SJQ would probably be a good starting point. Also, EP’s mediashrink can create a mkv sans commercials. Then there is always the old fashioned but far more accurate videoredo.

[matt91]

I did this for awhile, but it was never rock-solid reliable. By that I mean the actual "snipping" of commercials wasn't reliable, much less the detction.

Regardless, videoredo was the only way I could get it to run. I ran a little script which invoked videoredo after the .edl file was created. I used SJQ to orchestrate it all.

when it worked, it worked well. However, I'd go three nights in a row with it fine, then the forth night, videoredo would hang endlessly.

[Richdem]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I did donload a trial of videoredo but when I save the video after removing the commercials it only proccesses about 20 minutes of an hour long show, I have tried this several times and it happens each time.

Do you have much experience with this software?

Regards

Richard

[PLUCKYHD]

Dvrms toolbox will do it and what I use.

[bits]

Originally Posted by Richdem

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I did donload a trial of videoredo but when I save the video after removing the commercials it only proccesses about 20 minutes of an hour long show, I have tried this several times and it happens each time.

Do you have much experience with this software?

Regards

Richard

I think the trial version is only good for 15mins but I believe you can request a trial key that will allow you to process entire shows.

I have used VRD for the last 6 years to cut thousands of commercials. I have tried all of the commercial detection software and overall I prefer comskip. As others have said none of them are perfect especially across a wide range of show types and channels. I use a semi-automatic method. Dirmon2 starts comskip finding commercials once the file is done recording. I then use VRD to manually confirm the start and end of each commercial segment which takes about 15-25secs per recorded show. VRD then batch processes the commercial free shows to wherever I have specified on my network.

Since switching from BTV and getting the HD200 I am doing a lot less actual commercial cutting because the comskip stvi works well enough for most of the watch and delete recordings. Stuff that we want to archive for a while will have the commercials removed per the process I detailed above.

Videoredo is the best software I have purchased and I highly recommend it.

[belleboyd]

In my setup - Commercial cut points are created by Comskip and Comskip monitor. I use Video Redo - along with Bob Phoenix VideoEdit plugin to visually check the cutpoints before cutting. You can tweak the cut points and pass the vprj to video redo and also to the Sage compression menus with a couple clicks.

[Richdem]

Thanks for all your help guys, I have now got videoredo working properly and so far looks very good, I can import a project written by comskip or just load a recorded TV show and remove the commercials that way. I have even got very nice results converting the newly created mpeg without commercials to DivX with DVDFab which is an excellent piece of software so at the moment I am one happy bunny

I guess my next challenge is after a show has been recorded would it be possible to automatically remove the commercials with videoredo then convert to divX with DVDFab without any involvement on my part? I am assuming some sort of script would be involved but I have no idea how to begin doing this.

If this is at all possible I would love to hear from anyone who may be able yo help me.

Many Thanks

Richard

[Fuzzy]

Yes, and it isn't that tough.. but it IS risky (ComSkip DOES miss things occasionally, and you might end up losing part of the show if you don't check it first). Personally, I don't see much point in going through all that, when sage can auto-skip the commercials anyways.

[Richdem]

Hi Fuzzy,

I agree SagetV does work well when it comes to skipping the commercials but my pc is in my office, I just use it to record the shows then I use it as a media server as I stream to my PS3 or another pc upstairs. Because I do not use SageTV to view the recordings I cannot skip the commercials without first running them through something like videoredo. I am going to do some tests to see how accurate comskip is, then I will just load the recording straight into videoredo rather than importing the project file created by comskip.

Do you know how I would begin to create an automatic process for processing the recording with videoredo. I would like to see if I can end up with a commercial free recording without any manual intervention.

Thanks again

Richard

[Fuzzy]

As mentioned previously, (I think), you should be able to queue up the jobs in SJQ (Sage Job Queue). I don't know anything about VideoRedo, and whether it can be run completely from the command line, but I'm pretty sure others ahve done this, so it should be possible. Read through the SJQ documentation and you'll get an idea for how to set it up.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Richdem

Hi Fuzzy,

I agree SagetV does work well when it comes to skipping the commercials but my pc is in my office, I just use it to record the shows then I use it as a media server as I stream to my PS3 or another pc upstairs. Because I do not use SageTV to view the recordings I cannot skip the commercials without first running them through something like videoredo. I am going to do some tests to see how accurate comskip is, then I will just load the recording straight into videoredo rather than importing the project file created by comskip.

Do you know how I would begin to create an automatic process for processing the recording with videoredo. I would like to see if I can end up with a commercial free recording without any manual intervention.

Thanks again

Richard

here is the batch job. It will create a cut.mpg along side the original. You cans set this up on SJQ you can use the SJQ relink if you want to replace the original. You can also drag and drop.

if not exist "%~d1%~p1%~n1.vprj" exit 1
set videoredo_path=c:\program files\videoredoPlus\
START /B /W /MIN /low cscript.exe //nologo "%videoredo_path%vp.vbs" "%~d1%~p1%~n1.vprj" "%~d1%~p1%~n1.cut.mpg" /t1 /d /q

Relink

//Relink Cut
if [IsObjMediaFile == true && FileExists == "%d%/%p%.cut.mpg" && Filename =$ ".mpg" && Filename !* ".cut" && $.IsTVFile{} == "true"] {
   :RELINKOPTS "$.GetAiringID{}" "%d%/%p%.cut.mpg"
    :PRIORITY 998
   _RELINK
}