Plugin: CommercialDetector

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Sounds like a bug. Can you turn on debug logging in Sage, set the debug level in the plugin to "trace", reproduce the problem and then upload the logfile? I will take a look to see what's going on.

Ok, it might be a while till I have time to stop the SageTV service and make the changes.

How do I set the debug level in the plugin to "trace"?

[tmiranda]

Go to the CommercialDetector "General" plugin and look in the settings.

[rfeyer]

Howdy
Have been using SageTV and Comskip successfully in the past, but have been trying for weeks after a PC 'cleansing' and can't get it to run again.

SageTV is 7.023 Win 7 updated

Using SageTV Server - CommDet 1.00 installed and enabled
All CommDet setting reviewed multiple times - enabled

The Green Bars are all displaying as usual, but not with commercial detection (solid green).
Menu of recording does have the option "Run Commskip" but does not do anything.
Also, in COmmSkip Plugin Options tried - run all (don't remember exact phrase) - did not work.
Also, I remember from past that the recording path has to be UNC - Ialso did this.

Can anyone please help? TY

[tmiranda]

Something is certainly not right Assuming you are using the default STV here is what I'd suggest: (If you're using a different STV ignore the rest of the post nad let me know what you are using.)

- Uninstall the CommercialDetector "UI Mod" plugin
- Uninstall the CommercialDetector "General" plugin.
- Uninstall the comskip playback "UI Mod" plugin. Do the uninstalls in the order listed.

- Install the CommercialDetector UI Mod plugin. (Not the "General" plugin, that will get installed automatically.)

See if that helps. If not the ndo the following:

- Turn on debugging in SageTV
- Set the CommercialDetector debug level to Trace. (You do that from the CommercialDetector General plugin settings.)
- After a couple of recordings complete attach the Sage logfile to a post for me to look at.

Good luck

[waynedunham]

Did your "cleansing" mean you did a fresh install of everything? If so what types of recordings are you trying to Comskip? Only the Donator version of Comskip will work on h.264 or WTV files.
Take a look in your recordings directory for the files that Comskip makes and see if there are any clues in them.

[rfeyer]

TY for info - I will try this tonight - did a quick check and I only see
Commercial detector UI 1.31 and Comskip Playback

I do not see a CommercialDetector GENERAL plugin. I am probably confused here, and possibly this is the problem.

Also, the UI package is SageTV7.xml and the Thene is MBDiamond

Would this give additional thoughts?

[rfeyer]

Following the above note I left:
I lied, when I changed the Plugin screen to ALL I did see the three of them and followed your directions. Will know tomorrow if anything changed.
TY VM for your help!

[rfeyer]

To answer WayneDunham: the files recorded are mpg's, no comskip files are in that directory

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by rainerfeyer

TY for info - I will try this tonight - did a quick check and I only see
Commercial detector UI 1.31 and Comskip Playback

I do not see a CommercialDetector GENERAL plugin. I am probably confused here, and possibly this is the problem.

Also, the UI package is SageTV7.xml and the Thene is MBDiamond

Would this give additional thoughts?

Somehow the CommercialDetector General plugin didn't get installed and it will not work without that. Uninstalling everything and reinstalling (on you server or an extender) as I outlined above should fix it.

[rfeyer]

Could you please tell me where the Log File is located and what it would be called by default?
TY

I found a Sagex-api.log file but it only contains one sentence

[rfeyer]

I believe I solved the problem.
After recurrent visits to web and CD setup I noticed that the path to the Comskip files was under ...Programs... rather than ...programs (86)
Once I pointed to the correct path it now seems to work.

Nontheless - could one of you tell me where the LOG file is, as this information may help in the future.

TY

Rainer

[tmiranda]

The logfile is in the SageTV install directory and is called sagetv_0.txt. Older logfiles are sagetv_1.txt and sagetv_2.txt.

Glad your problem was solved

[blade]

Is it possible to run two different versions of Comskip? I see that I can select either Comskip or ShowAnalyzer for each channel. If I set the path for ShowAnalyzer to a folder containing a different version of Comskip would it work or is it designed specifically for ShowAnalyzer?

Due to processors becoming faster the priority of comskip was raised awhile back. The newest version of comskip running with 2 threads processes HDPVR recordings in half the time compared to the older version. However, the older version running on a single thread with a lower priority processes HDHomeRun recordings twice as fast as the newer version while not hogging the CPU. Hence the desire to run two different versions. BTW my server is a rather old dual core.

I'm currently using Dirmon2 to achieve this, but I really want the ability to exclude certain channels without having to setup something complicated. I currently exclude processing on a per show basis with Dirmon2, but whenever I set up a favorite I have to login to the server and make changes to Dirmon2.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by blade

Is it possible to run two different versions of Comskip? I see that I can select either Comskip or ShowAnalyzer for each channel. If I set the path for ShowAnalyzer to a folder containing a different version of Comskip would it work or is it designed specifically for ShowAnalyzer?

Due to processors becoming faster the priority of comskip was raised awhile back. The newest version of comskip running with 2 threads processes HDPVR recordings in half the time compared to the older version. However, the older version running on a single thread with a lower priority processes HDHomeRun recordings twice as fast as the newer version while not hogging the CPU. Hence the desire to run two different versions. BTW my server is a rather old dual core.

I'm currently using Dirmon2 to achieve this, but I really want the ability to exclude certain channels without having to setup something complicated. I currently exclude processing on a per show basis with Dirmon2, but whenever I set up a favorite I have to login to the server and make changes to Dirmon2.

I see what you are trying to do and why, but unfortunately it's not possible with this plugin. Putting comskip in the ShowAnalyzer directory is a non-starter as well.

You can use SJQ to do what you are trying to achieve. It's a bit more work to setup but it is also more flexible. I suggest reading up on SJQ and then asking questions in that thread.

[blade]

Thanks, I may look into it.

[KryptoNyte]

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, some person installs this plugin, follows the basic directions in the beginning of this thread, and then goes ahead all willy nilly and replaces the comskip.exe and comskip.ini files in the sage comskip directory before actually reading through the Wiki, that might tend to frown on that kind of willy nillyness.

How would this - hypothetical - situation be resolved?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, some person installs this plugin, follows the basic directions in the beginning of this thread, and then goes ahead all willy nilly and replaces the comskip.exe and comskip.ini files in the sage comskip directory before actually reading through the Wiki, that might tend to frown on that kind of willy nillyness.

How would this - hypothetical - situation be resolved?

The program will run comskip.exe and pass the name of the recording to it.

[KryptoNyte]

Thanks, TM, I was concerned that I had screwed something up, and if there was a subsequent update to the plugin, something wouldn't have worked properly.

[KryptoNyte]

Are there any undesirable side effects to running the UNC path for the Sage recording directly rather than the local hard disk path? Has anyone noticed any issue with not seeing the used/available disk space reported correctly in the web interface?

[valnar]

I blew away my Sage Server (WinXP) and started over from scratch with Windows 7 32-bit. Took a whole day, but most things are working.

The Comskip/Commercial Detector plugin has one issue though. It works, but I can't seem to change any of the options within Sage. If I try to add the hours I don't want it to run, it doesn't save them.

Any ideas?