Utility: ShowAnalyzer Beta

[Jere_Jones]

ShowAnalyzer is an external utility that identifies the location of commercials in recorded shows. It is designed to be a replacement for comskip.

ShowAnalyzer can be run in one of two different modes:
1) Free
2) Normal

The only difference between free and normal is that free does not include any decoders. You have to provide the decoder yourself. The decoders that you will need can be downloaded from the AviSynth Filter Collection. Download the EvilMPASource by nic and the Mpegdecoder by nic. Only the version in the Avisynth 2.5 column will work. Place those files in the same directory that contains ShowAnalyzer.dll. Now ShowAnalyzer will work.

When using SA in free mode there are a couple of things you should be aware of:
1) Due to limitations in the audio decoder, do not run SA on a show that is still being recorded (i.e. no live detection).
2) When SA starts, there will be a lot of disk activity while the audio decoder reads the entire file. It doesn't use much CPU for this, but the disk drive will be very busy.
3) After the initial scan, SA will read the file again to decode the audio.
4) After the audio decode, SA will read the file one last time to decode the video.
5) If the first two scans are unacceptable to you, you can remove the EvilMPASource.dll file. However, SA's ability to accurately detect commercials will be handicapped.

If you want to try SA in normal mode, go to http://www.dragonglobal.org/trialrequest.htm and fill in the form. A trial key will be sent to you immediately.

If you want to purchase a normal key and, go to http://www.dragonglobal.org/purchase.htm to see the available methods of payment. If you don't like any of the options, just email me at showanalyzer@gmail.com and we can work out something else. I'm flexible.

Once you have a key (trial or normal), run SAConfig and click on Register under the operations menu. Enter your information and SA's built in decoder will be activated.

Regardless of whether you run SA in free or normal mode, installation and setup is straight-foward. Just make sure that you uninstall any version prior to 0.5.0 before installing the beta. And make sure that you "Save All" in SAConfig before you run SA.

I'm happy to answer any questions either here or on the Dragon Global forums. Which ever is easier for you.

You can download SA directly from this page.

An up-to-date version history is available here: http://www.dragonglobal.org/forums/showthread.php?t=114

Jere

[JUC]

Great! I have been wanting to try this out for a while now. Won't have time to play with it until next weekend after my wedding unfortunately.
JUC

[briands]

Originally Posted by JUC

Great! I have been wanting to try this out for a while now. Won't have time to play with it until next weekend after my wedding unfortunately.
JUC

Careful with your words, the new wife may take offence at this...

[Jere_Jones]

First post updated.

Jere

[nigfink]

With the CC, what box do I check if I'm just embeding them into the MPEG with a PVR250? Also, does SA have the ability to do a dictionary type setup like comskip did? That gave me much better results when I could put certain buz words in. Thank a lot.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by nigfink

With the CC, what box do I check if I'm just embeding them into the MPEG with a PVR250?

I don't understand what you're asking.

Originally Posted by nigfink

Also, does SA have the ability to do a dictionary type setup like comskip did?

No it doesn't. At least not yet. It hasn't been necessary. I'm sure I will incorporate the ability in the future, but probably not soon unless it is needed.

Jere

[JasonJoel]

I think he is confused by the CC options. The CC options are for having SA dump the CC info into a text file for use elsewhere (I never do this).


If the CC info is embeded into the recording, like it would be with a PVR250 and a show that has CC, then SA will simply use them for commercial detection with no further options to select in the program.

I THINK that is what he was asking.

Jason

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

I don't understand what you're asking.

No it doesn't. At least not yet. It hasn't been necessary. I'm sure I will incorporate the ability in the future, but probably not soon unless it is needed.

Jere

[nigfink]

That is exactly what I was asking, thank you.

I can't wait to get my trial key and give this sucker a try. I've head good things, and I sure loved comskip. Definately going to purchase if it is better then comskip. $10 to not see commecials is a small price to pay.

[peaboy]

I'm very excited to be trying out SA but I can't get it to work.

I've ran through the installer, run SAconfiguration and done a "Save All" in that, and I have copied the EvilMPASource.dll and MPEGDecoder.dll files to the same directory where SA is installed. When I run SA from a command prompt with a .mpg file specified or without, I get an error message that says, "ShowAnalyzer Error" for the title and in the box it says, "ShowAnalyzer is not registered and an appropriate decoder cannot be found. You need to register or install the appropriate decoders. Refer to http://www.dragonglobal.org/" and there's an OK button at the bottom. Is there anything I'm missing here in my installation. I tried to run regsvr32 on those DLL files but that just gave me another error message.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks to everyone who responds.

[Jere_Jones]

You seem to have everything in place. Take a look in your registry under HKLM\Software\Dragon Global\ShowAnalyzer. There should be a "DLL" value. Does it point to the correct directory? If it is incorrect or not there, what happens after you add it?

I'll take a look at it tonight and probably post an update.

Jere

[peaboy]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

You seem to have everything in place. Take a look in your registry under HKLM\Software\Dragon Global\ShowAnalyzer. There should be a "DLL" value. Does it point to the correct directory? If it is incorrect or not there, what happens after you add it?

I'll take a look at it tonight and probably post an update.

Jere

My Registry does have that DLL value and it is correct. I tried adding quotes around it, but SA really didn't like that. I did get my key and applied it and all is working fine now. It seems to be getting about 500fps on an Athalon 2600+. We just need an "I'm not worthy" emoticon now. If all goes well you will be getting my $10 soon.

[Mike Young]

I thought mine wasnt working either, I got the exact same message like ....5 times, I went to do something else and when I looked back at the tray I noticed I had 5 instances of SA going despite the message.

[Mike Young]

While on the subject....I kicked SA off on a 2hr epiosde of Into the West, it is about half way through now...6 hours and 15 minutes later. wierd thing is, its hardly using any CPU. Would this be considered 'normal' operation ?

mike/

[Blue]

Congrats on the Beta Jere. I think $10 is an appropriate price (it's what I voted for, at least).

[JasonJoel]

Nope, that is not normal. It took ~10 minutes to do each of my Into the West episodes...

With the pay version, though. Not sure if that matters.

Jason

Originally Posted by Mike Young

While on the subject....I kicked SA off on a 2hr epiosde of Into the West, it is about half way through now...6 hours and 15 minutes later. wierd thing is, its hardly using any CPU. Would this be considered 'normal' operation ?

mike/

[eruji]

How exactly do we incorporate this with sage, and does it work with the beta version?

[stanger89]

My suggestion (probably Jere's too ) is to use Dirmon to manage SA. Dirmon will monitor your recording directories and scan any recordings.

Then you will need to use a comskip-compatible STV (this could be neilm's import) in SageTV to read the files SA outputs and let you skip the commercials.

[Jere_Jones]

I just wanted to let you know that I have found the bug and will post it shortly after a couple more unrelated bug fixes.

Jere

[Jere_Jones]

I have posted a new version that fixes the free mode bug.

The new link is http://www.dragonglobal.org/download...Beta.0.5.1.exe

I am going to work on sending keys out now. So if you asked for one, you should get it shortly.

Jere

[Mike Young]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Nope, that is not normal. It took ~10 minutes to do each of my Into the West episodes...

With the pay version, though. Not sure if that matters.

Jason

I think It might matter, I uninstalled and reinstalled with the trial key and now its working fine, using about 85% of CPU.

mike/