comskip varient

[malore]

This version of comskip is the result of testing and experimenting with the logged results from over 160 shows. I automated the testing process to try and produce the most accurate black frame/commercial detection possible. Originally, I had planned on taking the results and using them with Jere_Jone's version of comskip. But, during the testing process I discovered changes that substantially improved the accuracy of black frame commercial detection, so the settings are no longer directly applicable to Jere's version.

I improved the commercial marking code by switching to a two pass system. The first pass uses a small maximum commercial size. If the minimum percentage of the show isn't marked as commercial, it does another pass using a larger max commercial size. The results from the two passes are compared and the one closest to 26.67% is used. One of my cable channels is very staticy; I was able to go from no commercial detection to very good commercial detection by adding a fall back setting if less than 16% of the show was marked as commercial.

[Kanati]

I'll drop it in my setup and see what shakes loose.

[ascv]

malore,
What folder does comskip go in?
thanks

[malore]

Originally Posted by ascv

malore,
What folder does comskip go in?
thanks

It goes in the same folder as SageTV.exe, which is usually found in either C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV or C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV.

Anyone unfamiliar with comskip should check out the main comskip thread. For comskip to be usefull you'll also need to use one of the many custom STVs that have support for it.

[ascv]

Thanks for the help Malore.

[ukmgranger]

will this be any use to us in the UK. I read somewhere that comskipping with UK material was pretty dificult?!?

[malore]

Originally Posted by ukmgranger

will this be any use to us in the UK. I read somewhere that comskipping with UK material was pretty dificult?!?

These setting probably work best for the USA and apparently Canada. But, I'm willing to test for what the best settings on average might be for other regions for anyone willing to do a little work. However, nothing will help this program if the commercial breaks don't start and end with a least one black frame.

Anyone who would like me to test what settings might work best for them needs to:
1. edit the comskip.ini file and change blacklist=0 to blacklist=1
2. run/rerun comskip on your shows. You can do this manually by drag-and-dropping the video file onto comskip or automatically by deleting the corresponding .txt file(s) and restarting whatever you use to automatically run comskip.
3. edit the comskip .txt file(s) to have the correct commercial breaks. I used VirtualDub-MPEG2 to open the video files, because it's free and provides framenumbers just like comskip uses. VirtualDub is slow to open mpeg2 files, but very fast afterwards. Just search the time line for the start and end of the commercials and enter the frame numbers in the comskip .txt file seperated by tabs, with each break on a seperate line.
4. zip up the .lst and .txt files and attach them to a post. Best results would be achieved from a variety of shows from different channels.

Before doing much of this check that it will work at all by looking to see if anything close to the start and stop frames are in the .lst file for the show.

Example .lst file (shortened)
(Format: framenumber, maximum brightness, avg. brightness, % bright)
43 35 20 0.0000
17014 31 18 0.0000
17917 44 19 0.0000
18368 53 20 0.0000
18820 37 19 0.0000
19275 44 21 0.0000
20633 49 20 0.0000
21232 49 21 0.0000
22887 33 18 0.0000
23795 32 17 0.0000
31945 43 19 0.0000
32851 40 20 0.0000

Example .txt file
17014 23795

The commercial break can clearly be seen because it consist of a series of short segments seperated by black frames and then large gaps of no black frames during the actual show.

[malore]

I read a post indicating that someone from Canada was getting good results using this version, so that is encouraging.

[h8dk97]

Has anyone tried it in Australia? Would love to be able to skip commercials :-)

[h8dk97]

Do you need closed captions for comskip to work?

Originally Posted by malore

This version of comskip is the result of testing and experimenting with the logged results from over 160 shows. I automated the testing process to try and produce the most accurate black frame/commercial detection possible. Originally, I had planned on taking the results and using them with Jere_Jone's version of comskip. But, during the testing process I discovered changes that substantially improved the accuracy of black frame commercial detection, so the settings are no longer directly applicable to Jere's version.

I improved the commercial marking code by switching to a two pass system. The first pass uses a small maximum commercial size. If the minimum percentage of the show isn't marked as commercial, it does another pass using a larger max commercial size. The results from the two passes are compared and the one closest to 26.67% is used. One of my cable channels is very staticy; I was able to go from no commercial detection to very good commercial detection by adding a fall back setting if less than 16% of the show was marked as commercial.

[blade]

Originally Posted by h8dk97

Do you need closed captions for comskip to work?

No.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by malore

It goes in the same folder as SageTV.exe, which is usually found in either C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV or C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV.

Anyone unfamiliar with comskip should check out the main comskip thread. For comskip to be usefull you'll also need to use one of the many custom STVs that have support for it.

How do I use this? What am I missing? I am using Neilm's STVi for comskip support and have copied your comskip files (comskip.exe and comskip.ini) to the SageTV folder. I've restarted SageTV. It appears to have no effect. Do you have any suggestions?

[gplasky]

You actually need to be using a STV that supports comskip. The v3 STV only supports the commercial skipping of a comskipped program, it doesn't run the comskip program. SageMC and Malore are 2 of the ones I can think of that support the use of comskip for analyzing the files.

Gerry

[malore]

gplasky, is correct. If you read through the comskip import thread you'll see it doesn't add the background commercial processing, so you have to use something like DirMon with it. If you just want to test comskip out on a couple of shows you can drop-and-drag a .mpg file onto the comskip.exe, wait for it to finish, then play it with SageTV.

[mikesm]

Interesting... Does it compile and run under linux?

Thanks,
Mike

[malore]

If you can compile the mpeg2dec sample program from libmpeg2 then it shouldn't be too hard to get comskip to work in Linux.

[Kanati]

My tests thus far indicate anywhere from 10 - 25% increase in accuracy. And none have been worse than the original. Good job.

[malore]

Thanks, glad to hear it's working for you.

[judoGTI]

bump just to see what people are thinking

[robertmcox]

I'm not sure if it works better or not....I've thought about switching back to normal compskip, but haven't because it does get some shows (history channel and most scifi) right on the dot every time. But when it doesn't detect well, it really doesn't do well and have to ff/rew.

I notice sometimes it detects a long commercial break as 2 commercial blocks with about 10 seconds of non-commercial inbetween. I would think this would be easy to correct, if you're looking for suggestions.