commercials (i need an explanation)

[k9k9]

Ok... I've got my trial of SA going, as well as dirmon2. I also imported the stvi. After running these things, it looks pretty cool. The only problem is I don't understand anything at all!!!

What's the difference between comskip, showanalyzer and dirmon2?? Can someone please explain this to me all in one convienent post so I don't have to go gallivanting around to find it all?

Also, I don't know how feasable this is, but I have an idea for how commercial skipping could be improved.

I might be wrong, but you can get a txt file or some sort of file that basically shows when there are commercials, correct? What if there was some way to get a collection of these files in one place. If the show was first run, then after people find the commercials and see that they have the commercials logged in the right place, they would submit thier findings to one centralized database.

The only problem I could see is that people use different padding for the start and finish of a show.... BUT, we could take the show ID and start at the middle and work out from there right? I have no clue about the programming involved (or anything about programming in general), but it seems like a neat next step. My first try with SA and Dirmon2 only got about half the commercials and I am way over my head here as it is....

[Polypro]

I'll try to help...I used SA/DirMon a while ago, but a programmed 3 minute skip and 30 second skip work better for me. DirMon monitors your recording folder for files it hasn't seen yet. When it finds one, it kicks off SA to process it. The Compskip import allows Sage to skip the commercials marked by SA. SA can be configured to match the commercial "profile" in your area, ie. US commercials have a different pattern than Canada...this is done by changing certain values in SA. Current users will have more to add, but I think that's it in a nutshell.

P

[malbec]

My limited understanding...

Comskip and Showanalyzer scan the mpeg file after it is recorded to find the commercials and spit out a text file with the start and ending frame for the commericials it finds in the mpeg.

I have not tried Comskip yet. I have used Showanalyzer for six months or so now. I find Showanalyzer to be about 80% - the start/end for the commericials are identified perfectly for 4 out of 5 shows. The other one is a bit screwy - typically misses 2 or 3 30 second commericals for some reason.

Showanalyzer has a nice GUI interface for you to tinker with the settings. There is also a "Schoolhouse" function for you to try different settings out in order to see how SA behaves. There area slo a number of bells and whistles you can tweak/play with. However, I highly recommend giving Jere the $10 for the full version as it dramatically speeds up the analysis.

My knowledge of Comskip is next to none. As near as I can tell, it is a self contained exe with no ability to tweak the variables used to find the start/end of commericials. There amy be some command line functionality, but again I am completely unaware of what it is if it exists. I am very curious to know if anyone has done a comparison on the two on how they perform, but I have seen none to date.

DirMon is short for "Directory Monitor" ... I think. It monitors particular directories you specify and if what you set up becomes true (such as a mpeg file now exists in the specified directory without a txt file identifiying the commericials for the mpeg) it kicks off the SA or Comskip program to scan the mpeg file and create the txt file with the commercial information.

Now, with the txt file containing the commercial information created, all you need to do is import Nielm's commerical skip utility into your STV. The import allows Sage to read the txt file created with SA/Comskip identifying the sections where the commercials reside, then upon hitting one of those sections while viewing, Sage skips that section.

As I understand it VideoRedo can apparently read the txt files created as well (and may possibly have its own built in commericial scanning?) so as to help you with the editing and deleting of the commercials in the mpeg files. I have read about others creating scripts that cause VideoRedo to automatically remove these identified sections from the mpeg files so as to save space, however since I am running at a 80% success rate....

Now, I would be VERY, VERY interested to hear about what I have screwed up here in the explanation. Experience has proven there is something.

[k9k9]

Yes!!! thank you. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you. My goal is for people who are confused to find this thread and hopefully have some things answered before they go installing everything they can find just to see what it does (like I did).

If I can get my dirmon2/SA setup close to 80% like you guys, then I have absolutely no problems paying for it. That's what the trial is for

Now about my other suggestion, can anyone see if this is remotely possible? Have SA connect to a server that keeps a directory of shows and their commercial skip times? Are the commercials different based on location? If so, maybe have it tie in with the zap2it settings....

[blade]

Originally Posted by k9k9

Now about my other suggestion, can anyone see if this is remotely possible? Have SA connect to a server that keeps a directory of shows and their commercial skip times? Are the commercials different based on location? If so, maybe have it tie in with the zap2it settings....

This has been brought up before and various reasons given why it wouldn't work or wouldn't be practical. I can't recall all of the reasons off the top of my head.

Commercial detection can be done in "real time" even on slow systems. I'm running SA on an XP1400 and can easily process 4 shows at once in "real time". There's just not much benefit for all of the hassle involved.

[blade]

Originally Posted by malbec

Comskip and Showanalyzer scan the mpeg file after it is recorded to find the commercials and spit out a text file with the start and ending frame for the commericials it finds in the mpeg.

SA can scan the file as it's being recorded and update the txt file as new commercials are found. So you don't have to wait for a recording to finish before doing commercial detection.

[k9k9]

Ok I get it then. So what you guys are saying is that if I can get my settings just right (maybe 90-95%) then I can have commercial detection without using a lot of resources. Fair enough. My other question though is this:

What combinations work well with which STV? Does it even matter because they are seperate programs?

Right now everyone seems to be praising the SA / Dirmon2 option. I can verify that this works with 4.1.3.67

I looked at meekell_0_5_0 and while I think the layout is really great, I kept losing remote functionality using the RW, FF buttons (HIP was fine and running and it only happens with meekell).... this could be another issue.

What do other people have set up for detection/skipping/editing that works?

[DocDrydenn]

ComSkip v0.79 33 & DirMon - These are located on the server machine where all the processing is done.
SageMC (newest build) - This is on the client and supports commercial skipping.

As far as I can tell, ComSkip and SA both output the same. If your favorite STV doesn't support reading those files, then try the ComSkip import for SageTV.

This was pretty easy to setup for my system.
1. Dload the newest ComSkip zip from the ComSkip site and unpack it to the SageTV directory.
2. Dload and install DirMon
3. Setup DirMon to use the ComSkip.exe you just unpacked. (following the directions from the DirMon thread.
4. Tell SageMC to enable commercial skipping.
5. Done.

I also must say that as much as I like the commercial skipping, I am not into the fine tuning of the detection. Default detection is just fine for me. Others may say otherwise, but I find that if its a little off in the detection I'll just correct it with the remote.

Something not quite on topic, but goes along with the above... I've never found the detection to run into the show. If it isn't exactly cutting the coms, its just a little early. (i get a few seconds of the trailing edge of the commercial, which is better than missing a few seconds of the show, IMO.) This may be why I have not gotten into tuning the detection. Almost like "if it ain't broken...".

[mayamaniac]

There are two commercial detection programs, one is COMSKIP and the other is ShowAnalyzer (SA). They both work similar to each other as they detect the black frames that appear before the commercials start. Thats just the basic, but there are other detection schemes such as audio changes. But for most part, the black frames detection works pretty well.

Personally, I tested SA and COMSKIP and can't really tell the difference between the two, so I went with COMSKIP as it is free.

DirMon2 is an app that monitors your video folders for new video files to process the commercial detection. Both COMSKIP and SA produce a text file that has information about when and where the commercial starts for each show. And both COMSKIP and SA, along with DirMon2, can be run independently from SageTV, from any networked computer.

To have SageTV read the commercial detection, you just need to install the Comskip plugin for SageTV, which reads the text files produced by SA or COMSKIP and mark the commercial sections on the SageTV timeline, and allows you to manually or automatically skip them. Hope that helps.

[k9k9]

This helps a ton!

I love rewinding live TV about 10 minutes back and seeing SA and dirmon tag the commercials. What a great feature. When my trial runs out I'll be paying for sure.

Are there any automated programs out there that will delete the commercials?

[cslatt]

Apparently comclean can be used to do this, but I've never done so. More info here:

http://mk.kaashoek.com/comskip/

[Humanzee]

k9k9,
you should also look into reading about assigning the custom4 and custom5 commands to buttons on your remote. These comands are used to jump forward or back to the begining or end of a commercial segment. Sometimes the comdetect won't be accurate, then you can just prest custom4 (I think) and it will go back to what you were watching before the jump.

I wouldn't bother with trying to actually remove the commercials from the recording unless you want to archive a program for some reason. There is just to much of a chance that your detection will not be 100% accuarate and if you physically delete the segement there woulb be no going back. I have used videoReDo to remove segments on a couple of shows that I wanted to archive, however, I couldn't get it to work on HDTV content.

Another thing you should be sure to configure is the options to remove the txt file after you delete the recording. In the comskip days, I had a batch file that would run to remove these orphaned files. There is a configuration in DirMon2 to configure what files should be removed in the absence of an mpg.

[k9k9]

Humanzee, thanks for the tip.

I currently have dirmon2 set up to remove the files after I have deleted the mpg. I really like that dirmon program. I wonder what else it can be used for besides commercial skipping? Maybe clearing out server log files after they've been in a folder for too many days.


Do I program those custom4, 5 buttons in HIP ? or is it something I can do directly in sage? Sounds cool, I'll check it out when I get home...

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by k9k9

Do I program those custom4, 5 buttons in HIP ? or is it something I can do directly in sage? Sounds cool, I'll check it out when I get home...

I use the Hauppauge remotes so I configured Custom4 and Custom5 commands for my remote control in the irremote.ini file in c:\windows\ . Find a posting by Opus4 and look at his signature file for links to instructions about hauppauge remotes.

It is also available in sagetv setup under setup>detailed setup>controls>remap keyboard\remote keystroke to sage......

On my particular remote I reassigned the mute and full buttons to be custom4 and custom5. I didn't use them much in their original configuration anyway.

I dont know what HIP is.

[malbec]

Originally Posted by k9k9

I really like that dirmon program. I wonder what else it can be used for besides commercial skipping? Maybe clearing out server log files after they've been in a folder for too many days.

I don't have the time to figure it out, so I am waiting for somebody to figure out a nice easy way to use DirMon to re-encode the mpeg recordings made into DivX, Xvid, etc. to save space. Seems like it would be a nice fit...

The issue, I think, is the main sticking point is that I think all of the recording detail/information is lost within Sage when you delete the mpeg and replace it with an avi.

Anyway, that's all my limited knowledge can offer you.