STV Import: Comskip Playback w/ support for EDL

[sundansx]

The problem of the recording not ending play properly in the new stvi might be due to the last "commercial break". That one is a utility break that has the start the same as the end, and is also equal to the total length of the file. Try removing that line from one of the files and see if it acts differently.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by sundansx

The problem of the recording not ending play properly in the new stvi might be due to the last "commercial break". That one is a utility break that has the start the same as the end, and is also equal to the total length of the file. Try removing that line from one of the files and see if it acts differently.

Your are talking about the .stvi file that is created by comskip (in my example)?

So.. I'd remove the line.. "1799.93 1799.96 0" from the following? This isn't necessary when using the .txt in the original comskip .stvi...

--------------------
0.03 77.91 0
1585.52 1788.72 0
1799.93 1799.96 0

[erik]

I always add a one frame commercial brake at the end of the file so the last frame number of the last commercial segment is the last frame number of the file.
If the last commercials is a one frame commercial (less then 1 second) please delete it and test if Sage no longer loops.
Otherwise it can be the first commercial break.
I allow breaks as short as 5 seconds.
First try to delete the first very short commercial break.
If that repairs things then insert one starting at 0.0 and with duration of 10 seconds. See if that works.
If it does try changing the start from 0.0 to 0.1 or larger, see if that is causing problems.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by erik

I always add a one frame commercial brake at the end of the file so the last frame number of the last commercial segment is the last frame number of the file.
If the last commercials is a one frame commercial (less then 1 second) please delete it and test if Sage no longer loops.
Otherwise it can be the first commercial break.
I allow breaks as short as 5 seconds.
First try to delete the first very short commercial break.
If that repairs things then insert one starting at 0.0 and with duration of 10 seconds. See if that works.
If it does try changing the start from 0.0 to 0.1 or larger, see if that is causing problems.

Here is what I see..
If I remove the first short commercial break from the .edl file, the video plays perfectly.
If I put 0.0 10 0 in the file loops again.. any increment from 0.0 also loops..

Note: Oddly enough if I modify the .edl file to have a "0.0 10 0" break at the beginning, when I play the test video it looks as if it doesn't skip that segment.. I still see what appears to be the beginning of that video.. also, it 'appears' that the video starts with a single frame that may be the last frame of the video.. or, perhaps it is the first AND last frame.. but when I watch the video I do see for a brief moment, the same frame I see when the video ends...



I'll have to find a file that loops at the end to test..

Is this an issue with comskip or .edls, or with how the .stvi is implementing that data?

[erik]

Could you test if making the first commercial break starting at 0 longer makes a differense.
Say
0.0 30.0

Or if this works
10.0 40.0

Then I know if the problem is with starting at the beginning or with a certain minimum length.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by erik

Could you test if making the first commercial break starting at 0 longer makes a differense.
Say
0.0 30.0

Or if this works
10.0 40.0

Then I know if the problem is with starting at the beginning or with a certain minimum length.

Interesting..

If I add 0.0 30.0, as you suggest.. it works fine.. I was able to get it to 0.0 10.1 and it worked fine.. as soon as I go to 0.0 10.0 it caused problems.. then, just for grins, I changed it to 10.0 20.0 (a gap of 10) and it froze up again when it hit that break.. so I added a .1 to it, making it a 10.1 difference (10.0 20.1) and it worked! So, I am not sure it is a 'zero' thing, seems to be particular break size issue, anything less than 10.1 so far in my limited testing...

[sundansx]

Stuntman,
Is it possible to check this behavior with teh original stvi? I would like to see if my changes introduced this problem or if it was there already. It might help to pinpoint the cause, also.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by sundansx

Stuntman,
Is it possible to check this behavior with teh original stvi? I would like to see if my changes introduced this problem or if it was there already. It might help to pinpoint the cause, also.

The original .stvi does not exhibit this behavior.. of course it uses the .txt file that is created simultaneously by comskip...

[erik]

OK,
I can change comskip never to output a commercial smaller then 10 seconds, but if you guys can solve the problem thats better.

[erik]

Done, try build 51

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by erik

Done, try build 51

I'll give this a try. But I agree, if the new .stvi can be fixed so that this isn't an issue that would be a better solution than to have comskip modify itself to ignore commercials less than 10 seconds.. since this wasn't an issue with the original comskip .stvi, I'm sure the bug can be found and squashed.. at least I'm hopeful!

Thanks for all the work!!!

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by erik

Done, try build 51

This has fixed the looping I have seen at the start of many shows.. Hopefully the .stvi will be fixed so that you can restore the code to remove short com skips, but for now, this seems to work!

[sundansx]

I have a fix for the problem where comskip stays disabled. I have a fix for the looping at the beginning and end if there are small or even 0 length commercials. Although today I thought of a better way to fix the looping problem. I will probably release a new version pretty soon (Wife is about to pop out a boy any day now, so that may foil my plans for a while).

[hemicuda]

Great on the update... Congrats on the new family member

[sundansx]

I have posted the fixed comskip import on downloads. It is version 1.1.
I have implemented fixes for all the bugs I saw and so far it is working for me. I was a little apprehensive to release it since I have been having other recording problems (audio mutes halfway through a recording...the fault of motorola's crappy 2244 box and comcast cable).

Anyway, I have posted this release anyway for people to test it out. The way it now works is that if a commercial break is smaller than start and stop delay added together it will not skip that commercial. This seems to fix the looping at the end and beginning for me when I created a fake .edl file.

The fix for the skip-twice-and-stay-disabled problem was solved by enabling a "pseudo-semaphore" for the disable so multiple forked threads could not all access it at the same time.

give it a try and see what you think. In my limited testing, I did not try to import this stvi over my existing one. I always start from the default and add all of my stvi's back in. It is not a big deal since sage saves the addin settings and restores them when they are added back in.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by sundansx

I have posted the fixed comskip import on downloads. It is version 1.1.

Download link isnt' working for me... ??

[sundansx]

try now.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by sundansx

try now.

Still not working for me.. get 'Page not found' when I try to download it.

[sundansx]

Make sure you are not using a bookmark. I had to kill the old added file and make a new one. The new one works and the link to it in the beginning of this thread should take you to it. If all else fails...press shift key and hit the refresh button on your browser...that is a hard refresh.
-ck

[Worf]

Does anyone have an idea how to use an edl file with mplayer for OSX?