WAF is very high!

[jbarr]

I installed DirMon2 + ShowAnalyzer + ComSkip Plugin, and it works very, VERY well. I tweaked SA, and the settings are very reliable--so much so, that I only see very rare, minor false hits. My wife said that she could get REALLY spoiled by this!

I'm really impressed by the fact that it's automated and completely hands-off. And combined with the new Video Editor plugin, if I do need to do any tweaking, it can be seamlessly done from within SageTV using the remote.

SageTV is really becomimg a truly excellent home media and entertainment center!

[stevech]

a cookbook for dummies on how to do this without breaking the WAF, would be appreciated.

(V6?)

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by stevech

a cookbook for dummies on how to do this without breaking the WAF, would be appreciated.

(V6?)

I'll see what I can put together. The problem will be locating the documentation I used. I found a nice document somewhere that described instructions and settings for setting up DirMon2 and SA. I'll see if I can find it.

The good news about impacting WAF is that most of the SA stuff happens outside of SageTV, so WAF impact should be minimal. The only real challenge for me was determining decent CPU throttling settings so that it didn't slam the CPU when SA processed. It took some trial-and-error, but I got it to the point where I can now simultaneously record, playback, and do background SA post-processing without any noticable slowdown of the SageTV UI.

Oh, and yes, I'm using v6. I don't remember the specific revision, but it is a RC version, not the final release....

[real_per]

What about this guide: http://www.dragonglobal.org/forums/showthread.php?t=562 ?

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by real_per

What about this guide: http://www.dragonglobal.org/forums/showthread.php?t=562 ?

Yes, yes! That's the one! Thanks!

For people new to this, I had 3 challenges in this:

1. Getting DirMon2 working as a service
I had some login/authentication issues that were resolved once I gave it the right username/password info.

2. DirMon2 & SA Throttle settings
I had to play around with these to get it to a point where background processing wouln't use up all CPU resources.

3. Beginning and Ending marks
Under Default > Settings section 6 (Predetermined marks) I adjusted this down to about 90 seconds

I'll post my settings and some other tips soon...

[steingra]

Do you plan on upgrading to 6.0 public release soon? and using this process you described here?

[stevech]

pardon my ignorance, but what produces the EDL files?

Following the SA download link, I'm taken to an EXE download. Yikes. Do I trust it? No readme or .doc?

[Motofreak75]

okay, I have been using this sage for along time but

What the hell does WAF mean ?

and does anyone want to share, their Show Analyzer settings ? or does the settings in the guide really work ?

[bcjenkins]

WAF == Wife Acceptance Factor

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by steingra

Do you plan on upgrading to 6.0 public release soon? and using this process you described here?

Yes, I do. I just haven't had much incentive what with the holidays and the fact that the RC version I'm using is VERY stable.

Originally Posted by stevech

pardon my ignorance, but what produces the EDL files?

Following the SA download link, I'm taken to an EXE download. Yikes. Do I trust it? No readme or .doc?

ShowAnalyzer creates the EDL files. As for the documentation, yes, it's VERY sparse. Refer to the link that "real_per" referenced above for details.

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

What the hell does WAF mean ?

Sorry, it took me a while to understand what Wife Acceptance Factor is. Just understand that after 17 years of marriage, this is probably one of the most important things to consider when messing with one's TV setup.

-----------------------------------------------------

How "DirMon2 + ShowAnalyzer + ComSkip Plugin" works

OK, just so everyone understands, I'm in the middle of writing a kind of "HOWTO" document to help make this a bit easier, but until then, briefly, here's the concept of the commercial skip processing using the "DirMon2 + ShowAnalyzer + ComSkip plugin" method....

DirMon2
DirMon2 is a kind of "scheduler" program that runs outside of SageTV and monitors a user-defined directory for specific files using user-defined criteria. In this case, it's looking for .mpg files in your SageTV recordings folder(s). I also have the a setting enabled such that it only processes when the .mpg file is not growing (ie: it is done recording.)

When the criteria are met, DirMon executes a user-definable application, in this case, ShowAnalyzer. When ShowAnalyzer completes, DirMon2 just sits in the background and polls the directory awaiting a new recorded .mpg file.

We now have a background process that looks for newly recorded files, and when found, auto-scans them for commercial content and creates supporting files.


ShowAnalyzer
This application scans a .mpg file for specific attributes that are generally associated with commercial content. I have no idea what the extent of the attributes are, and I don't know what all the settings do, but they work for me, so at this point, I'm considering it to be a "black box" application. Anyway, when ShowAnalyzer finds commmercial content sections in an .mpg recording, it writes the locations into a .edl file named the same as the .mpg file.

So we now have the original recorded .mpg file and a ShowAnalyzer-created .edl file. Next comes the fun part...


ComSkip plugin
This bad boy is a SageTV plugin that "enhances" the playback of a recording. When you playback a show, the ComSkip plugin looks for a corresponding .edl file (created by ShowAnalyzer above.) If none is found, playback is standard SageTV playback. If an .edl file is found, then it does two things:

1. It displays the "skippable" content in SageTV's Time Bar (the graphic progress bar that appears when you press the Play button.) This gives you a visual idea of what content is "show content" (bright green sections) and "skippable content" (dark green sections.)

2. When playback gets to the end of a content section (and thus the beginning of a skippable section) playback resumes at the end of the skippable section. The end result: skipped commercials.

The ComSkip plugin is a very useful, yet non-intrusive add-on, and you always have the option of disabling it.


Conclusion
I guess the important thing to understand is that .edl files are just simple text files defining where the skippable content starts and ends. DirMon2 is the scheduler that makes it all "happen", and SHowAnalyzer is the intelligence that looks for skippable content, and creates the .edl files.

It's not rocket science, but it's also not the simplest thing to set up. The really nice thing about it is that once it's set up, it's pretty much a set-it-and-forget-it process.

There are other methods and applications to accomplish the same results, but this one worked well for me.

Important Note
ShowAnalyzer is not a free program. It costs $10.00, so it's very inexpensive and affordable. To me, it's worth the cost, especially considering the amazing work it does.

I hope this explanation helps!

[Motofreak75]

WAF,


thats a good one


thanks

[Kev]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

does anyone want to share, their Show Analyzer settings ? or does the settings in the guide really work ?

The default show analyzer settings worked very well for me. I tweaked them some to work for football games. Football games throw you back and fourth between commericials quickly, sometimes comeback to the commercials for just the kick off, then back to just one or two commercials then back to the game. So, I simply had to edit the min comercial time down to 30-sec and the min show time down to 1-min (I think that is what I used). The new settings work for football games and hasn't screwed anything up during regular shows (been using it for about 6-months and rarely have an issue). I do often miss the "next time on ... sneak peak" at the end of the show, but simply rewind back to get it and shut off the com skip add in. The result on football games is amazing, the time bar is cut up like crazy and cuts a 3-hour game down to 2. With 2-kids under the age or 2, really need to squeeze the home game into a small window of time!

[belleboyd]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

WAF == Wife Acceptance Factor

And for those of us in the minority:
HAF = Husband Acceptance Factor

God forfend we should miss one second of Battlestar or Heros or the Anime channel!
Lucky I don't have sports issues too.

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by Kev

The default show analyzer settings worked very well for me. I tweaked them some to work for football games. Football games throw you back and fourth between commericials quickly, sometimes comeback to the commercials for just the kick off, then back to just one or two commercials then back to the game. So, I simply had to edit the min comercial time down to 30-sec and the min show time down to 1-min (I think that is what I used). The new settings work for football games and hasn't screwed anything up during regular shows (been using it for about 6-months and rarely have an issue). I do often miss the "next time on ... sneak peak" at the end of the show, but simply rewind back to get it and shut off the com skip add in. The result on football games is amazing, the time bar is cut up like crazy and cuts a 3-hour game down to 2. With 2-kids under the age or 2, really need to squeeze the home game into a small window of time!

And for those twisted folk like me, maybe we could leverage the mistake I made when I was first playing with this commercial-skipping stuff: Use the Video Editor to mistakenly "invert" the cut marks, and you end up with playback of nothing but commercials!

Hmmm...maybe this would be useful for the Super Bowl....

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by belleboyd

And for those of us in the minority:
HAF = Husband Acceptance Factor

God forfend we should miss one second of Battlestar or Heros or the Anime channel!
Lucky I don't have sports issues too.

And I've also seen SAF (Spouse Acceptance Factor) and SOAF (Significant Other Acceptance Factor) too. They all have their obvious merits in that we all need to remember that tweaking something that more than one person uses can cause lots of strife if you mess up....