Plugin: CommercialDetector

[Ericft]

does the comskip.ini file specify which directories to monitor or does it just go by what sage uses as recording directories...i remember trying this before and had to go through the webbased setup to specify comskip monitoring directories and those directories that i wanted cleaned up of extra edl/log/txt/files

also would it be possible to add monitoring for removal of excess txt, edl, log, properties files as well...
excellent plugin..the dream of a user friendly sagetv7 continues to become a reality with this much needed and simple way to get commercial skipping...THANKS!!!

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Ericft

does the comskip.ini file specify which directories to monitor or does it just go by what sage uses as recording directories...i remember trying this before and had to go through the webbased setup to specify comskip monitoring directories and those directories that i wanted cleaned up of extra edl/log/txt/files

also would it be possible to add monitoring for removal of excess txt, edl, log, properties files as well...
excellent plugin..the dream of a user friendly sagetv7 continues to become a reality with this much needed and simple way to get commercial skipping...THANKS!!!

No directories are specifically "monitored" so there is nothing to setup. When Sage finishes recording a show the information is passed to the plugin which then determines what files to run comskip against. No configuration by you is needed.

There is a plugin option to specify what files to cleanup when a recording (or imported video) is deleted. When you delete a file the information is passed to the plugin and then the plugin deletes the appropriate files specified in the configuration.

Greg - Thanks. I guess I missed the Sys type package. Using that will be a lot better than what I am doing.

bcjenkins - Thanks! (again..)

[tmiranda]

Thanks to GKusnick I now realize that the installation procedure I have implemented is not right. When you try to uninstall or upgrade the beta you will get a failure message. The next beta will fix this issue.

Tom

[Ericft]

installed plugin onto Windows 7 saget server and have recorded some show with both HDPVR and hdhomerun...so far don't see any instances of comskip on my task manager...doesn't it start immediately after show done recording? how long do i have to wait for it to clean the directory of unused files and how long to start processing after recording done...

[tmiranda]

Eric,

Processing should start as soon as the recording is finished, or stopped. Cleanup occurs as soon as the recording is deleted.

If that is not the case set the debug log level to Trace and attach the logfile for me to look at. I have not tested under Windows7 so there may be some issue. Do the .edl files ever get created at all?

Tom

[Ericft]

i tried recording both from hd pvr and hdhomerun yesterday and checked today but no edl files were created at all. I will switch the debug level when I get home and rerecord so that i can trial again. will attach file one available.

[bcjenkins]

For HDPVR - you will need to update the exe to the donator's version.

B

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

For HDPVR - you will need to update the exe to the donator's version.

B

Yes, the free version of comskip will not support HDPVR recordings. If you get the donator version just copy the files to your system and point CommercialDetector at the .exe and .ini (through the plugin configuration).

Tom

[Ericft]

i did overwrite the comskip.exe and comskipgui files with the donators version...I recorded a hdhomerun show also which should have worked with the free version..maybe I just need to use all the files in the donators comskip directory not just comskip.exe...will try later today.

[tmiranda]

Eric,

Please zip and post your log even if it works. I have not tested on Windows7 and I want to make sure things are working as they should.

My guess is that if what you did is not working copying the whole directory won't make a difference. I suspect it's a Win7 issue that I have overlooked.

Tom

[Ericft]

should i keep the original .ini that came with the plugin or also use the donators version plugin? just not sure if you had made any specific plugin changes...also where does the log file reside? i changed the debug level to maximum, that would work right?

[tmiranda]

Eric,

Use the .ini that came with the donator's version. I made a few changes but they are not critical. I think the only changes were:
- output_default=0 ;this suppresses the creation of .txt files.
- verbose=0 ;this limits comskip's debug info
- whatever setting that tells comskip to delelete the .logo file when done

Setting debug level to max is fine. The logfile is in the install directory. On XP it's "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV". I don't know where Win7 puts things but it's whatever directory sagetv.exe is in. The logfile is called sagetv_0.txt (or something close to that.)

You also need to make sure debug logging is enabled in SageTV.

When you locate the SageTV install directory look in there and tell me if there is a comskip directory. Also look in the JARs directory and see if there is a comskip subdirectory. The comskip directory is supposed to be in the sage install directory and NOT the JARs directory. If it's in the JARs directory copy (not move) it to the sage install directory.

I suspect this is the problem and it's caused by my misuse of the Sage plugin installer. I've fixed the issue for the next beta that I am working on.

Tom

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Linux users only: Home Directory for Wine - wine MUST be installed on your system and you MUST enter the location of the $HOME/.wine directory. (for example /home/tom/.wine) Furthermore the .wine directory MUST be owned by root. I am releasing this plugin as a beta specifically because this is ugly and I am not happy about what needs to be done to get this to work under wine from a SageTV plugin. I am not a linux guru so any help in sorting this out will be appreciated. Here is the issue as I understand it:

- When wine is installed it must be installed as a normal user and the .wine directory is put into the user's home directory.
- Sage is normally run as root so when wine is run from within the plugin it runs as root. (I'm using runtime.exec() to run wine.)
- wine insists that the .wine directory be owned by the user running wine, which in this case is root.

I do not run Sage on a Linux box but I do use Linux a lot for all sorts of other things. Since Sage runs as root it should be very easy to change to a different user to run comskip within wine. All you would have to do is execute it slightly differently, for example using something like "su user -c command". Obviously, you have to replace the word user by the user name that has wine installed and the command would be the way you execute comskip within wine. Since this gets executed as root from Sage, there will no password be required.

Thomas

[tmiranda]

Thomas,

In the newer beta I am working on I do almost exactly as you outlined. In the configuration it asks if you are running Sage as root, and if so you must supply the name of a non-root account that can run comskip. If you are not running as root you must supply the name of the user you are running Sage as.

If running as root I use sudo to execute "wine comskip ...." as the non-root account supplied. If not running as root I just run "wine comskip .." as the user you are runnig Sage as.

This approach is a lot better than beta 0.10. I have one bug to iron out and then beta 0.20 will be ready.

Tom

[tmiranda]

Beta 0.20 is now available in the repository. After installing please IGNORE the message saying the installation failed!

Changes:
- Fixed installer. Old method caused problems when updating. See note above.
- Added ability to ignore recordings from specified channel numbers or names.
- Added ability to srart commercial detection as soon as the recording or LiveTV starts.
- Ignore live TV files that have been deleted.
- Change comskip.ini to not produce .txt files.
- Improved comskip execution under Linux. It's no longer necessary to chown the .wine directory.
- Fixed bug that caused some recordings to be processed twice.
- If more than 3 CPUs are available set default number of jobs to 2

Tom

[phelme]

Just a tip, if you're using the donators version and copying the executable to the comskip directory that Tom created, make sure and bring along the comcodec.dll file as well. It was driving me crazy why mine wasn't working until I tried to run it under cmd and figured it out.

Any chance we could manually add shows to the queue of files that need to have comskip run on them that somehow were missed?

[Ericft]

 Just a tip, if you're using the donators version and copying the executable to the comskip directory that Tom created, make sure and bring along the comcodec.dll file as well. It was driving me crazy why mine wasn't working until I tried to run it under cmd and figured it out.

Any chance we could manually add shows to the queue of files that need to have comskip run on them that somehow were missed?

Finally got it working by pointing the .exe to the folder that I had downloaded the donators version to. as well as the comskip ini. could be what the previous poster said regarding the additional file.
I am also interested is seeing if we can have comskip initiate when recording starts as opposed to recording ends...and also to select comskip to be run on files missed for some reason.
I have attached a zip of my log file. hope it helps.(could only get one as others are over the 750K limit sorry)..i guess the best way would be to completely overide the comskip directory placed into sagetv( yes it did put the folder there, not JARS)

[tmiranda]

phelme - Thanks for the pointer. I think you will be better off keeping the donators version in it's own directory and pointing CommercialDetector at that. Overwriting what is in the default comskip directory will cause strange behavior when you uninstall or upgrade the plugin. (I learned that the hard way.)

Ericft - I uploaded a new beta last night that gives the option to start comskip when the recording starts. Glad you got things working. The bad news is that you have another problem going on in there causing a Java exception. I do not think this has to do with this plugin but I can't be certain. What else do you have installed?

Next on my ToDo list is to add comskipping on demand. The java code is already done but I need to think about the best way to integrate it with the ComskipPlayback plugin.

Tom

[tmiranda]

I found a bug that causes some shows to be processed as soon as they start, even if the configuration says not to. It will be fixed in the next beta.

[tmiranda]

Beta 0.30 is now available. Changes:

- Added support for UI Mod allowing manual comskip.
- Fixed bug that incorrectly caused some files to be processed as soon as recording started.
- Improved processing for MediaFiles that have multiple parts due to capture problems or a Sage failure.
- Improved error handling if comskip queue became corrupted or obsoleted.

I don't have any new functionality on the drawing board so once any bugs are shaken out this will be the 1.00 release.

I have though about supporting ShowAnalyzer but don't know if there is any demand for that. If you use ShowAnalyzer and are interested in using this plugin please let me know.