Plugin: CommercialDetector

[meisner]

Thanks Tom...will follow up there.

[bigbill]

I thought I saw a global way to start the commercial skip some amount of seconds later than default. I would like to have the show go another second longer that it does now. I thought it was in the comskip.ini but it don't see anything like that. Anyone know where that is?

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by meisner

I am using an HD-PVR and found the donator version of comskip always gets off in timing. This is because there is a difference in the length of the video between what comskip think and it's real length. I have a vbs script I use to fix up the edl file. Is there anyway to launch this using your plug in? Can I run a batch file instead of comskip.exe?

Steve, in SageTV 7 you can disable the timeline scaling that causes that problem.

There's a setting in Comskip Playback Options / Operation Options. You want to set Scale Timeline to "NO"

John

[nwboater]

I finally got back to installing Comskip. It's working fine on the extender, but as seems to happen so often, not on the Client.

It shows the CS on many of the recordings, but when playing one of those it doesn't show the Comskip info in the Time Bar. From reading other posts it's probably related to the fact that my recording directory was not setup using a UNC path.

I have now changed it to a UNC path but as you mentioned in another post that doesn't help for old recordings. Since we have hundreds of old recordings I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to make it work on them? Wondering if I do a recording directory move per the instructions given by Opus4 here http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30697 if that would reset the database to the UNC path, assuming I give it that path for the move? Or might there be some other way?

Thanks,
Rod

[tmiranda]

Rod,

The recording directory information is stored in the Sage database (wiz.bin) and the bottom line is that you need to force Sage to update that database. It will update the database when all three of these things happen:

A) It can see the old directory.
B) The recordings are not in the old directory.
C) It finds the recordings in a new directory.

So yes, I'd follow Andy's directions.

It really is not bad, here's a simple example:

Assume your recordings are on D:\Recordings and the Sage Server is called SERVER. Further assume you now have a UNC path that points to \\SERVER\Recordings. What you need to do is:

1. Stop Sage.
2. Create a new directory D:\Recordings2.
3. Move all of the recordings from Recordings to Recordings2.
4. Change your UNC path to point to Recordings2.
5. Start Sage.
6. Change your Sage recording directory from D:\Recordings to D:\Recordings2.
7. Restart Sage.


Sage will now see that D:\Recordings is empty and will find all of the "missing" recordings on D:\Recordings2.

Before you do this, wait a few hours because if I've made an error somebody will point it out fairly quickly

[nwboater]

Tom,

Thanks for the very quick and informative reply. When you refer to a UNC path that points to the server do you mean to just change the recording directory in Sage Detailed Setup to the Server Recording directory using UNC nomenclature? Or do you mean to do some other action on the Client or server that creates a path? If the latter I have no idea what to do.

I will wait awhile till I hear back on the above question, and possibly the "Somebody" that may point out an error in the approach.

Thanks again.
Rod

[tmiranda]

I guess I could have been clearer. Step 6 should really be "make sure you use the UNC path as the recording directory". You do NOT want to make it D:\Recordings, you want to make it whatever the share name is using the UNC nomenclature.

[nwboater]

Good/Bad news.

First, thanks for the clarification Tom. I used a little different method. I didn't actually 'Move' the files. What I did was to Rename the folder they were all in to the new name. Then made a new folder of exactly the same name as the original - this became the empty 'Original'. I thought this should accomplish the same thing and because we have a huge amount of recordings I didn't want to risk some of them getting glitched during the move, or to take all the time it would require to do an actual move.

So after this yesterday all appeared to work okay. The server was running at about 50% on Comskip and the files were getting marked. Commercial skipping worked great on the Client!

This morning I turned on the Client and thought I would find a bunch of new recordings marked. Wrong! I don't think there were any more done. So I went to the server and found Comskip was running, using the Task Manager. But under CPU processes it wasn't even shown - as contrasted to yesterdays 50% CPU.

Thought I would close it and restart it. I stopped it using the Task Manager but then could not restart it. Tried double clicking on Comskip (exe?) in Windows Explorer - no joy. Restarted the server, disabled, re-enabled the plugins for the server and client and no joy.

Might I need to uninstall Comskip (Totally?) and re-install? The whole thing is kind of strange. But sure was nice when working!

Thanks for any ideas you may have.

Rod

[tmiranda]

Rod,

Attach your log file so I can take a look.

Tom

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Rod,

Attach your log file so I can take a look.

Tom

Is this a log file for Comskip or something else? Whatever it is I'd sure appreciate it if you could tell me where to look for instructions on getting the log file. And do you want it for just the server, or client and server?

Thanks,
Rod

[tmiranda]

Rod,

On the server (SageClient log is not needed) go to the Sage install directory (usually C:\SageTV\SageTV) and look for sagetv_0.txt. Zip it first and then attach the .zip file to the forum post.

Tom

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Rod,

On the server (SageClient log is not needed) go to the Sage install directory (usually C:\SageTV\SageTV) and look for sagetv_0.txt. Zip it first and then attach the .zip file to the forum post.

Tom

Hi Tom,

More strangeness! When I went to the server a little while ago Comskip was running and using it's aprox 50% CPU. It's marked some more recordings.

I'm curious when the log files are supposed to get generated? The Server C:\Sagetv\Sagetv\sagetv_0.txt Was created Oct 18 and the _1, 2 & 3 around the same time. The only newer ones on the server are the sagetvclient_0 which was done yesterday at 4:14 PM. The _1,2 & 3 were earlier. We watched recordings last night from about 6-10PM. Also I turned on the Client for a little while this morning and some this afternoon. The server has been running except for a reboot this morning and one I just did this evening to see if it would create a new log file.

So since it is working and I don't have a log file for when Comskip stopped last night I guess there isn't a whole lot you can do. Nor do I want to burden you with this Tom. But it would be good to know how the log files are generated and if I may have a problem in this area. I may need them again.

I looked in the Comskip options and saw there is one to not run it during certain hours. But there are no hours selected.

I'll check it in the morning to see if it's still running.

Thanks again for all your help.

Rod

[Fuzzy]

you probably don't have debugging turned on (for the server). (under Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Debug Logging)

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

you probably don't have debugging turned on (for the server). (under Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Debug Logging)

Hi Fuzzy,

I'll go turn it on now. At least if it goofs up some more we can get a log file! Do people usually leave debugging enabled? Guess the worst that can happen is some extra text files.

Thanks a lot for letting me know.

Rod

[tmiranda]

I always leave debugging on. You never know when you will need it

The log file ending in _0 is the newest, followed by _1, _2 and _3. As new log files are created the old ones are renamed and a new _0 file is started. There is also a setting that tells Sage how big to let the log file grow before starting a new one.

[nwboater]

Thanks Tom for the debugging info. I'll just leave it on.

Comskip kept running last night and marked more recordings. It's taking a long time to go through them - think we have a couple hundred. One of the problems is it's treating the commercial free channels. The problem here may be that I have the channel numbers excluded in Comskip, but on the recording listings it shows the channel letters instead of numbers. So guess I'll change the exclusion setting in Comskip to the letters for each channel.

The other thing I want to look at down the road is to be able to use the Client for Comskip. I intentionally built it as a fairly powerful quad core to be able to do this. From reading other threads it seems like it will take Sage Job Que to be able to do this? And since there's a new version of SJQ coming out I think I'll wait for that - if it's required for what I want to do.

Is there any way, without SJQ that I could run it on just the Client? Since the server is only dual core it would go a lot faster this way. I could just leave the client on 24/7 until Comskip is all caught up.

Thanks again for all your great help here.

Rod

[tmiranda]

Rod,

You are correct that using the channel letters instead of the number will work.

No way CommercialDetector will run on a SageClient. Sorry.

Yes, Slugger is getting ready to release the SJQv4 Engine and I will release the UI. ETA depends on our personal schedules.

Tom

[Fuzzy]

Or, for now, a simpler method to have the client do the 'catch up' work might be to use DirMon2.

[tmiranda]

Forgot to mention, to see how long CommercialDetector/comskip will take to process a show look in the Sage.properties file for a line that starts with "cd/time_ratios=". The letters and numbers after that are an estimate of how long a show on a particular channel will take relative to the total length of the show. The format is Channel:ratio,Channel:ratio. (Ignore the backslash, that's an escape character.)

So if is says:

cd/time_ratios=cd/time_ratios=TRAV\:0.11068878,HI\:0.20838685,MILI\:0.20062712,VERSUS\:0.20907788

Shows recorded on TRAV will take about 11% of the show length to process (about 3 minutes for a 30 minute show), shows on HI channel will take about 21%, shows on MILI channel will take 20% of the show length, etc. You need to let it process about 5 or 6 shows from the channel to get the number more accurate. (It starts at 50% and adjusts a little with each recording that is processed.)

Your numbers will vary depending on your hardware. If they are way out of whack something is wrong.

[nwboater]

Fuzzy and Tom,

Thanks for the additional information. I'll look into dirmon but if there's much of a learning curve I wonder if it would be better to wait for the new SJQ. Things are getting done, just a little slowly.

I was sorry to hear that Comskip can't run on a Client. Before I built my new Client someone, I think it was on another Forum, said that with SJQ the Comskip duties could be shared between server and client. Think I'll try to find where he said that and ask for some clarification.

Now in rereading Fuzzy's post he talks about using the Client for "Catch up". So I'm really confused. Tom perhaps you meant that no way Comskip can run on a Client is without something like SJQ or Dirmon?

Thanks a lot for your help guys.

Rod