Plugin: CommercialDetector

[owilsky]

BTW: I have the non donator's version of comskip and it works fine on my TS files (SD files though). Maybe the donator's version is only needed for HD files?

[49studebaker]

Originally Posted by owilsky

BTW: I have the non donator's version of comskip and it works fine on my TS files (SD files though). Maybe the donator's version is only needed for HD files?

I would bet your TS file is mpeg2. Mpeg2 can be SD or HD.

The donator's version adds support for H264. H264 mpeg and H264 TS files only work with the donator's version.

The HD-PVR produces H264 TS files, so the donator's version would be required if you want to comskip those files.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by 3dOptics

I would bet your TS file is mpeg2. Mpeg2 can be SD or HD.

Yes, they are mpeg2. Thanks for clarification.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by phelme

Is there some configuration to enable the showing of icons in the header or on the recording being processed? I'm not seeing either. I have the latest STVi as well.

The icon in the header will show when comskip is active. If comskip is not active there will be no icon in the header.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by freewheeling

Well, it worked a couple of times... but now isn't processing files. I checked the CommercialDetector parameters, and it apparently has a queue of 17 files, but doesn't seem to be doing anything on any of them.

The log file you sent shows that comskip is never fully completing. It gets to the very end and then stops for some reason. The queue is building up because CommercialDetector is waiting for comskip to end.

Try stopping Sage and deleting CommercialDetector.DB located in the Sage install directory. That contains the queue information so it should clean out your backlog.

After you've done that restart Sage and see if it starts working again. If not post another log for me to look at.

[bcjenkins]

Tom - FYI new version of Comskip released. If you're interested - I signed up for email notification from videohelp.com.

B

[phelme]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The icon in the header will show when comskip is active. If comskip is not active there will be no icon in the header.

Hmm, it's working in Placeshifter but not on the other clients. I noticed that some of the enabled UI plugins are different between them. Guess there is a conflict with another plugin. I'll have to go disable them one by one and see which one it is.

[tmiranda]

For now it will not work from SageClients, only placeshifters and extenders. This is a known limitation.

The next beta will allow you to manually run comskip from clients and will also update the CS icon in the header and next to the file that is being processed.

Be aware that the Comskip Playback plugin, and hence the UI portion of my plugin, will not detect .edl files from a SageClient unless you have all of your recordings made using UNC paths. There are many posts about this in the Comskip Playback thread.

Tom

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The log file you sent shows that comskip is never fully completing. It gets to the very end and then stops for some reason. The queue is building up because CommercialDetector is waiting for comskip to end.

Try stopping Sage and deleting CommercialDetector.DB located in the Sage install directory. That contains the queue information so it should clean out your backlog.

After you've done that restart Sage and see if it starts working again. If not post another log for me to look at.

Thanks for the tip on zeroing the queue. It processed a number of files today, so there are lots of edl files. It seems to do them in irregular spurts. It's also producing the VideoRedo Project files. I haven't noticed that the CPU is particularly active so I'm not sure why it's going in spurts but at least it's doing something now.

I had to create an 8 second delay for the start of the cut, because it was cutting too soon. The end of the cut is pretty accurate, though. Better than FFing through the commercials. Next step is to fine tune it a little better. Thanks again for all your help, Tom.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by freewheeling

It seems to do them in irregular spurts.

The shows should be queued as soon as the recording ends and then processed as soon as a CPU becomes available. Something in your system is probably causing comskip to hang for extended periods of time. Look in the log file to see how long it is taking comskip to process the files. The easiest way to do this is look at the timestamp on the line that contains the "run" command (that's when comskip starts) and the timestamp on the results. There should be consistency between how long it takes to process shows that are the same length from the same source (tuner). If you see that some hour-long shows recorded from the HD-PVR are taking 20 minutes and others are taking 2 hours, something is wrong.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The shows should be queued as soon as the recording ends and then processed as soon as a CPU becomes available.

A CPU or a core? I'm using an Intel dual core, and one core is almost always available. I also installed that CPU Usage plugin, and I haven't seen any big jumps in CPU usage beyond about 20%. Will check the log files, though.

[tmiranda]

Bad wording on my part. It will start jobs by looking at what you defined as the maximum number of concurrent jobs to run.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Bad wording on my part. It will start jobs by looking at what you defined as the maximum number of concurrent jobs to run.

So if you have two cores would this be two?

[tmiranda]

No. It's whatever you set it to be in the configuration. The default is 1, meaning only 1 job runs at a time. If you have a powerful CPU you can change that whatever you like in the configuration.

[dead_ferrets]

Thanks for this plug-in, I'm thrilled to be able have this function in Sage 7!

One question I have is regarding the parameter "Scan All Recordings Without comskip Info". I'd like to turn this off but it won't let me change it from 'Queue'. I can change every other parameter except this one. What am I missing?

Thanks again!

[tmiranda]

You're not missing anything, I just didn't explain it well.

There is really nothing to "turn on" or "turn off". Selecting "Queue" will initiate a scan and queue any files that do not have comskip info. If you select "Queue" and nothing happens, it means all of your recordings have comskip info. If you select "Queue" and it says "xx Queued", you know xx recordings did not have comskip info and were queued. Maybe I'll move this to "Advanced Options" so it isn't so confusing.

I'm in the process of creating a Wiki page that explains this better. It will also explain how to:
- Use ShowAnalyzer instead of comskip.
- Use comskip on some channels and ShowAnalyzer on others.
- Specify .ini files and Profiles (the ShowAnalyzer equivalent of .ini files) on a per show or per channel basis.



Tom

[dead_ferrets]

That's great! Thanks for the clarification.

[tmiranda]

Beta 0.50 of the "General" plugin and version 1.20 of the "UI Mod" plug are now available in the repository.

UI Mod Changes:
- The Comskip icon in the header and the highlighted comskip icon next to the show being processed now works on SageClients.

- Manually running comskip from the UI now works for SageClients.

Note that in order for commercial skipping to actually work on SageClients you still must have used UNC paths for the recordings.

General plugin Changes:
- Now has the ability to use .ini files on a per-show or per-channel basis.

- Now supports ShowAnalyzer as well as comskip. Also supports ShowAnalyzer Profiles on a per-show or per channel basis.

- Added the ability to use either comskip or ShowAnalyzer on a per-channel basis.

I have also created a wiki with detailed installation and usage instructions:

http://code.google.com/p/tmiranda/wiki/PageName

[bcjenkins]

what about linux users?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

what about linux users?

Nothing new for linux. I am still trying to get ShowAnalyzer to work under linux. Feel free to have a go at it

It installs under wine and the ShowAnalyzer UI works. The problem comes when you try to run ShowAnalyzerEngine.exe. From what I can tell it does not like the linux command line. I'm still experimenting.

Tom