Do you have a working Commercials Skipper?

[routerunner]

This question has probably been asked before, but is anyone in the UK (and EU) using Comskip or other similar product with STV with any success?

I ask because my previous attempts haven't been good enough so I've been working, in the last few months, on a different approach for the UK and EU market which, touching wood, looks very promising and is done at the transport stream level as part of the DVB decrypter plugin. The new implementation generates .EDL files and is therefore fully compatible with the Comskip Playback plugin.

Cheers
Eddy

[rickgillyon]

I tried a few years ago, results were hopeless, gave up.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I tried a few years ago, results were hopeless, gave up.

Well, hopefully things are about to change pretty soon

Cheers
Eddy

[Taddeusz]

I'm in the US but I have comskip working quite well. Comskip's defaults are tuned for US ATSC so you may have to run through the optimization routines to get something that works well for you. May take a little bit of time but it's not difficult.

You may be able to find someone on the comskip forums who has already created a working UK ini file.

[Fuzzy]

I'm curious what would be so different between video in the US and video in the UK that would prevent comskip from working.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I'm curious what would be so different between video in the US and video in the UK that would prevent comskip from working.

I was thinking that UK HDTV uses different black and white levels but it looks like I'm wrong. It's all standardized on the BT.709 color gamut.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I was thinking that UK HDTV uses different black and white levels but it looks like I'm wrong. It's all standardized on the BT.709 color gamut.

Yeah, as far as I know, the only difference when dealing with HD content is the framerate (25 vs 29.97, 50 vs 59.94), which shouldn't affect comskip at all.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, as far as I know, the only difference when dealing with HD content is the framerate (25 vs 29.97, 50 vs 59.94), which shouldn't affect comskip at all.

It's not the video format that makes it difficult for Comskip to work properly, it's more the advertising pattern that is different to detect, for instance, in US during an advert there isn't a station logo and that because the advertiser "buy" the whole screen to get your attention and as broadcaster if you fail, by showing something on screen other than the advert, the broadcaster get sued and pay million of dollars in penalty fees, in UK there isn't such restriction also sometimes the logos are even dynamic making the whole process even more difficult.

To cut a long story short, the only kind of "guaranteed" behaviour in the UK is a sort of silence between adverts that, by law, should be at least 120 msecs between adverts, but sometimes it doesn't last that long or the silence level has a small DC offset or changes slightly in order to not get detected.

Cheers
Eddy

[starfire]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I tried a few years ago, results were hopeless, gave up.

Same here.

As most adverts on channels I watch are around 4 minutes I just click fast forward 4 times and I'm sorted

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by starfire

Same here.

As most adverts on channels I watch are around 4 minutes I just click fast forward 4 times and I'm sorted

Yes you are probably right. The UK is more regulated on that extend, not sure about the rest of EU, on the Italian channels there are no rules (as you might have guessed) and some commercials runs for more than 20 minutes

Eddy

[starfire]

20 minutes?! You got to be joking, think I'd give up on TV

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Yes you are probably right. The UK is more regulated on that extend, not sure about the rest of EU, on the Italian channels there are no rules (as you might have guessed) and some commercials runs for more than 20 minutes

Eddy

Do they play the show uninterrupted and then have a solid block of ads for 20min between shows? I would sort of understand that. But not having a 20min block in between the show. That would be frustrating at best. Cause people to go do something else and not watch TV at all at worse.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by routerunner

... on the Italian channels there are no rules (as you might have guessed) ...

LOL. So true.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Do they play the show uninterrupted and then have a solid block of ads for 20min between shows? I would sort of understand that. But not having a 20min block in between the show. That would be frustrating at best. Cause people to go do something else and not watch TV at all at worse.

No, the shows are normally interrupted and they never ever run on time. Me and my wife are so used now that we normally set the start time at least 15 minutes later and extend the overall time by 30 minutes. Even worse, movies are always split into two parts in the EPG with the News in the middle, so we need to tweak three recordings to watch the entire movie

Eddy

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by routerunner

No, the shows are normally interrupted and they never ever run on time. Me and my wife are so used now that we normally set the start time at least 15 minutes later and extend the overall time by 30 minutes. Even worse, movies are always split into two parts in the EPG with the News in the middle, so we need to tweak three recordings to watch the entire movie

Eddy

Wow, that sounds maddening.

[deanm]

I can add that here in the UK Comskip is hopeless. Over the years believe me I have tried and failed and tried and failed. Then give up. Even when I thought I had a working solution it broke the next day.

Here in the UK it seems the broadcasts are Comskip aware and seem to change how Ads start and finish. From changing black frames between ads to white. They also add black frames/cuts in shows that Comskip choked on.

But....

I have been helping Eddy beta test his Comskip alternative. And have to say I'm very impressed. There are a few issues with HD Channels that are still to be resolved.

On SD Channels and most HD Channels it's 99% accurate. Never had it miss an advert and it's never detected an ad in the middle of a show. Has missed the middle of an AD once or twice but still picked up the start and end.

Best part is I have not had to configure anything. Only adjustment I made is to the Comskip play back pluggin to detect the EDL files.

I have been waiting years for something like this. Now it's finally here I seem to be missing adverts which is very odd feeling.

Dean

[pukka]

sounds great. if Eddy needs some more testers count me in.

Paul

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by pukka

sounds great. if Eddy needs some more testers count me in.

Paul

Thank you very much for the offer. Do you use DVB-T2? If so you might help me. Please send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you some instruction.

Cheers
Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by deanm

I have been waiting years for something like this. Now it's finally here I seem to be missing adverts which is very odd feeling.

Don't worry Dean I've just added the ability to enable commercials skipping by categories and/or favourites to relieve your advert absence sickness

Cheers
Eddy

[starfire]

Originally Posted by deanm

I have been helping Eddy beta test his Comskip alternative. And have to say I'm very impressed. There are a few issues with HD Channels that are still to be resolved.

On SD Channels and most HD Channels it's 99% accurate. Never had it miss an advert and it's never detected an ad in the middle of a show. Has missed the middle of an AD once or twice but still picked up the start and end.

Best part is I have not had to configure anything. Only adjustment I made is to the Comskip play back pluggin to detect the EDL files.

I have been waiting years for something like this. Now it's finally here I seem to be missing adverts which is very odd feeling.

Dean

Sounds good, looking forward to it also.