Commercial Advance Beta Release

[perfessor101]

Jere,
I'm guessing you're also checking for when the volume doubles so you can hear the commercials in the bathroom across the street?

Bobby

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by perfessor101

Jere,
I'm guessing you're also checking for when the volume doubles so you can hear the commercials in the bathroom across the street?

Bobby

No, I don't. Studies have shown that less than 33% of commercials have any volume increase. My (informal) experience has shown the same.

Jere

[snipeman]

I've always heard that they just compress silent spaces in commercials - and that this "compression" of the audio makes it sound louder.


Andy

[iamnaeth]

Hi all,

Just recently reallized that I should setup my PVR in my server and not my HTPC so I switched it over. Running SageTV on the server and SageTVClient on the HTPC. I setup SageTVClient using the UNC path to the recordings on the server. I can play them no problem. I setup the newest Cayars STV on both machines as well. I setup comskip to run on the server because I wanted the processing to be done on that end. Unfortunately, when I watch a movie on the server, the commercials are shown in purple and automatically skipped. On the client side, this doesn't happen. When I press commercial detect it instantly pops up saying "X" commercials detected (obviously X is a number). What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to run comskip on the client as well? Thanks!

[stanger89]

Is the path to your recording directory accessible from the client? ie if you type in (on the client) exactly the path you set on the server, can you get there?

[ajuhawk]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Hi all,

Just recently reallized that I should setup my PVR in my server and not my HTPC so I switched it over. Running SageTV on the server and SageTVClient on the HTPC. I setup SageTVClient using the UNC path to the recordings on the server. I can play them no problem. I setup the newest Cayars STV on both machines as well. I setup comskip to run on the server because I wanted the processing to be done on that end. Unfortunately, when I watch a movie on the server, the commercials are shown in purple and automatically skipped. On the client side, this doesn't happen. When I press commercial detect it instantly pops up saying "X" commercials detected (obviously X is a number). What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to run comskip on the client as well? Thanks!

If you used UNC paths on the client then you have to use them on the server as well for Comskip skipping (when watching) to work. If they're not identical (UNC path or drive letter) it won't work.

[iamnaeth]

Stanger89, yes i can access them from the client. I can play them no problem.

ajuhawk, apparently when I changed the directories on my client side it automatically change them on the server for comskip. So they're both using UNC paths.

Any other clues? Thanks so far for your help!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Stanger89, yes i can access them from the client. I can play them no problem.

That you can play them back (in SageClient I assume) only shows that the server can access them. The client doesn't directly access media files it goes through the server. However the Client/comskip STV DOES directly access the comskip text files, and it expects them to be at the same path the server sees them at, eg:

If it's on D:\SageTV on the server, then D:\SageTV must get you do the same place via the client. Or with UNC names: \\Sageserver\share\ on the server and \\Sageserver\share\ on the client.

UNC names are nice because you don't need to do anything special (aside from user permisions) to get them to work on every machine on the network. \\Sageserver\share always goes to the same place regardless of which machine you're on, where as D:\SageTV could go to a different place (or nowhere) on each machine depending on mappings.

So, since I don't think I got an answer, can you access the Recording Directory from your client PC (not necessarilly inside SageClient)?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stanger89

So, since I don't think I got an answer, can you access the Recording Directory from your client PC (not necessarilly inside SageClient)?

... just in case it needs clarification: try typing that UNC path in the address bar of Windows Explorer on the client to see if it has permission to access the location.

- Andy

[bones71]

I am not sure about unc paths didn't have any luck with them. With mapped drives even though the client already showed the same path I had to reenter the path in client for comskip to work. Hope this helps.

[ChristophK]

Hi!
I would like to compile comskip as linux version, however I'm having trouble checking out the subversion archive. Whenever I enter the appropriate commands (as described in the wiki) I'm just getting "Malformed network data"
Btw, I'm using the newest version of subversion.
Furthermore, I can't look at the source code using the viewcvs-link, it just gives me some wierd error messages and python backtraces.
Hope somebody can help me,
Thanks, ChristophK

[iamnaeth]

Stanger89 & Opus4, If I open up windows explorer and type \\htpcserver\media\TV Recordings it does find and access all my TV shows.

[stanger89]

Does it ask you for a password or anything?

[iamnaeth]

Nope, it just opens the directory, just like I have it shared. I currently have the whole server drive mapped as a drive on the HTPC. This is done because I stream movies through zoomplayer as well.

[stanger89]

There's the potential that the space in your "TV Recordings" directory is causing problems.

[iamnaeth]

Okay, i'll rename it and give a whirl!

[iamnaeth]

Well stanger89....you can rest easy because you are the smartest man alive. the space was throwing off comskip. Maybe you can answer another followup question then. Is there any way to schedule when comskip runs? If I only wanted it to run between 12AM-6AM, is that possible?

[ajuhawk]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Well stanger89....you can rest easy because you are the smartest man alive. the space was throwing off comskip. Maybe you can answer another followup question then. Is there any way to schedule when comskip runs? If I only wanted it to run between 12AM-6AM, is that possible?

While there is no direct way to schedule comskip to only run between certain times (that I'm aware of anyway), there is the play nice setting.

# play_nice_start - determines the start time for comskip to throttle itself back (in military time)
# play_nice_end - determines the start time for comskip to throttle itself back (in military time)

This keeps comskip from using up too much of your processor during those times. Of course if you only want to run comskip during those 6 hours you mentioned there are some other ways of approaching that...though I've never had reason to so I'll let someone else fill in.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Well stanger89....you can rest easy because you are the smartest man alive. the space was throwing off comskip. Maybe you can answer another followup question then. Is there any way to schedule when comskip runs? If I only wanted it to run between 12AM-6AM, is that possible?

You can use the DirMon util that I wrote (see thread here). The latest version will let you decide when comskip will or won't run. It will even delete orphan files for you.

Jere

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Well stanger89....you can rest easy because you are the smartest man alive. the space was throwing off comskip.

I wouldn't go that far