Commercial Advance Beta Release

[JasonJoel]

Keep up the good work. I'm not complaining so much as anticipating.

And if you make it a pay program, I'm ready to plunk down my cash. Actually I'm going to either way. I kind of feel guilty for not doing that a long time ago. Some money is only fair for something I use constantly...
[Edit: Nevermind. Taken care of.]

Jason

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

I'm working on it... A LOT. I'm currently in my second rewrite of an MPEG decoder, which IS NOT easy. But it seems to be going well.

Jere

[jslawler]

Hi Jere_Jones,

I've been working on and off with commercial detection for many years, it has alwasy been the program i could never get to work just right :P

A while back i came across comskip and it got me back into the commercial skip mode. Comskip is very good, but it still is not very accurate (for me atleast). Anyway i've taken the mpeg2 decoding source code part of comskip (because it is so damn fast), and i've started to code my own customized, more featured version.

I'm just curious what features your ShowAnalyzer software is going to provide, becuase if you are going to make something similar to what i was going to do, there is not much point in me doing it.

Also i was going to provide mine as an opensource project, and was wondering if yours will be also?

I'm patiently waiting for the beta of your ShowAnalyzer software, it sounds like your working very hard on it.

- James

[Jere_Jones]

Commercial detection is tricky. No doubt about that.

Comskip makes assumptions about commercials based on experience from the US. If you don't live in the US, then your accuracy will vary. If you do live in the US, then the settings need to be tweaked.

The mpeg2 decoding part of comskip is libmpeg2 that you can get at http://libmpeg2.sf.net. Remember that it is GPL, so your project must also be GPL. It is an excellent decoder and the authors are to be commended!

ShowAnalyzer won't be open source. MPEG-LA (the guys responsible for the MPEG patents and royalties) are mean people and I don't want to jeopardize my family. Hence, every "unit" I distribute that utilizes MPEG patents must have a royalty paid on it. Since I'm not going to pay that royalty out of my own pocket, ShowAnalyzer won't be free.

However, that said, I will provide a direct show version of SA that is completely free. It will do everything that the "non-free" version will do. It will just be a lot slower.
You asked what SA will provide. I typed this up real quick and I may have forgotten something.

Alpha Version:
- Fast... VERY fast...
- Can process shows that are still recording.
- Easier to read status window.
- System tray icon allows communication with SA even if all the windows are hidden.
- Detection of commercial/show segments.
- Has the built in ability to output:
	- txt files for SageTV
	- vprj files for VideoReDo
- Outputs statistics on every frame.

Beta Version:
- Detection of commercial/show segments.
- Has the built in ability to output:
	- cut files for Zoomplayer (chapter type and cut type)
- Extraction of closed captioning.
- Has the built in ability to output:
	- smi
	- ccyes/ccno
- Easy to use. If you run it without a filename, then it will ask you to pick a file.
- Easier setup via GUI. 
 
Version 1.0:
- Communication with SageTV via web interface to allow selection of different settings depending on channel, category, etc.
- Detection of commercial/show segments.
- Can use plug-ins to allow any type of output.
- Extraction of closed captioning.
- Can use plug-ins to allow any type of output.
- Has the built in ability to output:
	- srt
	- sub

All of SA's features can be turned on or off as desired.

Everything in the Alpha section is already done and in testing.
The beta list is my high priority todo list.

I hope I answered your question. I've only been working on commercial detection for less than a year, so I'd be interested in hearing your insights.

Jere

[mbrown3]

How easy will this be to use? I've been using the internal comskip with Cayars since the external commdetect gave me all kinds of problems, and I don't have time to go troubleshooting it when the internal works pretty well. But some of these SA features sound cool, I just wonder if it will be hard to use and/or configure, or if it will entail setting up a bunch of other processes. Thanks in advance for any help...

[JasonJoel]

Well, that will probably depend on how good the GUI is. and since he said that would be in the beta (and SA is currently only in alpha) I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Same goes for the integration into the Sage webserver... Have to wait a while and see. None of us have seen the Sage v3.0 web server yet...

As far as getting it to run with today's Sage. I would assume that if you can setup DirMon, then it is simple as specifying the SA as the processor instead of COMSKIP... Pretty easy there!

Jason

Originally Posted by mbrown3

How easy will this be to use? I've been using the internal comskip with Cayars since the external commdetect gave me all kinds of problems, and I don't have time to go troubleshooting it when the internal works pretty well. But some of these SA features sound cool, I just wonder if it will be hard to use and/or configure, or if it will entail setting up a bunch of other processes. Thanks in advance for any help...

[jslawler]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

ShowAnalyzer won't be open source. MPEG-LA (the guys responsible for the MPEG patents and royalties) are mean people and I don't want to jeopardize my family. Hence, every "unit" I distribute that utilizes MPEG patents must have a royalty paid on it. Since I'm not going to pay that royalty out of my own pocket, ShowAnalyzer won't be free.

I haven't ever looked into this before, i would have assumed if you are not selling your software then you wouldn't have to pay royalties. But it looks like MPEG-LA do charge $2.5 per unit just to decode mpeg2 video. From what you said about DirectShow, i guess Directshow only uses what codecs you have installed, and assumes you have a license for it.

I guess one way around it would be to just supply people with source code, and get them to compile it themselves, and tell them they have to pay. I'm sure noone would pay, but it shouldn't be your problem :P

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by mbrown3

How easy will this be to use? I've been using the internal comskip with Cayars since the external commdetect gave me all kinds of problems, and I don't have time to go troubleshooting it when the internal works pretty well. But some of these SA features sound cool, I just wonder if it will be hard to use and/or configure, or if it will entail setting up a bunch of other processes. Thanks in advance for any help...

I wrote a comskip proxy that you can put in the sage directory. Anytime sage tries to run comskip, it would then run SA. That way, whatever method you use now that runs comskip will work with SA. You will still need to setup SA though.

Jere

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by jslawler

i guess Directshow only uses what codecs you have installed, and assumes you have a license for it.

That is correct. DS will utilize whatever codecs you have available. The upside is that a DS version could analyze any show that MediaPlayer could play... in theory.

Jere

[Humanzee]

ok, I havent messed with comskip in a long time, so I thought it might be time to update it. I have version .61 but I dont see where I can get .64 Jere, are you going to post that on your site in addition to SA, because I thought I got comskip .61 from you way back in November.
I tried to download the SA beta but it requires a password. I tried CDM but it is expired, I played with DirMon but I need a processor. Any ideas?

Am I just too early for the slow version of SA and too late for the latest comskip?

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

ok, I havent messed with comskip in a long time, so I thought it might be time to update it. I have version .61 but I dont see where I can get .64

.64 was a specially modified version for Cayars that would output .ccyes or .ccno files depending on whether the show was actually captioned.
.61 was the last version that actually changed anything, but, since you asked, I'm attaching version .64 to this message.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Jere, are you going to post that on your site in addition to SA, because I thought I got comskip .61 from you way back in November.

Comskip will not be posted on my website. I will continue to offer advice for it here, though.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I tried to download the SA beta but it requires a password.

The SA alpha is controlled due to royalty commitments. Take a look at the ShowAnalyzer forum at DragonGlobal for more information.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I tried CDM but it is expired, I played with DirMon but I need a processor. Any ideas?

DirMon can use any version of comskip. Just point it to the comskip.exe.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Am I just too early for the slow version of SA and too late for the latest comskip?

You are too early for the slow version of SA, but not too late for the latest comskip. I'm attaching it here. I'm having trouble with the sage-community.org website, but I'll eventually get it posted there, too.

I'm sorry I took so long to reply to your request. I originally saw it while I was at work and didn't have a copy of .64 with me. Then I slept...

Anyway, here it is.

Jere

[Humanzee]

Thank you,
Is DirMon intended for those stv's that don't have internal commercial processing? With cayar's it was always automatic, and I have yet to switch to a different stv.

[JasonJoel]

Not necessarily... I use DirMon with Cayar's for a few reasons (auto orphaned file cleanup is one).

Plus, with DirMon you could have machines that have no Sage software at all on them also do detection, and have multiple machines working your commercials. I don't need this, but I know some people do it.

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Thank you,
Is DirMon intended for those stv's that don't have internal commercial processing? With cayar's it was always automatic, and I have yet to switch to a different stv.

[stanger89]

Yeah I run DirMon and Comskip on my workstation which does not have SageTV installed.

[Humanzee]

Ah, that makes sence. I might just set that up on another machine to chug on comskip.

I have a request for SA, or comskip, or some other method. I dont know if it has been mentioned here before but it would be nice if there was a way to automatically add "x" number of seconds at the end of a show marked as commercial. This might be a work around for those of us with the PVR-350 and the "End of File" crash problem. My machine never crashes if the end of the show is marked as a commercial. Just a thought. Might work.

[Jere_Jones]

"x" seconds of commercial at the end? Interesting. Not a problem. I'll put it in ShowAnalyzer.

Jere

[evilpenguin]

Will show Analyzer be able to compile on linux?

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Will show Analyzer be able to compile on linux?

The free version won't work on linux because it will be directshow based.

I should be be able to port the non-free version to Linux without too much trouble, but I haven't thought about it too much. It depends on if I can get linux running on my development machine.

Jere

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

The free version won't work on linux because it will be directshow based.

I should be be able to port the non-free version to Linux without too much trouble, but I haven't thought about it too much. It depends on if I can get linux running on my development machine.

Jere

That would be excellent since I just built a linux media server for the sole purpuse of offloading the bulk of my main HTPC's non-playback related tasks such as commercial flagging.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

That would be excellent since I just built a linux media server for the sole purpuse of offloading the bulk of my main HTPC's non-playback related tasks such as commercial flagging.

I 2nd that! Linux is such a better environment for serving files than Windows, and things like commercial skip processing that are heavily I/O intensive are much more efficient if they run on the actual media store.

Thanks,
Mike

[Jere_Jones]

Do I have any volunteers willing to bring me up to speed on Linux? Becuase the last time I tried (trying MythTV), was a complete frustration. And I'm really good with computers!

Jere