Commercial Advance Beta Release

[ToonGal]

Hey Jere,

Spent this morning upgrading everything to latest versions. Saw this post and went to download v0.64. Checked out which version I was currently using, and I have v0.66. Don't remember when/where I got it (dated 12/04), but wondered why you reference an earlier version?

Is my v0.66 a bad version? Seems to have been working for months, so worst case I'm happy. Any advice appreciated. Great program bud. Gonna have to check out what all the SA program / talk is about.

Just wish other parts of Sage / STVs advanced as much as your stuff does. Gonna have to find an STV outside of Cayars, too, it seems if I want to have any new features.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by ToonGal

Spent this morning upgrading everything to latest versions. Saw this post and went to download v0.64. Checked out which version I was currently using, and I have v0.66. Don't remember when/where I got it (dated 12/04), but wondered why you reference an earlier version?

Is my v0.66 a bad version? Seems to have been working for months, so worst case I'm happy. Any advice appreciated. Great program bud. Gonna have to check out what all the SA program / talk is about.

0.64 is the last version that I did. Version 0.66 (if I remember right) included some changes by zoundz (if I remember right). I don't have it and I never used it, so I can't claim or deny anything about it. If it works great for you, then you certainly shouldn't downgrade. Maybe someone would appreciate if you shared it?

ShowAnalyzer (AKA SA) is my version of comskip written from scratch. Depending on your processor, SA can be up to 8x faster than comskip. 3x faster seems to be the norm though. Although, to be fair, it has been reported that SA runs slower on VIA processors. For me, SA is also much more accurate.

SA also allows automatic selection of settings (or even skipping) based on the channel number, channel name, category, show name. Right now, this information is retrieved from nielm's webserver. So if you want this functionality, the webserver has to be installed and functioning.

I plan on having a completely free version available in about 3 weeks.

What else... oh. Feel free to ask any questions. Some of your questions may already be answered here: http://www.dragonglobal.org/modules....=viewforum&f=2

Originally Posted by ToonGal

Just wish other parts of Sage / STVs advanced as much as your stuff does. Gonna have to find an STV outside of Cayars, too, it seems if I want to have any new features.

Well, developing something can be tiresome. Especially if you're developing things that you don't use/want. I think that is where Cayars got to. Everything he was doing was for someone else. I think that would burn anyone out. But then, I'm just speculating and I don't want to turn this into a flame Cayars thread. I've been able to stick to the commercial detection project because I enjoy it. It is a challange and I'm learning a lot.

Anyway, enjoy whichever program you use to defeat the evil propoganda machine...
Jere

[ToonGal]

Thanks for the great info, Jere!

You tell me how to get v0.66 somewhere, and I'll do it.

Looking forward to SA, as it sounds very flexible and functional.

Don't get me wrong, I -love- Cayars STV, as it does all I need. Just worried at some point it is backwards incompatible. THAT is the main reason I upgrade programs, so I'm not trapped using old software with no upgrade path.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by ToonGal

Thanks for the great info, Jere!

I try to be communicative.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

You tell me how to get v0.66 somewhere, and I'll do it.

You could always attach it to a post here like I did in #830.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

Looking forward to SA, as it sounds very flexible and functional.

I estimate 3 weeks, but last night was really productive so I might have it out sooner.

Originally Posted by ToonGal

Don't get me wrong, I -love- Cayars STV, as it does all I need. Just worried at some point it is backwards incompatible. THAT is the main reason I upgrade programs, so I'm not trapped using old software with no upgrade path.

Ah... I understand. I'm fairly certain that if Cayars doen't work with 3.0 then someone will upgrade the most desired parts. Just make sure you make your desires known.

Jere

[ToonGal]

Thanks again, Jere.

When I meant "how to do attachments", I literally meant "how". Figured it out, when I scrolled down to additional options. So, comskip v0.66 devotees, here it is.

With SA, will it integrate into Cayars? If no, is there a workaround, like renaming it to comskip.exe? Curious to know the operating environment. Haven't had much time on the boards, but will be watching this thread with anticipation.

Good stuff, Jere!

[Jere_Jones]

I wrote a "comskip proxy". All you have to do is replace comskip.exe with the comskip proxy and it will run ShowAnalyzer whenever Sage (or anything else) tries to run comskip.

It is available on DragonGlobal.org.

Jere

[ajuhawk]

Just made the switch to the Alpha version of Show Analyzer a few days ago. I must say that so far I'm very impressed. So everyone waiting for the next thing, I think it'll soon be here!

Jere - I know you've got a whole website devoted to SA and Dirmon, but how about a thread on here?

[JasonJoel]

Well, I don't know how much Jere wants people commenting on SA since it is an alpha and all, so I'll be vague.

But I will say that I would certainly be willing to pay for the 'non-free' version of SA if it delivers the speeds advertised... 2 minutes per 30 minute show is, I mean would be, nice.

Oh, and the improved accuracy is, err I mean would be, nice as well.

The configurability is 'probably' getting a lot better and easier to manage as it gets closer to beta as well.

P.S. Star Wars Episode 3 is by far the best of all 6 movies... And I'm old enough to have seen all 6 in the theater (and remember it).

Jason Bottjen

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by ajuhawk

Jere - I know you've got a whole website devoted to SA and Dirmon, but how about a thread on here?

I was planning on starting a thread as soon as I have the free version ready and it's out of alpha (which will be the save day ).

I expect to release in a little over two weeks.

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Well, I don't know how much Jere wants people commenting on SA since it is an alpha and all, so I'll be vague.

If you have good things to say, say them to the world.
If you have bad things to say, say them to me. That way I can fix them.
Jere

[insomniac]

ok, now that I know there isnt a gag order....

I love SA already in alpha. It is so fast, that I have removed all other commercial processing off all my machines now just run it on my sage server. I havent even bothered with any settings, and it has been better than comskip by far for me.

Unfortunately I do have one bad thing to say about SA. It still doesnt do laundry..

I.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by insomniac

Unfortunately I do have one bad thing to say about SA. It still doesnt do laundry..

Hey! If it's not in the request thread, how am I supposed to know you want it? Huh?

Jere

[insomniac]

My bad..when you implement, please make it sort my whites and darks. Im terrible at it..

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

Hey! If it's not in the request thread, how am I supposed to know you want it? Huh?

Jere

[dooferlad]

Any chance of getting my hands on SA? Also, has anyone had any luck with an automated encode setup that removes adverts integrated with something like mencoder? Currently I am playing with AutoGK (which seems very good... most of the time[1]), but I would like a more integrated solution.

[1] Over the weekend I was playing with AutoGK. I didn't notice when it happened, but video capture on the old PVR350 stopped working. Never happened before, so I am saying the two are related. After a reboot post spyware removal (that AutoGK is packaged with) all seems fine...

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by dooferlad

Any chance of getting my hands on SA?

Take a look here.

Originally Posted by dooferlad

After a reboot post spyware removal (that AutoGK is packaged with) all seems fine...

I would like to clarify that AutoGK is packaged with DAE. While it is spyware, the removal is very simple (it shows up on the Add/Remove programs list) and the author is very clear that it includes the spyware.

AutoGK is an excellent program that has outstanding support and works great. Don't let the spyware scare you off.

Jere

[dooferlad]

Cool - sounds good value!

AutoGK seems to be very very good, but sometimes it launches processes which don't have their priorites set to low - not good when you are doing something else. I had a LAME encode start while watching TV yesterday that caused the SageTV front end to disconnect from the service. I am looking into mencoder as a replacement (with a bit of Perl I can probably put something together that will monitor a directory for files matching a regular expression and magically re-encode them with autocrop and low process priorities).

Any plans on getting SA to chop out commercials? I am guessing that you can find the nearest key frame to the end of the commercial block and just delete from the start up to it. Purely a guess though - I am more a DVB transport stream and deinterlacer geek.

[ajuhawk]

Originally Posted by dooferlad

Cool - sounds good value!

AutoGK seems to be very very good, but sometimes it launches processes which don't have their priorites set to low - not good when you are doing something else. I had a LAME encode start while watching TV yesterday that caused the SageTV front end to disconnect from the service. I am looking into mencoder as a replacement (with a bit of Perl I can probably put something together that will monitor a directory for files matching a regular expression and magically re-encode them with autocrop and low process priorities).

Any plans on getting SA to chop out commercials? I am guessing that you can find the nearest key frame to the end of the commercial block and just delete from the start up to it. Purely a guess though - I am more a DVB transport stream and deinterlacer geek.

What formats does AutoGK encode to that people use? If it's simple stuff, I could probably add it to SageEncoder and have it output different formats (something that's been on my todo list anyway, just been busy with other stuff). I suppose I could probably look into AutoGK more myself, but...

[dooferlad]

It is an XVid / DivX encoder, but with some very sexy options. It first runs a compressability test on the video and works out the optimum video size given your requested file size to get a good video out. It also automatically crops the video (apparently - I have had some trouble with this and have set it to do a manual crop), and runs a two pass encode.

It produces the best quality videos I have ever produced. It is very, very nice, but I am still going to try mencoder, mostly because I have tried everything else :-)

[thborchert]

Hi all,

I have a problem with COMSKIP background processing: Ignore channels doesn't work. It ignores recordings on some channels, but on others it doesn't. Anybody seen this?

Thanks!

Thomas

[thborchert]

Ok, let me modify my question: If you set a channel to be ignored, does that mean that Comskip will not analyze material from those channels or that Sage will ignore Comskip's results for material from those channels?

Thanks!

Thomas

[ToxMox]

It means it will not analyze material on those channels. I believe the channels should be set up like this if I wanted to not scan channels 6, 11, 303, 304, 305, 306 for example:
6,11,303,304,305,306

If you do have it set like that then I suppose it is possible that before you set the ignore channels that comskip may have already scanned some of those shows on those channels earlier and that could explain what you are seeing.