STV Import: Comskip Playback support for SageTV v4 (v1.3 18/Oct/2005)

[Arioch5]

Ok so I've got DirMon running and my 'normal' version of SA but I'm haveing problems with using this STVI. I've backed up my STV file, changed to the new STV and then did the import. I don't get any errors but I also don't see the ComSkip menu under custom. I tried playing back a video and the comskip menu is shown there and the commercials are marked.

However, the STVI doesn't stick. Everytime I turn sage off and back on it's missing. A re-import fixes it but I loose it everytime I shut SageTV off. Any suggestions? Did I miss a step somewhere?

[Stuntman]

Is anybody working on updating this plugin to work with the new and improved SA 0.6.0 that was just released? According to Jere, if I understand him correctly, using .edl files rather than .txt files would work better.. and better is generally... well, better!

See this post..

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=523

[malbec]

Beyond my skills with the STVI, but did load up 0.6.0 last night and ran it on 3 or 4 different shows to compare the before and after.

All, I have to say is WOW!

I would say commerical detection was 80%, maybe 85% with 0.5.10. But running it with Jere's default settings right out of the box resulted in what I would say is 95-97% on the few shows I tested. I certainly hope that is not sampling error and a tweak here or there will make it that much better.

Regardless, Jere ... you rock!!!

[dflachbart]

Hi,

I am using SA/Dirmon together with nielm's Comskip playback import. I also use his Multispeed continuous FF/REW plugin. Now, it rewinds fine into a commercial area, but once it reaches the beginning of the area it jumps back to the end, continous rewinding until it reaches the beginning again, jumps back, and so forth. It basically gets stuck in an endless loop, there is no way of rewinding past the first commercial (other than using the timeshift functionality) ...

Am I missing a setting here, or this is a known issue ?


Thanks,
Dirk

[laurenglenn]

Use the Comskip Jump-back.... In the original Comskip code, DVD Prev would do this, but I think Custom-4 also will do this. When you do Comskip Jumpback, it disables the auto commercial skip for 10 seconds.

Lauren

[blade]

Originally Posted by laurenglenn

In the original Comskip code, DVD Prev would do this, but I think Custom-4 also will do this. When you do Comskip Jumpback, it disables the auto commercial skip for 10 seconds.

Lauren

Yep, custom 4 does do it.

Also you can use custom 5 to jump foward to the next break.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by laurenglenn

Use the Comskip Jump-back.... In the original Comskip code, DVD Prev would do this, but I think Custom-4 also will do this. When you do Comskip Jumpback, it disables the auto commercial skip for 10 seconds.

Lauren

Thanks a lot guys, this works.

Is the functionality to disable the commercial skip available to other plugins ? I mean, could this theoretically be implemented in niels FF/REW plugin itself (I know, whether he would actually do it would be a different story ... ) ? Would be so much more natural not to worry about having to press a different button to rewind across commercials ...

If not, I probably stick to timescroll, since all my remote buttons are already mapped.

Thanks,
Dirk

[kpsmith]

Does anyone else have a problem with the Autoskip function mysteriously stop working. Seems it works for a while but then one day.... no more autoskip. This is the 2nd time its happened. Must have something to do with adding imports after comskip? Not sure though... I have to revert back to the original STV and reimport Comskip in order to get it to work again.

Maybe I'm just crazy

[malbec]

Originally Posted by kpsmith

Does anyone else have a problem with the Autoskip function mysteriously stop working. Seems it works for a while but then one day.... no more autoskip. This is the 2nd time its happened. Must have something to do with adding imports after comskip? Not sure though... I have to revert back to the original STV and reimport Comskip in order to get it to work again.

Maybe I'm just crazy

Yes, but for me it stemmed from a bug related to the clients for MVPs under 4.1.6 defaulting back to the original STV instead of my customized one. The fix, for me, was to rename my customized STV to the original Sage TV name of sagetv3.stv or whatever it is (going from memory with no access to my Sage PC at the moment).

[kpsmith]

Thanks... I'll check this out. I'm using latest release version of Sage. Maybe I'll try the betas and see if it makes a difference. Things are running so stable right now I'm just afraid to.

Or I'll try renaming like you said.

[mightyt]

Nielm ...

I just installed the new version of Showanalyzer 0.6.2 with DirMon 0.2.5.

When I ran SA 0.5.10 and DA 0.2.5 I was able to Enable / Disable ComSkip in the Options Menu of any particular show. I just noticed that option no longer shows up?

Is ComSkip 1.3 from Oct 18, 2005 compatible with SA 0.6.2? It appears all three have to work together to function properly.

Along with Dynamic Menus, for me this is the most important plugin ...


Thanks ... T.

[Wheemer]

since Dirmon processes the shows outside of sage, those options never had any affect on wether they got processed or not.

Those internal Sage commands were for controlling comskip processing when it is all handled inside Sage.

The only interaction between Jere's software and Sage is when you configure SA to connect to Nielm's webserver.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Wheemer

since Dirmon processes the shows outside of sage, those options never had any affect on wether they got processed or not.

Those internal Sage commands were for controlling comskip processing when it is all handled inside Sage.

The only interaction between Jere's software and Sage is when you configure SA to connect to Nielm's webserver.

Thanks ... Yes, I kew that ... The Option is really about whether Sage will use the SA/DM txt iles in the recordings and skip the commercials or allow you to view the show commericlas and all as if there were no Comskip.

But, actually ... My bad ... It does work ... I was looking for the "Com Autoskip: Enabled Option" in LiveTV rather than a Sage Recording!! DUH! That's what I get for playing with this stuff until 2am!

Anyway, it does work after all ...

T.

[Wheemer]

cool... looks like I was confused too.

[sundansx]

I too have a problem with this STVi occasionally not working. I have had it happen twice on my clients, and often on my sage server. My neighbor also has it happen. After some investigation, it looks like it is being disabled in the properties. If I enable it, it starts working again.
On both systems, I sleep sage when I am done watching. From my understanding, the plugin will be disabled for a short delay after manually moving between skip points? Is it possible that when I sleep sage after skipping around using custom commands that it stays disabled, upon waking?

nielm, if you have time and you are working on this, could you put an enable upon wake function in there so I can just sleep and then wake it up to fix it, instead of running over to the keyboard (ultra vnc)?
thanks.

[blade]

I also have the problem with it disabling.

[laurenglenn]

You could just as easily add a SetProperties command to create a setting called "MainComskip" or something like that that gets set only when changing the option in either the context menu or Detailed Setup. This way, when MediaOSD loads up to show the file, or when the Main Menu loads from either sleep or just navigating, you can have the system automatically set itself to the "MainComskip" setting to prevent this from happening.

If you disable the automatic disabling for 10 seconds, you may not be able to skip backwards more than once when using Comskip jumpback.

When I get home Monday, I can look at it to see if it works.

Lauren

[EdwardN]

I'm having a wierd problem with comskip... it imports into my <sagetv custom.stv> and works fine until I close sagetv client... but when I restart, I have to reimport the comskip_playback_import.stvi to get it to work again.

I'm using version 4.0... is this issue fixed in 4.1?

I'm only using two stvi files, the comskip_playback one and dynamic_menu_import.stvi. Does it matter which order I import them? Could that be causing it?

[stanger89]

nielm,

I've got a bug/feature request for ya (and I already figured out how to do it )

I've got some buttons overloaded on my remote, specifically the chapter skip (DVD) and comskip buttons. I've found it works well 99% of the time because if you've got a comskip file, it's not a DVD, and vice versa.

But there's that 1% that I'm here about. It happens when I try to skip back a chapter, the comskip logic sees there's no file and tries to jump to the beginning of the recording, which, probably combined with the chapter skipping, causes the DVD to jump to the next chapter.

So the fix, should you choose to accept it:

In the Back listener under if num >= 0, false... Add a conditional if !IsDVD(GetCurrentMediaFile()) between false and Seek(...).

Actually looking at the code, it might be better to have logic for if there aren't any commercials, but this solves my problem

[dshields]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Any of the STVs that can generate the commercial skips used the comskip program. comskip.exe was a program that was usually included with these STVs. You could use that and Dirmon to generate the commercial skips. Please read the comskip thread for an idea on how to do this or visit the wiki here:
Comskip Wiki



Gerry

I am new to SageTV. I have been using it for just a couple days. I want commerciail skip features like I had in my ReplayTV boxes. I have already spent a couple hours reading about how to do this and following threads and I am still confused (mostly because of discussions relating to SageTV version 3 and older).

In particular, at the Comskip Wiki, the screen shots look nothing like what I see in SageTV v4.

I have installed DirMon2, Comskip v79.33, and the stvi. Unfortunately, even after reading the forums, it's still not clear how to get this to work from my client (MediaMVP).

Supposedly, I cannot use UNC paths with SageTV running as a service. But it appears comskip needs UNC paths.

I have a bunch of other questions after reading all the posts about older versions, but is it possible that someone could help me understand the most simple way to use ComSkip with SageTV v4 (latest) and the MediaMVP? Thanks!