Utility: ShowAnalyzer Beta

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by hchucky

Is there any advanced logging that I can enable to try and get a better picture of what is happening?

You can always turn on "Save the log to disk" and set the logging level to 9. That's about as deep as it gets. I doubt they will show anything revealing, but you never know. Post the one that freezes and I'll take a look.

Jere

[Jere_Jones]

hchucky:

Here's what I'm seeing: The workstation sees a new show and goes to work. Later the server sees the same show and goes to work. The key is that the txt file should already exists. Since the server then successfully runs SA, it can't exist.

If DirMon on the server is turned off, will the workstation finish processing the file? I'm willing to bet it won't. My recommendation for you is to verify that the workstation has write access to the video directories.

Jere

[hchucky]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

hchucky:

Here's what I'm seeing: The workstation sees a new show and goes to work. Later the server sees the same show and goes to work. The key is that the txt file should already exists. Since the server then successfully runs SA, it can't exist.

If DirMon on the server is turned off, will the workstation finish processing the file? I'm willing to bet it won't. My recommendation for you is to verify that the workstation has write access to the video directories.

Jere

My thoughts exactly. Trouble is when I go out and delete a text file the workstation computer will reprocess the file and write the text file without issue. All the while the server computer scans the directory and does nothing (as it should). Very strange. There is something else going on here. I WILL figure it out.

HC

[blade]

The latest release of SA seems to have some problems. At least twice a day I come in to find 2 copies of SA running on my machine. One of them will be hung up while the other is working perfectly and will shutdown once it's finished processing. I have to close DirMon and ctrl+alt+delete to kill the other SA process that's hung up.

I've never had any problems with the previous versions so I'm going back to the last version that worked for me.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by blade

The latest release of SA seems to have some problems. At least twice a day I come in to find 2 copies of SA running on my machine. One of them will be hung up while the other is working perfectly and will shutdown once it's finished processing. I have to close DirMon and ctrl+alt+delete to kill the other SA process that's hung up.

I've never had any problems with the previous versions so I'm going back to the last version that worked for me.

Can you provide any more information that may help me correct the problem?

Jere

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

The first step is to determine if SA is running as soon as a show starts or as soon as it finishes. DirMon needs to have both "Process while" blocks checked to do what you want.

If SA is running, then make sure the "Output commercials as they are found" setting is checked in SAConfig.

If that is done, then it is up to the STV to reload the txt file occassionally.

Jere

Hmm...was able to check my settings today.

DirMon is set to "Process While," and both are checked.
SA is set to "Output commercials as they are found," and is in "invisible" mode.

Not sure how to check how often the txt file is being read...maybe I need to go ask mlbdude.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

Can you provide any more information that may help me correct the problem?

Jere

Well I went from 0.5.4 to 0.5.6 so I'm not sure if the problem was present in 0.5.5 or not.

When I came home there were 2 instances of SA in my system tray. One showed none of the file as scanned and 0% cpu usage, the current and elapsed time counters were running but everything else was at 0.

The other instance seems to have been running properly. Once it finished processing it closed leaving only the stalled instance running. When Dirmon scanned the directories it said there was nothing to do.

I killed the stalled process and then DirMon launched SA to process the show that the stalled instance had been trying to process and it ran fine. I didn't delete any .txt files so I don't know if the stalled instance hadn't create one or what happened.

Yesterday there were 2 instances of SA running where the stalled one and the one running properly were both trying to process the same show. One instance finished and move on to the next show and the stalled one stayed on the show that had already been finished.

If there are any logs or something in particular you'd like me to try or look for I'd be happy to help.

[Jere_Jones]

@blade: Do you use DirMon's timeout feature?

Jere

[Jere_Jones]

@hchucky: Do you have invisible mode turned on? Either? Both? Neither?

Jere

[blade]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

@blade: Do you use DirMon's timeout feature?

Jere

No, I've never had any problems before so I guess I never saw the need to enable that feature. To be honest I had forgotten that it even existed. I'll go back to the newest version of SA and try the timeout feature.

[geogecko]

Do I need to change the "check every xx minutes" to be lower than 10 in order to process live commercials?

[blade]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Do I need to change the "check every xx minutes" to be lower than 10 in order to process live commercials?

Not really, remember even if you're processing live TV you'll still have to wait awhile before you begin watching. If the show has 12 minutes worth of commercials and you start 5 minutes into the show then at some point you're going to catch up to live TV. You can't skip forward if you're already watching in real time so you'd be stuck watching the commercials or would have to pause the show.

I'd set the time between checks to around the same amount of time I plan to wait before starting to watch live TV. For example if you plan to start watching 10 minutes after it has started then having 10 minutes between checks should be fine as long as you can process faster than you watch (which shouldn't be a problem). The worst case would be a show starting to process as you begin watching, the most likely would be the show starts to be processed a few minutes before you beging watching.

[hchucky]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

@hchucky: Do you have invisible mode turned on? Either? Both? Neither?

Jere

I do not have invisible mode enabled on either install. BTW they are both having issues now since the upgrade. Looking at the logs both computers are now running up against the timeout in some cases.

HC

[Jere_Jones]

It would seem that 0.5.6 has some issues with it. 0.5.5 is still available for those that want to revert. Just change the version number in the link.

I'm working on it, but right now, I just don't have a clue.
Jere

[Jere_Jones]

@hchucky:

How much memory does each computer have?

Jere

[hchucky]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

@hchucky:

How much memory does each computer have?

Jere

Each system has 1GB of RAM.

HC

[Jere_Jones]

New version up. 0.5.6 has some serious issues and should not be used.

0.5.7 4 September 2005
- Fixed heap corruption when using show information on command line.
- Automatic Profile Selection will now use information embedded in DVR-MS files.
- Fixed bug preventing the School House from running if a txt file existed.
- Corrected enormous memory usage.
- Optimized DVRMS memory usage.
@hchucky: I hope this one fairs better for you.


Jere

[Jere_Jones]

I think I finally have SA's memory usage under control!!! Finally!

0.5.8 4 September 2005
- Fixed memory usage bug
Jere

[ajuhawk]

Just a note for anyone with a HT processor. When you set your CPU throttle limit remeber that Showanalyzer only looks at one processor. i.e. if you set your throttle at 50% you're actually setting it at 25%. For what it's worth...

[mkanet]

I have a few newbie questions...

1) Are ShowAnalyzer and Dirmon completely separate apps that must run outside of SageTV?

2) What must be configured/installed inside SageTV in order to see the comercials breaks shown in different color on the timeline?

3) If I want the easiest way to detect and skip comercials with SageTV 3.0.x, is it as simple as downloading the latest version of comskip.exe, copy it to the sagetv dir, and enable it via the secret option in SageTV 3.0.x? What are the most significant disadvantages I would have if I go this route verses ShowAnalyzer+Dirmon?

4) Can I have ShowAnalyzer/Dirmon schedule to run only at a specific time range (ie, from 3am - 6am)?

5) Does Showanalyzer check for aspect ratio changes in addition to logo detection?

6) How long does it "roughly" take to process 2 hours of HDTV mpeg2 on a 2.6GHz PC?