Utility: ShowAnalyzer Beta

[Jere_Jones]

Oh, for those curious, my move is completed, my development system is back up and I am back online so development of SA is back in full swing.

Jere

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

Oh, for those curious, my move is completed, my development system is back up and I am back online so development of SA is back in full swing.

Jere

Sweet. I had wondered where you went, then I forgot you were moving...

Hope everything went well, and that you had Cat5e installed in every room in your new house!?

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Hope everything went well, and that you had Cat5e installed in every room in your new house!?

Everything went well. A couple problems with the home, but nothing extreme. No home networking, just a wireless router. Of course, all the computers except the laptops are all in the same room and they are wired.

I did upgrade from 3mbit cable internet in Beaufort to 8mbit cable internet here in Jacksonville. All I can say is WOW!! The 768kbit up isn't bad either for uploading to the website.

The request/bug/complaint line is open again, so bring it on!

Jere

[geogecko]

That's a nice increase in speed. I recently upgraded from Comcast Cable to Verizon FIOS, and went from 3Mbit to 5Mbit download, and up to 2Mbit upload! It does make FileZilla transfer a TON faster than it used to!

How about I be the first to request something?

Do you remember what?

Ignoring commercials for the first/last "N" minutes of a recording?

BTW, both sides of my parents were over recently, and they were very impressed by the skipping of the commercials. They didn't believe it, so I had to actually show them the timeline of where the commercials were, and then back up into them!

[deliverer]

Guys,

I have a disconnect on how to actually implment this software. I have it working fine on my server. It's processing the files and creating the text files, but I am just not sure how to setup the client to recognize these files and utilitze them. I attempted to setup nielms comskip addon to the SageMC STV. When I did that, it did add an option to the advanced menu, but when I goto click it, it does not display correctly. I also had to rename the file .stvi to .stv to get it to work.

Any advice on how to integrate this with SageMC or any other STV is greatly appreciated. I'm kind of new so if someone could give me step by step instructions I would appreciate it.

Regards,

Deliverer

[geogecko]

Does it currently work on the server, I mean, are you able to view a recorded show, with the commercials being skipped? And are you using SageMC on the server?

[deliverer]

No, I'm just processing the files on the server. The server is running the standard STV that comes with Sage. How does the comskip integrate itself. That is where I'm lost. I don't have that integrated into my STV yet.

[geogecko]

Are you using UNC path names? I don't know if I understand exactly what that is, but someone indicated that was necessary in order to get it working...

I don't know if UNC is considered "mapping a network drive" or if it's just using the network neighborhood type of path names, such as "\\HTPC\SageTV\SageTV\..."

Anyway, this post should help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1196

By the way, there is no setup inside of SageMC STV to get commercial skipping to work, it's built-in. The only option you need to worry about, is if "Auto Comskip" is enabled or not. If you aren't even seeing the commercial breaks in the time bar, then we've got to get you to at least that point first. I would guess that if you aren't seeing the breaks, that it must have something to do with not having UNC path names...

[deliverer]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Are you using UNC path names? I don't know if I understand exactly what that is, but someone indicated that was necessary in order to get it working...

I don't know if UNC is considered "mapping a network drive" or if it's just using the network neighborhood type of path names, such as "\\HTPC\SageTV\SageTV\..."

Anyway, this post should help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1196

By the way, there is no setup inside of SageMC STV to get commercial skipping to work, it's built-in. The only option you need to worry about, is if "Auto Comskip" is enabled or not. If you aren't even seeing the commercial breaks in the time bar, then we've got to get you to at least that point first. I would guess that if you aren't seeing the breaks, that it must have something to do with not having UNC path names...

Where do I enable the "Auto Comskip" feature within SageMC?

Thanks,

Deliverer

[geogecko]

There is a Sage command, titled "Options" that is available on certain menus and also on playback.

A window will popup while in playback (as well as in some menus), and have some options for you to choose from. Auto Comskip is one of the options, and should be set to Enabled if you want the commercials to be skipped. Are you seeing the commercial gaps in the time bar though? If not, then you have a different problem...

You may need to bind a remote button to this command, if you don't already have it...

[deliverer]

I'm not seeing these options nor do I see the gaps. I guess I'm missing a step, but I do not know what that is.

Deliverer

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Ignoring commercials for the first/last "N" minutes of a recording?

I'd like to see an option to also ignore the LAST commercial break in a recording.

Here's the issue: I love to use Auto ComSkip, and it works fine during the bulk of the recording, but I'm constantly running into problems at the end of the recording. On many TV shows, there is a short tag (30 secs or so) at the very end of the show, after the last commercial break. Sometimes, this tag is actually inside a window box that includes network promo info at the bottom/side of the screen. Often the "scenes from next week" are handled the same way, and I'd like to see those as well. Sometimes movie credits are done this way as well.

With Auto Comskip turned on, the recording hits the last commercial break and jumps all the way to the end of the recording, skipping over this short program content at the end. None of the commercial skip tools that I've used (various versions of Comskip or Showanalyzer) have been able to accurately treat this as part of the show.

So what happens is that I either leave Auto ComSkip turned off, or I manually turn it off near the end of the show (a pain). What I'd really like to do it have the option to have Auto ComSkip ignore the last commercial break.

[geogecko]

Well, the options menu is our next step, but you need to be seeing the gaps first.

How are you sharing the files on the server? Just standard network neighborhood sharing? Or are you somehow able to map network drives on the client, from the server?

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

So what happens is that I either leave Auto ComSkip turned off, or I manually turn it off near the end of the show (a pain). What I'd really like to do it have the option to have Auto ComSkip ignore the last commercial break.

EXACTLY the reason I was asking for it. I currently monitor how many commercial breaks there are, and right after the next to last commercial break, I disable Auto Comskip, so that I can catch the last part of the show, or see the previews for next week's show...

[deliverer]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Well, the options menu is our next step, but you need to be seeing the gaps first.

How are you sharing the files on the server? Just standard network neighborhood sharing? Or are you somehow able to map network drives on the client, from the server?

Well I had it like C:\SHOWS and D:\SHOWS. I switched that to UNC paths

ex: \\SERVER\C\SHOWS

Still do not see the gaps. Do I need to map a drive on the client machine?

[geogecko]

Hmm...I don't have any experience using the client software. Can someone else help out here?

I know it may not be possible, if your server isn't connected to a monitor or TV, but can you at least get it working on the server first?

I may be able to try and install the client software on my study computer, and see if I can help out here, but I'm not sure I can do that, since I only have one license for Sage... (is that all that's required, or do I pay a per client basis too?)

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by deliverer

Well I had it like C:\SHOWS and D:\SHOWS. I switched that to UNC paths

ex: \\SERVER\C\SHOWS

Still do not see the gaps. Do I need to map a drive on the client machine?

If you just change the paths for recording dirs, SageTV will still see existing recordings in the old C:\SHOWS location. New shows, however, will use the UNC path. (You can see where SageTV 'sees' the recordings by viewing its detailed info screen in the default STV.) To get SageTV to modify that, you could chnage the wholoe location of the recording dir, so that SageTV can see that the old recordings are no longer where it thinks they are & will update their paths. That could be done by renaming C:\SHOWS to something like C:\VIDEOS & using \\SERVER\C\VIDEOS as the recording dir instead. Add that as a new recording dir, then do the file moving while SageTV or the service is not running, remove the old recording dir when SageTV restarts. Save your wiz.bin file first.

Originally Posted by geogecko

I may be able to try and install the client software on my study computer, and see if I can help out here, but I'm not sure I can do that, since I only have one license for Sage... (is that all that's required, or do I pay a per client basis too?)

You could use the client software during its trial period, but after that, you would need a client license to keep using it.

- Andy

[geogecko]

Thanks for offering some assistance here. I thought that I would need a client license, but wasn't sure.

Speaking of using the trial version, if I use the trial version of the client software, will having installed the regular version of sage on that same computer, keep me from using sage client trail version? (i.e., since the trial on regular sage has expired?) I may need to get a copy, I wouldn't mind being able to watch TV from my study anyway, and I think it's what, $30?

[deliverer]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If you just change the paths for recording dirs, SageTV will still see existing recordings in the old C:\SHOWS location. New shows, however, will use the UNC path. (You can see where SageTV 'sees' the recordings by viewing its detailed info screen in the default STV.) To get SageTV to modify that, you could chnage the wholoe location of the recording dir, so that SageTV can see that the old recordings are no longer where it thinks they are & will update their paths. That could be done by renaming C:\SHOWS to something like C:\VIDEOS & using \\SERVER\C\VIDEOS as the recording dir instead. Add that as a new recording dir, then do the file moving while SageTV or the service is not running, remove the old recording dir when SageTV restarts. Save your wiz.bin file first.


You could use the client software during its trial period, but after that, you would need a client license to keep using it.

- Andy

Thanks I got it to work in the base STV, but not SageMC16x9. I guess this is the last step. Any suggestions on what I need to do?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by geogecko

Speaking of using the trial version, if I use the trial version of the client software, will having installed the regular version of sage on that same computer, keep me from using sage client trail version? (i.e., since the trial on regular sage has expired?)

As far as I know, they are completely separate trials, since they use separate keys when installed on the same PC. You could either just try it or contact SageTV directly to double check.

- Andy