Utility: ShowAnalyzer Beta

[Humanzee]

For those of you who bought a previous version, you can retrieve your 1.0 + version key from http://www.dragonglobal.biz/retrieve_key.html

Also see this,
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44848

[sabre]

was wondering, with the 1+ version and UI, how do we tell SA not to process XX seconds of the start or end of a show? Thanks

Also, seems there is no more need for DirMon2 with this? Have not played around yet with that part.

[toricred]

At the time you wrote this there wasn't a way to tell it not to do anything with the start and end. When Jere released the final version of 1.0 (yesterday very early) it was added.

[sabre]

Thank you. I did try that one and did find it.

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

For those of you who bought a previous version, you can retrieve your 1.0 + version key from http://www.dragonglobal.biz/retrieve_key.html

Also see this,
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44848

My email address changed long ago.
I tried following the suggestion to email Jere, but he hasn't responded and the trial's about to end.
Any suggestions?

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by davidk21770

My email address changed long ago.
I tried following the suggestion to email Jere, but he hasn't responded and the trial's about to end.
Any suggestions?

Get your own domain name for email!

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Get your own domain name for email!

Sounds like overkill, but it would keep it the same...

[toricred]

If you send me a PM on the DragonGlobal forum with your new e-mail, your old e-mail, your approximate date of purchase, your full name and country then I can contact Jere and get your new keys issued. It may take a day or two as Jere is dealing with a significant issue this week, but it should be straightened out by this weekend.

[davidk21770]

Thanks. Done.

[mkanet]

I'm revisiting the possibility of adding commercial detection to my sageTV server.

However, I'm not sure if I should use Comskip or just jump to ShowAnalyzer. I already have my own file/directory monitoring utility that I definitely would like to use; since I use it for several other automated processes on this server. I could be wrong, but I think Comskip may allow me to use my own file monitoring tool instead of DirMon; however, ShowAnalyzer requires you to use it's own file monitoring tool.

I would love to get started right away, however, my biggest concern is my family members and I commonly end up watching a TV shows/movies only an hour or so after its been recorded on various clients simultaneously; hence, I would like for commercial detection to happen as close to real-time as possible on all recordings. I'm just not sure how it would handle detecting commercials on several recordings at the same time (up to 11 simultaneous scheduled recordings); also, leaving some headroom for other server/workstation functions as well.

Thanks so much,
Michael

[Fuzzy]

The current version of ShowAnalyser (the 1.x version) doesn't work WELL with outside schedulers (like SJQ or DirMon, for instance), but it can be done. It you call the ShowAnalyserEngine.exe file with with the target video, it will process in the background, and close when done. The downside is that there is zero UI or status to the engine (as only the scheduler in ShowAnalyser.exe is able to monitor the app, and only if IT launched it). That said, I do run this way, launching ShowAnalyserEngine from SJQ, and it seems to work fine.

[davephan]

I used Comskip in the past years, then switch to ShowAnalyzer for years.

Recently, I gave up on ShowAnalyzer 1.1. There is a very long 'key' that needs to be entered. The method that is used to enter the very long 'key' is 'non-standard' and very flaky. The support for the flaky, non-standard 'key' problem is poor and slow. The ShowAnalyzer software is reported as a Trojan by both McAfee and Symantec AV products, which is not good.

The commercial detection is not very good with ShowAnalyzer 1.1. ShowAnalyzer 0.97 is much better, but cannot be used for TS files.

I think you are better off to forget about using ShowAnalyzer for now and just use Comskip. Comskip is much better than it used to be years ago. Use the donor version of Comskip, not the free version. Comskip does not have any flaky problems like 'keys' that can't be entered, or bad commercial detection. The Comskip donor version works with both mpeg2 and TS files. You need to download it from a web site that will be provided to you. Enter your username and password. The download process works perfectly. The commercial detection isn't perfect, but it is pretty close. You could use Dirmon2 to trigger the Comskip processing, but you are better off to use the Sage Job Queue (SJQ) program. SJQ takes some work to get it going. Once it is working with SJQ, you will only be Comskipping the commerical channels and leaving the non-commercial channels unprocessed.

Maybe the flakyness in ShowAnalyzer 1.1 will be fixed in a future version.

Dave

[tomfisk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The current version of ShowAnalyser (the 1.x version) doesn't work WELL with outside schedulers (like SJQ or DirMon, for instance), but it can be done. It you call the ShowAnalyserEngine.exe file with with the target video, it will process in the background, and close when done. The downside is that there is zero UI or status to the engine (as only the scheduler in ShowAnalyser.exe is able to monitor the app, and only if IT launched it). That said, I do run this way, launching ShowAnalyserEngine from SJQ, and it seems to work fine.

It probably isn't working well for you because your are calling it wrong. Here is my SJQ client config for ShowAnalyzer (everything works...even the UI...although why you'd need to look at the UI is beyond me)

/* ShowAnalyzer */
SHOWANALYZER
{
  :CPU NORMAL
  :RESOURCES 33
  "E:/Program Files/Dragon Global/ShowAnalyzerSuite/ShowAnalyzer.exe \"%c%\""
}

ShowAnalyzer is an absolute champ at dealing with HD-PVR files...it analyzes and does a good job of finding commercials for a 1 hour program in 5 minutes or less. Last time I used the donator's version of Comskip it took upwards of an hour.

[mkanet]

Thanks davephan and Fuzzy for your feedback. I would rather use something that very dependable that works great with file detections apps. I guess Comskip donor + directorywatch would work best for my needs. The only thing I'm not sure on is how an average modern PC handle processing up to 11 simultaneous HD recordings at the same time; and, still having room for doing other things. Heck, I'm not even sure if multiple instances of comskip can be launched to process multiple files at once or how long (very roughly) it would take for each mpeg2 HD file.

EDIT: I didnt see Tomfisk's post before posting. I guess if ShowAnalyzer works well with DirectoryMonitor, then I'll definitely give it a shot. I'm guessing the only thing I need to do is run a batch file when a file is detected in my TV recordings directory; with multiple instances of Showanalyzer.

PS: I dont use HD-PVR. All my HD files are the original unaltered mpeg2 files from ATSC/CableTV/DVB with mpg extensions.

Originally Posted by davephan

I used Comskip in the past years, then switch to ShowAnalyzer for years.

Recently, I gave up on ShowAnalyzer 1.1. There is a very long 'key' that needs to be entered. The method that is used to enter the very long 'key' is 'non-standard' and very flaky. The support for the flaky, non-standard 'key' problem is poor and slow. The ShowAnalyzer software is reported as a Trojan by both McAfee and Symantec AV products, which is not good.

The commercial detection is not very good with ShowAnalyzer 1.1. ShowAnalyzer 0.97 is much better, but cannot be used for TS files.

I think you are better off to forget about using ShowAnalyzer for now and just use Comskip. Comskip is much better than it used to be years ago. Use the donor version of Comskip, not the free version. Comskip does not have any flaky problems like 'keys' that can't be entered, or bad commercial detection. The Comskip donor version works with both mpeg2 and TS files. You need to download it from a web site that will be provided to you. Enter your username and password. The download process works perfectly. The commercial detection isn't perfect, but it is pretty close. You could use Dirmon2 to trigger the Comskip processing, but you are better off to use the Sage Job Queue (SJQ) program. SJQ takes some work to get it going. Once it is working with SJQ, you will only be Comskipping the commerical channels and leaving the non-commercial channels unprocessed.

Maybe the flakyness in ShowAnalyzer 1.1 will be fixed in a future version.

Dave

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tomfisk

It probably isn't working well for you because your are calling it wrong. Here is my SJQ client config for ShowAnalyzer (everything works...even the UI...although why you'd need to look at the UI is beyond me)

/* ShowAnalyzer */
SHOWANALYZER
{
  :CPU NORMAL
  :RESOURCES 33
  "E:/Program Files/Dragon Global/ShowAnalyzerSuite/ShowAnalyzer.exe \"%c%\""
}

ShowAnalyzer is an absolute champ at dealing with HD-PVR files...it analyzes and does a good job of finding commercials for a 1 hour program in 5 minutes or less. Last time I used the donator's version of Comskip it took upwards of an hour.

The reason I show ShowAnalyzerEngine is that it stays running until the task is complete, allowing SJQ to monitor if for completion before launching another task. Calling ShowAnalyzer instead will just addit to SA's internal queue, and close immediately. That prevents SJQ from knowing that it is still processing, and it will go ahead and launch antoher one. If you have other processes that you try to balance cpu load between, it is hard to control in this way.

[Oats]

Originally Posted by mkanet

PS: I dont use HD-PVR. All my HD files are the original unaltered mpeg2 files from ATSC/CableTV/DVB with mpg extensions.

Jere used to recommend using showanaylzer .97 if you didn't have ts files since version 1+ was still new and had a few bugs. I'm not sure if that is still the case or not but .97 works great and is reliable.

[mkanet]

Cool thanks guys! I just want it to work reliably It seems that that the various proposed options all work very good. Im taking a wild guess that its relatively easy to support mpeg2 based files in respect to H.264 files. I dont think it makes a difference if the container is TS or mpg.

Maybe Im just being really dense, but Im still having a hard time understanding what would happen if I launch several instances of Comskip/SA at the same time to process 6-7 files that just finished recording. Also, does SA contain one engine that stays in memory all the time and process multiple files simultaneously (one app contain all); or do I still need to use an external "new-file" detection utility.

Thanks,
Michael

[Humanzee]

In the showanalyzer suite, you can specify how many instances can be processed at once. Each instance will get a separate app process running. You can also limit the amount of disc access each process can use, and or tell it to not start processing a file till it stops growing in size, or the disc is idle etc. Of course this is using the built in directory monitor and settings.

I would not try to decode 6 live streams at once, it would probably work but that is probably pushing it. I really couldn't even imagine 11 at once. Recording and commercial detecting at the same time works for me in near real time but I only have 4 tuners and rarely record four shows at once. My system seems to do fine with it and it leaves resources available, you'd just have to experiment about how many instances you would allow at once to maintain some free resources. I think I limit mine to 3 at once and limit disk access to 5mb a second. This seems to work for me.

If for some reason commercial detection gets turned off, and you end up with a big queue of files to process, they files can be processed fairly quickly but Showanalyzer will take as much resources as it can get. Either saturating your CPU or available disk throughput. In this case I would think it bad to let 11 instances run full tilt. You'd likely freeze up your computer pretty good.

When first installing ShowAnalyzer 1x I had to turn of dirmon and set up the directory monitoring in the new app. Before I could complete the setup, it had done the clean up and erased all the edl files that had been created with 0.97. I had like 400-500 programs to re-decode and it took a long time to do it (couple 3 days but it was slower then), This is how I arrived at decoding 3 at once. It was the most I could do, un-throttled, and keep things stable. I left the settings the same and now 3 live shows is not taxing on the system at all.

Really, you're going from no detection to wanting everything done real time. That's a bit of a stretch. I think you'll just settle into acceptance that you may have to wait for some things to decode. Else I think there is a way to force a start on recording from the sagetv plug-in if you want to watch something now. At one point years ago on a weaker machine, I think I had set up a schedule to commercial detect all the days recordings in the middle of the night. That way the machine would most likely have been idle anyway and would not interfere with any other use. You'll just have to experiment. I really can't believe you've waited this long. Commercial detection is THE killer feature that makes HTPC worth the effort. That and recording 11 things at once.

[Bikeman]

SA just creates another process when it needs to, up to the limit you place on it.

For example, I run Dirmon2 and .97 for my OTA recordings and 1.x for my .TS files. I limit the .97 to 4 instances and 1.x to 3. Running here with a Q9450, 3 gig RAM and Vista and using the HD100/200 is fine with all 7 instances running at once.

But your Placeshifter clients might have issues with 11 SA instances running, but remember that .97 only takes about 5 minutes for a 30 minute MPEG recording, depending on your hardware.

You can try .97 for 14 days free as I remember, go for it, but if you decide to purchase the 1.x product, you get the .97 for free.

BTW, I noticed they are running some kind drawing until the end of the month for a Ceton CableCard tuner.

[mkanet]

Okay, I finally had the chance to try the latest downloadable trialware ShowAnalyzer. I thought I'd see how well the latest version works; with the settings all at their defaults (except for a couple).

Everything is fine except, commercial End / Start markers arent detected correctly in some cases. Is there an "aggressive mode" or something to get more accurate commercial detection? IIRC, the "Donor" version offers better commercial detection functionality. I'm not certain, but it looks like the version I'm using is fully enabled in all it's features, just with a trial period end.

I have only tried SA on just a few TV shows on ABC.. "V". These recordings should be relatively easy to analyze (unaltered 720p ATSC compliant mpeg2 files).

PS: Isn't there an STVi for sageMC for showanalyzer? I thought there was something to show status information in sageTV. If there's something like that out, maybe someone could point me where to get it. Maybe its part of ComSkip only?