Comskip .ts files

[Fuzzy]

Now that HD support is working in 3.0.7, I have come across a problem. 3.0.7 saves HD broadcasts as transport streams. Currently, comskip doesn't process .ts files, so i have now gained HD, but lost comskip. I suppose there are two possible solutions. 1. comskip becomes able to parse .ts, or 2. sage saves program streams vice transport streams. Either would work, but sage saving program stream info seems to be the better option. Anyone know if these are in the works?

Fuzzy

[malore]

libmpeg2 which comskip uses can decode and play ES, PS, and TS video streams, so comskip maybe able to as well.

From a command prompt, comskip -h will show:
usage: comskip [-h] [-o <mode>] [-s [<track>]] [-t <pid>] [-p] [-c] \
[-v] [-b <bufsize>] <file>
-h display help and available video output modes
-s use program stream demultiplexer, track 0-15 or 0xe0-0xef
-t use transport stream demultiplexer, pid 0x10-0x1ffe
-p use pva demultiplexer
-c use c implementation, disables all accelerations
-v verbose information about the MPEG stream
-b set input buffer size, default 4096 bytes

So for ease of testing place comskip.exe and comskip.ini file in your video directory and try "comskip -t 0x10 -o dxrgb file.ts" The -o dxrgb will let you see the video decoding to know if it's working. If the decoding doesn't work try other values for the -t option.

[Fuzzy]

Definately not a waste of time, after enabling that switch, it seems to process the streams fine now, it will just take some tweaking to get them to detection right. I also can't seem to get Sage V3 to display the commercial areas and auto skip them like i could in 2.

[malore]

If anyone is interested, I've modified my STV so the commercial skipping code will read comskip .txt files for file types other than .mpg and I've modified the commercial processing code to send the arguments -t 0x100 for shows with the file type .ts. Let me know how it works, because I don't have anything other then mpeg-2 shows. malore3.11-3.zip

[Fuzzy]

I am unable to figure out what Sage is doing when saving the .TS files, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what PID's the video is placed in. It appears that there is a bug in the TS writing code in sage, which is causing the PID's to change every time. If I look at the files in order that they were recorded, The first one recorded during a session is:
0x81 Video, 0x82 Audio
But then the next file recorded is:
0x83 Video, 0x84 Audio
and so on, it looks like a simple mistake of forgetting to reset a variable, but while it is doing this, comskip cannot read the file properly. It would be nice if comskip could just pick the PID with the most data, as that is how i am having to determine it myself.

[malore]

Drat, I was hoping to be able to avoid needing changes to the comskip program, because there are several different versions done by different people. If someone modifies the mpeg2dec program from libmpeg2 to detect the transport stream PID, I would be happy to add it to my version of comskip and other people might add it to theirs as well. The other alternative is to support the ShowAnalyzer project and see how Jere_Jones is progressing with adding transport stream support.

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by malore

The other alternative is to support the ShowAnalyzer project

Originally Posted by malore

and see how Jere_Jones is progressing with adding transport stream support.

I'm looking into it. TS support is in my top 3 on the todo list.

Jere

[Fuzzy]

As a hold over, I have just written a simple front-end program that detects the PID's, and runs comskip. I have DirMon set to call comskip_ts.exe, which then calls comskip. It should work, though i haven't really tested it out yet.

just place it in the same folder as comskip, and call it, with just the input filename in the commandline.

And of course, no waranties, I suck at programming...

[malore]

Cool.

[erik]

Malore,

Is this an important issue?
I hacked the libavcodec mpeg audio decoder into the ps video decoder of libmpeg2. So no chance my version will ever play back ts. Also the debugwindow can do its seeking tricks only on ps.
Should I now add something on my todo list?????

[malore]

erik, judging by this thread, I’d say the demand isn’t that great. If it will take much work I wouldn’t bother, since there are already alternatives.

[Fuzzy]

For now I'm not sure this is that much of an issue, as like malore said, there are work arounds, and at least one of the problems (the rotating PID) should be fixed, as this is obviously just a bug. The best solution would be on frey's end anyways, by just saving the HD files as PS just as the analog data is stored.

[jwaters]

Fuzzy - I was able to use your work-around front-end for calling comskip, and I've been successful at commercial detecting HTDV .ts files. Thanks!

Malore - the auto-skip is still not working for me. Works for standard SD files, though. Did you ever get a chance to test this?

[jcato]

So what version of comskip does this work with? I normally use v0.24, which I think is a variant of the original. With that one, it just sits there and then says 0 frames decoded in 0.00 seconds.

I tried v0.66, which I think is the last "official" one. It says the -t parameter is invalid.

I also tried 0.64, 0.41 and 0.77 versions.

I also tried using the comskip_ts.exe posted above.

I'm recording HD from my cable box thru the firewire. The files are named mpg, but I'm pretty sure they are really ts files. What am I missing? How can I comskip these files?

Thanks!

[gplasky]

If they're really .ts files then you won't be able to comskip. Comskip does not work with .ts files.

Gerry

[jsidlosky]

Whats the deal with .ts files? I read "I got it working!" and then I read "If its .ts, Comskip will not work"...

Which is it? I dl'ed latest version of comskip 0.79.1 and it has no -t or -o option for transport stream or viewing output.

So, can I use comskip on HDTV .ts files?

Is there a way to make SageTV save in .ps format as 0.79.1 is susposed to support?

Help! :-).

Thanks!

[jwaters]

I have comskip working on .ts files using Fuzzy's comskip_ts.exe file along with Comskip v.0.21. It is a little quirky about how it's launched -- it wouldn't launch when I tried running it from a mapped network drive, but running it on a local drive works fine.

In a local directory, I have:

comskip.exe (shows version 0.21 when run from command line. It is 228KB)
comskip.ini
comskip_ts.exe (posted above by Fuzzy)

When using it, you must put double quotes around the file name. I'm using it like this:

D:\Comskip>comskip_ts "I:\SageTV\CSICrimeSceneInvestigation-ShootingStars-4440-0.ts"


It's not currently doing me any good, because the auto skip functionality does not work in SageTV -- I'm currently using Nielm's Comskip Playback STVI import file, but I also tried Malore's stv posted above. I do have VideoRedo, and was able to verify that the detection is working well, but it's not doing me any good because I'd don't want to edit the commercials out, I just want to skip over them when watching a program.

Has anyone else gotten this working. If the versions of comskip are the problem, I'll post what I'm using.

[malore]

Are you watching the shows on the same machine they were recorded? If not then the comskip playback code can't access the comskip .txt files to read the commercial breaks. Do a search on the Comskip Beta thread and you'll find info on using UNC paths to work around this.

[austin]

Here is a step by step on how I got comskip to work for .ts files using DirMon, hopefully it will be useful to someone.

1. Installed the .net 1.1 framework from Microsoft
2. Downloaded the comskip_ts file from this thread
3. Downloaded the most recent version of Malore's comskip (the GBPVR versions will not work) I got it herehttp://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12474
3. Unzipped comskip and comskip.ts into the same folder, I used c:\comskip
4. Wrote a little batch file to add the quotes around the file name and move to the proper directory. see below:
5. Set up DirMon like in the picture (alter to fit your directory structure)


Batch File: Save as comskip.bat in the same folder as comskip.exe. Contents are as follows:

cd %1
comskip_ts.exe "%2"

[evilpenguin]

Did you have to set your FPS to 59.87 for 720p TS files or did the standard settings just work?