Comskip Monitor: Announcement

[GregW]

I have SageTV server running on my WHS and SageTV client on a Vista Ultimate machine. ComSkip Monitor and Comskip Playback are running on the WHS and properly processes the recordings. In Sage on the WHS I see the CS icon and I can see the created .edl and.txt files (I can't play them because of an audio problem, but I really don't need to play them on WHS). On my client I can access all the recorded shows but they do not show the CS icon. I installed both Monitor and Playback on the Client but still can't skip commercials. Any ideas what I am missing?

[psklenar]

GregW,

Assuming you are running the default UI (i.e.; you are not running SageMC), then you need to install Comskip Playback for Default STVI on your client. Sounds like you have it installed on the server, but not the client.

Setup
-> Detailed Setup
-> Advanced
-> Manage STVI plugins
-> Add a new STVI plugin file

And then you should see the list of available plug ins on your server.

pat----

[GregW]

Originally Posted by psklenar

GregW,

Assuming you are running the default UI (i.e.; you are not running SageMC), then you need to install Comskip Playback for Default STVI on your client. Sounds like you have it installed on the server, but not the client.

Setup
-> Detailed Setup
-> Advanced
-> Manage STVI plugins
-> Add a new STVI plugin file

And then you should see the list of available plug ins on your server.

pat----

Thanks for the quick reply.
I am not running SageMC and I had installed as you described. I decided to play one of the recordings anyway and I found that the some commercial are marked in the timeline and it does skip them but not all commercials are skipped. I will need to investigate why that may be. So my problem is really that the icons do not show in the SageTV recordings list. I changed the options for "Comskip file icons" to CS & NO CS" and now all listings show the NO CS icon. not a big problem but interesting.

I assume that there is no reason to run ComSkip Monitor on the client PC, correct?

[psklenar]

Ah! So you ARE seeing notated timeline. It sounds like you need to enable the "custom"/"hidden" features. See Unofficial Secret Extra v5-6 UI Features.

pat----

[craigap]

Comskip Monitor appears to have had no updates since Nov 2006 if I'm reading correctly. Is there a way to integrate the latest version of Comskip into Comskip monitor?

[Jesse]

Hi,

Sure. Just drop the latest comskip into the same folder as the version you are currently using and then re-run comskip monitor and specify the later version.

HTH

Jesse

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hi,

Sure. Just drop the latest comskip into the same folder as the version you are currently using and then re-run comskip monitor and specify the later version.

HTH

Jesse

You shouldn't have to even specify the latest version. If you dump the comskip files into the same directory as the old version and just replace all the old files (probably want to replace the .ini file too) it should work fine. At least this is how I've been doing mine and it's worked.

If you put comskip in a new directory then you have to re-run the comskip monitor setup to specify the new path.

[DIBU]

is comskipmonitor searching for files in folders in a folder?

e.g. i have a drive called T: in this drive is a folder called "DBox_Shows" an in this folder are for every day a new folder with one or more mpg-files.

thanks
DIBU

[awhenry]

Originally Posted by DIBU

is comskipmonitor searching for files in folders in a folder?

It's funny you ask that, since I recently wondered the same thing. The answer is that it doesn't recurse subdirectories. However, I wanted that functionality myself, so I made a modified version that would.

This is probably not of much use to folks who use only SageTV for recording, since it stores all its video files in a single directory. I only use SageTV now myself, but I had a large existing collection of ReplayTV recordings that I had manually partitioned into directories, and I wanted Comskip to run on them so I could view them without commercials via Sage (and Sage doesn't understand the ReplayTV commercial marking files).

In addition to directory recursing, I also wanted to modify the cleanup.file.extensions behavior. As originally written, Comskip Monitor checks for the existence of any of the files specified in the cleanup.file.extensions property and skips processing a video file if any of those files are present. This is fine if all the files you want to cleanup are created by the commercial marking process. However, I wanted to cleanup some extra files when the original video was deleted, and I didn't want the existence of these files to prevent commercial marking from running since they are present from the start (in my case the files are specific to ReplayTV shows, and include an .xml file with show info, as well as a couple of commercial marker files that the ReplayTV generates). This concept could also apply if you generate subtitles through a secondary process, for instance.

In any case, if anyone is interested in making use of the directory recursing or other functionality I added, I have attached a file for you. This file includes my previous changes for multithreading (unmodified). By default, this application should work just like the original one; it's only by modifying your properties file that you can make use of the additional features. As before, I have not tried to include the new features in the configuration gui, so you will need to edit your properties file by hand. Don't worry, it isn't hard. I've been using this version myself for a couple days with no problems, so I wouldn't expect any for anyone else either. However, you might want to try the recursion feature on a small set of folders first, just to make sure it doesn't do anything crazy on your setup. And don't skip the "backup original" step, in case you need to revert to that for any reason.

Anyway, I hope this proves useful to someone out there. And thanks again to the original author!

Here is the install info (also included in the zip):

To install:

1) Stop the CSM service either through the service manager or via the command line ("net stop CSM").

2) Open the folder where Comskip Monitor is installed, and go to the "Data" subfolder.

3) Rename the existing csm.jar file to something else, say csm.jar.original

4) Copy the csm.jar contained in this zip to this folder

5) Move back up to the Comskip Monitor install folder root

6) Edit the csm.properties file in any text editor, such as notepad.
Add the following items, replacing fields in <angle brackets> with the value you prefer:

#Maximum number of files to process concurrently
max.threads=<number>
#Whether or not to scan subdirectories of directories specified in the file.directories property
recurse.subdirectories=<true or false>
#Directories to skip processing of, useful when recurse.subdirectories is set to true.  Same format as file.directories property
skip.directories=<one or more directories, comma seperated>
#File extensions to delete when the video file is deleted.  Unlike extensions listed in the cleanup.file.extensions property, 
# existence of files with these extensions will not prevent processing of a video file. Useful if you have supporting files for videos
# (say subtitles) generated by a different process that you want deleted automatically when the video file is deleted.
# Same format as for cleanup.file.extensions property
extra.cleanup.only.file.extensions=<one or more file extensions, comma seperated>

7) Restart the CSM service either through the service manager or via the command line ("net start CSM").

[Big Jeff]

Has anyone gotten this to work with Vista x64 SP1? I have had no luck getting it to run. I really liked this when running XP. I tried using the comskip built into SageMCE and I get really funky results and skips aren't in the right places. really annoying. Would love to go back to comskip monitor, I loved the setup.

[bph]

Originally Posted by Big Jeff

Has anyone gotten this to work with Vista x64 SP1? I have had no luck getting it to run. I really liked this when running XP. I tried using the comskip built into SageMCE and I get really funky results and skips aren't in the right places. really annoying. Would love to go back to comskip monitor, I loved the setup.

Did you install both 32 and 64 bit versions of Java like Sun suggests? (Hey, I'm not saying it's a good architecture!) CSM is working on my Vista 64 bit.

[vtac]

Hi,

I get the following error when I try to run the setup. I am running vista 64...

'java' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
The Comskip Monitor service is starting.
The Comskip Monitor service could not be started.

A system error has occurred.

System error 1067 has occurred.

The process terminated unexpectedly.

Press any key to continue . . .

[Big Jeff]

install both versions of Java. Then make sure the path for java in your environment variables. thats what fixed it for me.

[DIBU]

thanks it works

Originally Posted by awhenry

It's funny you ask that, since I recently wondered the same thing. The answer is that it doesn't recurse subdirectories. However, I wanted that functionality myself, so I made a modified version that would.

<snip>

[vtac]

Thanks Big Jeff, that did the trick!

[MitchSchaft]

Guys, I'm fairly new to Sage. I made the switch from MCE2005 a couple months ago.
Is it possible to configure the comskip addin to not scan liveTV at all and only scan shows that are scheduled to record?

[vtac]

I have it installed now but I get a DGIndex error. It will stop responding, then throw an error. As soon as the PC is up it will do it constantly...Any suggestions?

[judoGTI]

Could I ask for some assistance.

I just upgraded my HTPC to be able to handle HD-PVR files (so basically a full new install). I downloaded ComSkip Monitor, downloaded the latest ComSkip (I copied all the files into the dir that CSM looks at by default). But when I run comskip I do not get an EDL file. Or if I have it set to create a txt file it comes up blank/empty.

Could someone look at my ComSkip.ini and/or this logfile and tell me what I am doing wrong?

I live in the US (does framerate matter? I cannot tell). Thanks in advance.

comskip.ini
log file of a processed .ts file

(I apoligize if the URL changes or becomes invalid, my ISP tends to give me a new ISP every week these days)

[wayner]

In order for you to use comskip on HD-PVR files you must donate and get access to "donator" versions. Did you do this? Or are you having the problems on mpeg files as well?

[judoGTI]

Originally Posted by wayner

In order for you to use comskip on HD-PVR files you must donate and get access to "donator" versions. Did you do this? Or are you having the problems on mpeg files as well?

That has to be it, I didnt realize. I'll gladly donate, last I checked it was a perfectly acceptable amount.. I'll read tomorrow as to what I need to do once I donate and I bet that will fix everything.