STV Import: Comskip Playback for Default STV (v1.5.4 30/August/2008 for SageTV 5/6)

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Sometimes its perfect and sometimes its 10's of seconds off. Additionally I can hit custom4 or custom5 to skip forward and back, and it will start playing from a different place each time I return to that segment marker. + or - 10 to 15 seconds. This makes me think its a plug in issue as, any mark in the edl file should jump the time line to the same spot regardless of how many times its accessed. Shouldn't it?

I have 4 different tuners, use PureVideo and AC3Filter and I believe I am running the latest retail build of SageTV 6.1. Any idea's? I have a friend who also recently mentioned similar behavior. Could this be bad time coding in the media files them selves? If so is there something I can do about that?

Can you narrow it down to recordings from a particular tuner? I know some people have had problems with recordings from some HD tuners. The fact that it's returning to a different spot each time makes me think it may be a problem with the video, as all the import is doing during a skip, is telling the player to seek to a framenumber.

A lot of people use VideoRedo to run a Quickstream fix on broken videos.

John

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Can you narrow it down to recordings from a particular tuner? I know some people have had problems with recordings from some HD tuners. The fact that it's returning to a different spot each time makes me think it may be a problem with the video, as all the import is doing during a skip, is telling the player to seek to a framenumber.

A lot of people use VideoRedo to run a Quickstream fix on broken videos.

John

hmm, ill have to look and see if its the same tuner each time. Its likely because I have my Firewire from my set top box set as the preferred device since it does HD and SD. So ill have to check that. Can the quickstream through VideoRedo be done via command line or something that I can schedule with Dirmon2 etc.

[farscapesg1]

OK, so I followed the installation process on the server, and all is good. However, I can't seem to get it to install on the client systems. My understanding is that all I should have to do is install the STVi since ShowAnalyzer is installed and does all it's processing on the server. Is this wrong? Is there something else I need to install to get this to work on the client systems (where I actually watch the shows)?

[Humanzee]

you need to have the import installed at each client.

[farscapesg1]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

you need to have the import installed at each client.

Yeah, I figured that. The problem is I install the Import on the client system but the client doesn't recognize that the videos have had the commercials detected.

Upon further inspection it appears the import is working on the clients, just not recognizing the commercial skip files. If I enable the option to show icons for both CS and Non-CS recordings, everything shows up as Non-CS enabled. However, the txt and edl files are there and the server shows the files as CS enabled.

[Opus4]

Clients will have to be able to see the files directly, so your recording dirs will need to be network paths or mapped drive letters. If the server is using service mode, you'll need to use UNC paths instead of mapped drives and the service will need to log in as a user w/a password who has read/write permission to the network locations. The client will need persmission too if it is to access the Comskip files.

If you need the info, this long FAQ has a couple entries about changing to UNC recording dir paths.

- Andy

[farscapesg1]

Hmm, still no go.

I set the server up with UNC paths and the clients still saw all the recordings as "Non-CS". So, I reconfigured the server to run SageTV as a service (still with UNC paths). I had been meaning to set this up anyways, so now was a good time

Still no luck.

I can access the UNC paths, and the shares are set up to give the user full access. I can see the txt and edl files, and even open the txt files from the client systems.

Any other ideas? This is using the stock STV with Comskip as the only import just to make sure nothing else is interfering.

[Opus4]

View the Recording Detail screen for a recording & scroll all the way down... does it still show the old non-UNC (un-UNC?) path? If so, in the same FAQ post, see the Q right after the one that talks about switching recording dirs to use UNC paths in order to change the path for existing recordings.

- Andy

[farscapesg1]

Doh, that was it. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction and not beating me over the head

[bcjenkins]

"The beatings will begin in 5 minutes"

--Bill Cosby

[hemicuda]

I've noticed recently that the commercials are being marked fairly correctly, but more than 40% of the time the STVi will skip the commercial segment then jump back into the commercial about 60sec. I can, however, right-arrow to get to the start of the next segment from that point.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I've noticed recently that the commercials are being marked fairly correctly, but more than 40% of the time the STVi will skip the commercial segment then jump back into the commercial about 60sec. I can, however, right-arrow to get to the start of the next segment from that point.

What format are the files?
Are the failing ones from a particular tuner?
Are these the compressed files you mentioned in the Auto Compress thread?

If you have a recording that the symptom it's repeatable on, you could try a quickstream fix using VideoRedo trial and see if that makes a difference.

As I mention above, all the STVi is doing is a seek to a location. There's nothing that would make it jump back after skipping.

John

Edit: your problem may be related to this

[hemicuda]

yes, it's on transcoded HDHR files of the wife's daily soap. I'm trying to pay close attention to which other files are doing it, but most of my recordings were done w/ 6.1.8.
read the link in your post. haven't had that type of problem yet.

[talonmike]

It seems that when you delete an entire folder, comskip files do not get deleted.


Thanks

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by talonmike

It seems that when you delete an entire folder, comskip files do not get deleted.

How are you doing the delete?

John

[talonmike]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

How are you doing the delete?

John

In sage you can delete an entire folder containing many shows. I.e. you can delete all simpsons in one shot. Mayby this is a feature of a plugin I have installed?

[hemicuda]

mine does that too... even has a bright red, blinking warning on the next screen. i'll have to look to see if i have any orphaned comskip files, but CSM is supposed to take care of them.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by talonmike

In sage you can delete an entire folder containing many shows. I.e. you can delete all simpsons in one shot. Mayby this is a feature of a plugin I have installed?

I've never used it before and hadn't even noticed it there. I'll have a look at what's required to delete the comskip files when doing the folder delete.

John

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Can you narrow it down to recordings from a particular tuner?

I skipped this and just setup a batch file to scan each new recording with QuickStream fix regardless of the tuner. Then if the file has been fixed I go ahead and run commercial detection on it.

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

A lot of people use VideoRedo to run a Quickstream fix on broken videos.

So this seems to have helped, but it is still not 100% perfect at returning to the exact same spot in the program at a commercial mark. It is better so for now I'm going to stick with this process and forgo live commercial detection.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I skipped this and just setup a batch file to scan each new recording with QuickStream fix regardless of the tuner. Then if the file has been fixed I go ahead and run commercial detection on it.

Humanzee - I am having the same issue. What did you use to setup your batch file to scan each new recording? Did you use DirMon2? Or did you use some other means? Just curious how you set this up.