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

[bcjenkins]

Based on your comskip.ini and the cmd file I am not seeing anything. Do you see anything in the logging of the SageTV server setting a priority on it?

B

[sorrowstyr]

I have been using comskip for years and its been awesome, but I havent upgraded in a long time.

I just got a hd pvr 1212, and I see the new comskip supports TS files.


Does comskip support h264 TS files, for my hdtv ??

[erik]

See here
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=35381

[sorrowstyr]

Wow, thanks Erik for all the hard work !

[null_pointer_us]

In your installation steps:

Installation is a 3 step process.
Step 1. Unzip into SageTV maintaining the directories. (ie: The df_sageutils.jar from the zip file needs to be in the JARS directory. The other files need to be in the STVs\SageTV3 directory.)
Step 2. Restart Sage so it will pick up the new jar.
Step 3. Load the import by going to Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Advanced, then select "Import SageTV Application Package"

There is no option to "Import SageTV Application Package," but there is an option to "Manage STVI plugins," which is what I needed to use to install your plugin (v1.5.4) into Sage MC (v6.4.8). I found this a little confusing, as if I'd misconfigured something.

[gplasky]

That's because the "Manage STVI plugins" is a realitvely new feature. Prior to 6.4.8 you "Import SageTV Application Package" and it was a one plugin at a time affair. The new method works so much better.

Gerry

[null_pointer_us]

I configured ComSkip (79.144), DirMon2 (0.6.4), Sage TV (6.4.8), and Comskip Playback STVI (1.5.4) using the steps in my attached Instructions.txt file. The server works fine: I can see the CS icons on the menus and the commercial breaks on the timeline.

However, the clients (6.4.8) can see neither the CS icons nor the timelines.

- The STVI appears to have been imported correctly on all of the clients, since I can go to Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customization -> Comskip Options.
- Java has been updated to release 6, update 10.
- The clients are all using Windows XP.
- The server is using Vista Home Premium (32-bit), with password-protected file sharing disabled.
- SageTV has been reconfigured to record to a UNC path (i.e. smb:///bonus-room/stv-video) so that the clients can see the .edl files.
- The clients can browse to the .edl files in Windows Explorer and view them in Notepad.

So...what am I missing?


EDIT:

I found a response here:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=386

That is because you told Sage to use UNC for new recordings. When Sage recorded tvshow-12345 on the F: drive, it logged that info into the database. Even though you have now told Sage to use a UNC folder for recording now, Sage still sees tvshow-12345 at it's original location, so it hasn't modified the recording path to show the UNC location.

I'll see if the advanced_video_file_recovery option (or something more drastic) fixes it:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...99&postcount=2


EDIT 2:

Yes, the advanced_video_file_recovery option fixed everything, but you have to have both the (empty) original folder and the UNC path visible to SageTV at the same time so that SageTV realizes the files have been moved.

[jpaddock3000]

I have followed your instructions, but I'm having an issue with getting Dirmon2 to have multiple monitors setup in the same directory. I want dirmon2 to lock onto a file and only have 1 process be started for that file, if another file is detected, then another process is started for that file. I have 4 tuners and would like to be able to comskip all 4 programs at the same time. Currently, all processes run on each file, so I have 4 instances of comskip running on the same file. How do I configure it differently? I would like comskip to be monitoring the file while it is recording as well. I have played with the priority settings, giving process 1 a priority of 1 and process 2 a priority of 2, but with no success as of yet.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[null_pointer_us]

Well...those instructions I posted were just for reference (in case I did something wrong). This is actually the thread for the STV plugin that provides a UI for the comskip files. The DirMon2 thread is somewhere else.

But I think I know what you are asking. What you want is to have the same job executed on any new video file in your recorded TV folder, up to four processes simultaneously. To do this, you only need one job, but you set its resource usage to 25 (instead of 100) so that DirMon2 can execute up to 4 copies of that job to meet its global resource limit of 100. Stop, save, and restart the DirMon2 process, and then check its Status tab to see how many processes start to run simultaneously (it may take a few seconds).

The --playnice command line option will let comskip run in the background on new recordings without choking SageTV. However, for some reason, the Comskip Playback STVI (in this thread) will only pick up the generated txt/edl files *after* the show has finished recording. Does anyone know of a way to make this more immediate, so that the commercial blocks appear one-by-one?

[jpaddock3000]

The worked perfectly. Thank you for that.

As for SageTV not picking up the files while you are watching the show is because you don't have Start on Watch enabled. Just do that and you should be good to go. Go to Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> ComSkip Playback Options.

[null_pointer_us]

Originally Posted by jpaddock3000

As for SageTV not picking up the files while you are watching the show is because you don't have Start on Watch enabled. Just do that and you should be good to go. Go to Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> ComSkip Playback Options.

Does the "Start on Watch" option actually try to run comskip, or does it simply start looking for existing edl files?

Thank you!

[jpaddock3000]

It simply starts looking at the edl files being created.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by null_pointer_us

Does the "Start on Watch" option actually try to run comskip, or does it simply start looking for existing edl files?

Originally Posted by jpaddock3000

It simply starts looking at the edl files being created.

Incorrect. Start on Watch will try and run comskip if there is no existing edl or txt file.

You still need live_tv=1 set in the comskip.ini for any marked blocks to appear while a scan is in progress. Start on Watch just starts comskip processing on the video if it hasn't been started already.

John

[hemicuda]

Speaking of Start-on-Watch...

Is there a way to have multiple comskips running or will I have to have separate comskip directories for each instance. That's the way I have to do things now; 1 folder for CSM and another for S-o-W. I'm running a Q6600 and typically comskip doesn't run more than a few % on a core.

[null_pointer_us]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Incorrect. Start on Watch will try and run comskip if there is no existing edl or txt file.

I enabled Start on Watch and then gave it a dummy.cmd file:

rem This file does nothing. :)

This way Start on Watch will notice commercials found during live TV playback without interfering with DirMon2.

It'd be nice if there was an option for this in your STVI. (My apologies if I missed it.)

You still need live_tv=1 set in the comskip.ini for any marked blocks to appear while a scan is in progress. Start on Watch just starts comskip processing on the video if it hasn't been started already.

Oddly, I got live TV commercial scanning running just fine with live_tv=0. Maybe the --playnice (or -n) option I'm passing in DirMon2 overrides the live_tv setting in comskip's .ini file? Without --playnice, SageTV chokes.

[null_pointer_us]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

Speaking of Start-on-Watch...

Is there a way to have multiple comskips running or will I have to have separate comskip directories for each instance. That's the way I have to do things now; 1 folder for CSM and another for S-o-W. I'm running a Q6600 and typically comskip doesn't run more than a few % on a core.

Not sure exactly what you want to do, but...

Comskip's --ini=filename.ini parameter will let you pick whatever .ini file you want, so you can keep one folder with all the comskip program files and a bunch of .ini files for specific channels, shows, etc.

Check out the SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3\Externals folder for the stock comskip.cmd provided with this STVI. (You can edit the .cmd file in Notepad.) There are lots of nice examples for using different comskip .ini files based on what is being recorded.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

Is there a way to have multiple comskips running or will I have to have separate comskip directories for each instance. That's the way I have to do things now; 1 folder for CSM and another for S-o-W.

You can have S-o-W just pointing at comskip.exe in the CSM directory and it will run with the same ini as CSM.

CSM just queues comskip processing in filename order and runs one instance at a time. It means if you are recording multiple shows then the show "ZZZ" may not get comskip run against it for some time. If you have S-o-W configured, then if "ZZZ" does not have an edl or txt file then it will run whatever bat/exe is configured in S-o-W parsing the filename (and other stuff) as a parameter when you start watching the recording.

S-o-W has no relationship with CSM, aside from the fact that neither will run comskip on a file that already has an edl or txt file. You can also kick of the same process using the "Run Comskip" button on the Options panel for the recording. So you can have more than one instance of comkip running.. One started by CSM, and many started by S-o-W or the "Run Comskip" button.

Originally Posted by null_pointer_us

I enabled Start on Watch and then gave it a dummy.cmd file:..
This way Start on Watch will notice commercials found during live TV playback without interfering with DirMon2.

If you don't want Start on Watch to run, just disable it in the Comskip Playback Options. Start on Watch has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to "notice commercials found during live TV", with the exception that it may be running comskip with a different ini file that has live_tv=1

Originally Posted by null_pointer_us

Oddly, I got live TV commercial scanning running just fine with live_tv=0. Maybe the --playnice (or -n) option I'm passing in DirMon2 overrides the live_tv setting in comskip's .ini file? Without --playnice, SageTV chokes.

When live_tv=1 comskip creates it's edl/txt files while it's scanning. If live_tv=0, then the edl/txt are not created until the scan is finished, which on Live TV, is not until the recording stops

John

[49studebaker]

Would it be possible to implement a feature showing the comskip status of a recorded show? For each recording a red icon would indicate recording has not be comskipped, yellow would indicate comskip is in progess, and green would indicate comskip has finished. See attached image.

[gplasky]

There are icons for cs and not cs already. I'm not sure if it would be possible to have one for in progress.

Gerry

[49studebaker]

I see the Comskip icons in the directory:
"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3"
but they do not show up in the recordings. Do the icons show up if a person is using SageMC? By the way I am only using the server.

One way to check if Comskip is in progress would be by checking the .log file to see if the phrase "Time at end of run" is currently in the file. That phrase appears when Comskip has finished. So in order to implement that a programmer would need to run a loop and check every so often(maybe every 30 minutes plus extra time for padded recordings, since that is the shortest lenght of a show) if that phrase exists in the log file. If .edl or .log exist comskip is running(yellow icon), if the phrase is in the log file then comskip is done(green icon), or if no .edl or .log file exists then comskip has not started(red icon).