Comskip Vs. Show Analyzer.

[megamojo]

I'm a longtime sage user and tweaker and just recently upgraded from version 2 to version 6 (.1.19, not brave enough to try 6.2 now that I'm content with what I'm running). In the past I used Cayar's STV, which is why I stayed with version 2 for so long. With that I used comskip and it worked just fine. I have dirmon2 setup to trigger comskip now and it's still working great, but it seems no one talks about comskip any more and show analyzer is all the rage. Since $10 is really not that much to spend on great software, what are the differences between SA and comskip? What advantages does SA have? I have already searched the forums for this, and though the answer may be there, it's buried under all the instructions to help people setup commercial skipping.

[lovingHDTV]

I've tried both. SA does integrate with the webserver so you can tell it to not run when recordings or playback is happening.

However, I've stayed with comskip because I get better results. I try SA everytime a new version comes out, but comskip still beats it. This is for out of the box running. I'm not interested in tweeking my detection settings per show/channel.

SA does seem to be faster, but that has not be a care about for me.

my $0.02

[Humanzee]

back when SA first came out, it was a lot faster than comskip, I have not run comskip since. Also, SA has the school house, which will help you adjust and refine your settings. I haven't tried to use that though.

[evilpenguin]

You can't go wrong with either as they both do a fantastic job of detecting commercials. However, I personally use comskip as I don't really have a need for the insane speed of SA because I cap the process at 70fps to save hard drive bandwidth.

[megamojo]

With comskip it takes me about 7 minutes to scan a 1 hour recording. This is not a big deal for me. What kind of speed does Show Analyzer give? It seems like comskip is the same speed on different hardware too, an old athlon 3200 (not athlon64) and my new dual core 4600 both take about 7 minutes to process a 1 hour recording. I have dirmon2 setup to not process until the files stop growing, so it already waits for recordings to finish before processing.

I guess I'm just curious as to why there are so many people using SA for $10 when comskip runs great and is free.

[Humanzee]

sounds like comskip could be about the same speed these days, dunno havn't tried comskip in years . I've just stuck with SA because the upgrades are free. The GUI makes things nicer too as you can get an idea of how closed to being done a file is, you can see the edge pattern logo detection. The config is all GUI based so you can quickly configure the settings, change output types etc. with out fiddling with an ini file text switches. School house supposedly lets you watch the scene changes to help you fiddle with your score modifiers. But I havn't messed with it. Like the evilpenguin said, they both get the job done. Its like a sail boat and a power boat. They both get you there, one just goes faster and you have to fill it with gas.

[BFisher]

I chose SA because it works while the program is still recording. Comskip might as well... but I couldn't tell that when I was researching which to go with. Plus, if someone did the work, I don't mind paying $10 for a great utility that creates a "must-have" feature.

[megamojo]

Yup, comskip works just fine while the program is still recording. Set live_tv to 1 instead of the default 0 in the ini file and you're good to go.

[erik]

Should I change the default setting of live_tv to 1?
Some people that where not using live_tv complained about the disk access caused by writing the intermediate results but now it seems to make things more complicated

[kevine]

Originally Posted by erik

Should I change the default setting of live_tv to 1?
Some people that where not using live_tv complained about the disk access caused by writing the intermediate results but now it seems to make things more complicated

Erik,

I would. After you fixed that problem for me Monday (thanks again), I ran Dirmon2 and let it run. It appeared that some HD recordings had pauses in them. I know it was not my playback codecs or anything like that because I could play back a 1080i football game with no problem.

The reason I would default it is these are options in software such as dirmon2 but you have to enable them to avoid running on live recordings. If live_tv setting to 1 does not affect performance or cause other things not to work as designed, I would set it. This way out of the box setup works.

My $.02

[megamojo]

What happens if live_tv is set to 0 but dirmon calls comskip while the recording is still in progress? This is most likely the situation that most people find themselves in "out of the box" whether they realize it or not. A few days ago I had live_tv set to 0 but I was savvy enough to tell dirmon not to run comskip until the file had stopped growing, I don't know if others would set it that way. Now that I know about live_tv i have it set to 1 and took out the growing option in dirmon and it works great.

[erik]

The only thing that comskip does when live_tv=1 is output intermediate analysis results. Comskip will always wait till the file is no longer growing.
So only when you want the analysis results while you are recording you need to set live_tv=1
But I will for sure consider setting live_tv=1 by default as many people are afraid to edit the ini file.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by erik

The only thing that comskip does when live_tv=1 is output intermediate analysis results. Comskip will always wait till the file is no longer growing.
So only when you want the analysis results while you are recording you need to set live_tv=1
But I will for sure consider setting live_tv=1 by default as many people are afraid to edit the ini file.

I have had comskip running on a file recording (growing) with the command window open. It is doing something with the file. I know you mentioned that it is a "reduced set of rules" in another thread. Never the less, it is still reading the video file. I think what megamojo is saying is there is a setting in Dirmon2 that will only execute comskip when it has stopped recording (growing).

[megamojo]

That's exactly what I was talking about. Before i had live_tv set to 1 I had this option enabled in dirmon because i wasn't sure what comskip would do with an incomplete file.

[erik]

The reduced set of rules is only used as long as the file is growing.
Once the writing is done comskip processes the complete file with full accuracy in EXACTLY the same way as it would when started after the recording.

There is normally no need to let dirmon2 wait for the recording to finish (unless you are recording in dvr-ms because processing while recording is not yet possible for dvr-ms)
Even more because processing while recording will nicely throttle comskip to a speed where is processing requirements are hardly noticeable. On my main pvr load is less then 7% per recording being processed. Also the load on the HDD is very low. Comskip will be finished some seconds after the recording is finished.

If you want dirmon2 to only start comskip when the recording is finished there should be a setting in dirmon2 for that. I don't know because I do not use dirmon2