Showanalyzer user .. question about config

[TechBill]

The biography channel commerical is longer than what set in the SA config default setting.

So I ran it in schoolhouse and it detected all block perfectly but some of the blocks are commerical and it think it a show so I tried to understand Schoolhouse result to adjust SA config for a better result and couldn't made the head and tail of it.

I tried to find a doc on schoolhouse but couldn't find any so I thought Ill post on here and see if someone here with some knowledge on SA and schoolhouse can give me a hand with it.

Is there a way to set in schoolhouse that the blocks, it think is a show is actually a commerical or I have to manually edit config and re-run the analyzer each time adjusting the config?


Thanks
Bill

[ryttingm]

I've played around a lot with schoolhouse and showanalyzer and feel I have a pretty good understand of what everything is and how to best tweak it.

The first thing you can play around with is how blocks are segmented. Ideally you want a divider between each commercial. Some of the settings that effect this are.

Preselector Method - I find Percentile works best across a range of shows
Preselectore Threshold - likely hood that something will be marked as divider frames
Types of Dividers -
Blank Frame
Scene Change
Double Scene Change

As you change these settings in schoolhouse you will see additional dividers appear and disappear in the bar below.

Everything else operates on the divided blocks that were created in the first part. If the dividers aren't correct to begin with you will not get the tool to recognize commercials properly. Once you have your dividers properly setup you can start to change the parameters that increase or decrease the value of a segment. Lower numbers are considered "show" and higher numbers are considered "commercial". The thresholds CTST and STCT determine if the segment is show or commercial.

First are length limits. These are used to help differentiate commercial from show. The multipliers that actually effect the segment score are specified later.

LPCS - Longest possible commercial segment
LPIC - Longest possible individual commercial
SPCS - Shortest possible commercial segment
SPSS - Shortest possible show segment

Next lets go into the Score modifiers.

AR - If the aspect ratio of the segment doesn't match then multiply by this number

CC - Change in close caption

EP+ - this is the big one. EP is edge profile. Basically the system is looking for static images in your picture. Specifically channel logos. If a segment is transitioning from a segment without a logo to a segment with a logo you use this multiplier
EP - This is transitioning in the opposite direction to EP+
EP? - This is when the transition in edge profile is uncertain

LHP - Uses the length thresholds defined above. High probability of being a commercial based on length.
LHPC - this is a combined probability of multiple segments next to eachother being a commercial
LLP - Low probability of being a commercial based on length
LMP/LMPC - Medium probability, again based on length and the thresholds defined above.

LTL - Length too long. Longer than LPIC defined in length thresholds
LTS - Length too short. Shorter than SPSS defined above

Hopefully this will help you out some.

-Mike

Edit: Oh and you can change these settings on the fly and see the total accumulated score in the right panel for each segment in schoolhouse.

[TechBill]

Yeah I understood about the dividers.

The problem I was having is that the dividers did appear in the schoolhouse and mark the segment perfectly but some of the blocks were green (show) when it should been red (commerical)

So I notice that some of the commerical on that network is longer than what it normally is and I adjust the lenght of commerical but it still green instead of red.

Also I notice those block schoolhouse mark them as medium probabilty while ones the commerical are marked high probabilty, so I am thinking I need to set that those medium probabilty that it is commerical or adjust it that it become high probabilty.

I made several adjustment but nothing had change and seem the same I do have a question on about adjustment is when you make adjustment on the config, does it update it right away or you have run analzyer again? And do I need to reload or save the change before I see any outcome changes?


Thank you for replying!
Bill

[ryttingm]

Schoolhouse has always updated right away for me. What is your total "score" for the segment in question? What value do you see for EP? Sometimes I notice that the edge profile didn't change like it should. This can be difficult to overcome because the algorithm relies pretty heavily on the channel logos with the default settings. Can you supply a screenshot with the segment in question highlighted?

-Mike

[TechBill]

Here are the 3 photos that shows commericals in the green but on the second photo show it green however the block said it commerical so probably a bug on this one.

I uploaded it to my site and here are the links to the photos.

Each photo I slide the bar in the middle where it green but is really a commerical.

http://www.billyjackzone.com/seg1.jpg

http://www.billyjackzone.com/seg2.jpg
(this one block info says commerical but it showing green so probably a bug?)

http://www.billyjackzone.com/seg3.jpg

Thanks for checking it out. I will try to fiddling setting some more.


Bill

[TechBill]

Ah I think I know why it didn't update the changes I made in setting to the blocks because I didn't click the reload button.

So here the update after reloading now and 1 block now detects as a commerical which is it is but other two still think it a show.


http://www.billyjackzone.com/seg1a.jpg

http://www.billyjackzone.com/seg2a.jpg


Bill

[TechBill]

Ok I changed the edge profile EP+ 0.1 to 1 and it did change the score and detected the commerical correctly.

http://www.billyjackzone.com/edge.jpg

I haven't checked yet but do SA offer seperate config for each network or it's 1 config for all networks?

I am wondering if I am to change this and it can fail to detect commerical propertly on other network station.

Thank for your help
Bill

[ryttingm]

Originally Posted by TechBill

Ok I changed the edge profile EP+ 0.1 to 1 and it did change the score and detected the commerical correctly.

http://www.billyjackzone.com/edge.jpg

I haven't checked yet but do SA offer seperate config for each network or it's 1 config for all networks?

I am wondering if I am to change this and it can fail to detect commerical propertly on other network station.

Thank for your help
Bill

The .1 multiplier for EP+ is big. If you have a network that doesn't have logos you increase the chance of false EP+ which will almost always result in a misclassification with .1 EP+. I believe you can setup multiple profiles in SA and configure Dirmon to use the different profiles based on certain conditions. I haven't done this myself so I can't recommend the exact procedure. You will not want to change EP+ to 1 in all cases as you will reduce the accuracy of the algorithm especially on networks that do use logos.

-Mike

[ryttingm]

Looking some more at your screen shots I'm not sure you have enough dividers. The segment in question is 2:40 long. This will limit the effectiveness of your length based criteria. I recommend you try turning on at least "scene change" as possibly even "double scene change" to see if you can get the dividers right. Those settings are under "Types of dividers". Or is that commercial segment actually 2 minutes 40 seconds long?

-Mike

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by ryttingm

Looking some more at your screen shots I'm not sure you have enough dividers. The segment in question is 2:40 long. This will limit the effectiveness of your length based criteria. I recommend you try turning on at least "scene change" as possibly even "double scene change" to see if you can get the dividers right. Those settings are under "Types of dividers". Or is that commercial segment actually 2 minutes 40 seconds long?

-Mike

For that network "Bio" yes commercial segment is actually that long. Even close to 4 minutes per segment.

Segment is several different commerical in one right? Just wanted to make sure I understood this correctly.

I will try the different dividers type and see if I can get better result from it.

Thank you
Bill

[TechBill]

I put the EP+ back to 0.1 and turn on both the scene change and the double scene change.
.

Here the result

http://www.billyjackzone.com/change.jpg

Edited: Craps it still missed the 2 longest commerical in there and I notice all other commericals are EP=0 while the 2 longest one have EP=1

Is there a way to disable EP completely and not use it?


Thank for the advices!
Bill

[TechBill]

So far the only way I can get it to detect as a commerical is to change EP+ from 0.1 to 1


I tried many other different settings and no luck.

Bill

[ryttingm]

For the algorithm to work the best, each individual commercial should be divided into it's own segment. Ideally you would see dividers at every transitions from show to commercial, and from commercial to commercial. This allows the length constraints to work better. Based on your last screenshot, it looks like the detection worked pretty well. The segment you have highlighted is properly marked as "commercial". Am I missing something? You still don't seem to have enough dividers though. Try adjusting your percentile down and see if you can get more dividers.

-Mike

P.S. setting EP* to 1 effectively disables edge profile detection as you have done already.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by ryttingm

For the algorithm to work the best, each individual commercial should be divided into it's own segment. Ideally you would see dividers at every transitions from show to commercial, and from commercial to commercial. This allows the length constraints to work better. Based on your last screenshot, it looks like the detection worked pretty well. The segment you have highlighted is properly marked as "commercial". Am I missing something? You still don't seem to have enough dividers though. Try adjusting your percentile down and see if you can get more dividers.

-Mike

P.S. setting EP* to 1 effectively disables edge profile detection as you have done already.

Actually there a bug in schoolhouse. the last screenshot I posted shows all red commerical when the 2 biggest block is detected as a show but red in color instead of green. Those 2 biggest block is actually 1 long commerical but SA is detecting it as a show unless I set EP=1

Bill