Comskip? SA? DIrmon?

[Grasshopper]

Hi folks,

I'm at least two years behind the curve of Sage technology, and am just now working on implementing commercial skipping. And as usual, I'm overwhelmed by the alternatives available and hopelessly confused. What are current best practices or recommendations for commercial skipping? I'm running SageMC already, what do I need?

[bialio]

You need two things:

1) Program to detect the commercials - options are ComSkip and ShowAnalyzer. Both work very well.

2) Program to monitor the recording folder - this program runs on a computer (doesn't have to be the Sage Server) and watches for new .mpg or .ts files to run the program from #1 on. Options are DirMon (works with either Comskip or ShowAnalyzer) or ComSkipMonitor (works with comskip).

That's all you need. You don't have to do ANYTHING in Sage - SageMC will see that the file it's playing back has associated commercial data and will use it automatically. If you were using the default STV you'd have to install a plugin, but it's built in with SageMC.

btl.

[Deacon Crusher]

Anyone figured out which way to jump for commercial skipping with new hd pvr h264 files?

Thanks

[wbarber69]

I'd say transcode them to mpeg and use SA

[othy]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

Anyone figured out which way to jump for commercial skipping with new hd pvr h264 files?

Thanks

I believe Jere posted that he pre-ordered an HD-PVR and said that ShowAnalyzer would support it. I'm going from memory though...

Tim

[infocus13]

You can try Comskip Monitor, a great, easy to use & setup application. The package comes with everything you need (i.e. no need to download several apps) and the config script works very well & configures everything for you. Took me about 5 mins to setup & get working.

[Jynxed]

You Avatar totally tricked dkatchalov.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Jynxed

You Avatar totally tricked dkatchalov.

It got me for a second too. Pretty hysterical!

[jherrick]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

It got me for a second too. Pretty hysterical!

Ditto. Almost punched my LCD!

[davephan]

Originally Posted by wbarber69

I'd say transcode them to mpeg and use SA

What program do you use to transcode an AVI into MPEG2?

Dave

[Fuzzy]

I believe sage's built-in transcoder can do H.264, but I don't have an HD-PVR to try it out. If this is the case, you could do it with DirMon2 running the show. A rundown of the steps involved would be:

• Transcoding Job:

• Monitor Sage Recordings folder for .ts files that don't have an .edl or .transcoded file
• Create an empty .transcoded file in the Sage Recordings folder
• Run SageTVTranscoder with the temp folder as destination
  
• Analysing Job:

• Monitor temp folder for .mpg files that don't have an .edl file
• Run ShowAnalyser or Comskip on .mpg file
• copy .edl to Sage Recordings Folder
• Remove .transcoded file from Sage Recordings Folder
• Remove .mpg from temp folder
  

The Transcode job could be done to a very low resolution, as SA doens't need all that much info to do it's job (320x240?). This might speed up the process a bit.

Limitation:

• SageTranscoder cannot operate while the file is recording, so you must wait until file is complete.

This is only a short-term solution until Jere gets H.264 into SA. This would be much better, as it could process the file as it is being written.

[bcjenkins]

Sagetranscoder is not likely new enough to decode the hd-pvr h264 streams.

B