Immediate Comskip Processing?

[bstowers]

I know that there was an option somewhere that told Sage to begin Comskip (ShowAnalyzer in my case) processing on a show immediately, or within a certain amount of time, when recording starts, but I can't find it anywhere now. I have it working that way on my old rig, but I can't find it on my new one. It's not on the Setup -> SageMC -> Enhancements -> Comskip Options where I thought it would be. I'm really stumped about how I have this working on my old system. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[kevine]

I don't know about show analyzer but here is the real time commercial skip processing for comskip.

I think this is what you were looking for.

[bstowers]

The only thing I could find in that thread about it was a reference to DirMon, which I'm not using.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by bstowers

The only thing I could find in that thread about it was a reference to DirMon, which I'm not using.

It's in that thread look in your ini file and set the following.


live_tv=0 and change it to live_tv=1

[bstowers]

Ah, that's for comskip.ini, but I'm using ShowAnalyzer.

Sorry for the confusion, but that's not what I was looking for. I mentioned ComSkip because that's what the SageMC UI calls it, even though I'm just using a proxy COMSKIP.EXE that really goes out and runs ShowAnyalyzer.exe.

[bstowers]

Ok, I think I was completely off on this. It doesn't look like this was a SageMC option at all. I thought SageMC was running the ComSkip app after the recording was finished, and there was option I had to enable to tell it to run when it started recording. Doesn't look like that's the case at all. I think the option I needed was actually set in the ShowAnalyzer configuration, probably much the same as the ComSkip INI setting you referenced.

Sorry about that.

[MeInMaui]

The setting in SageMC that you are describing does run Comskip (or Comskip proxy) after a recording is completed. However, this is not the recommended implementation. (The feature is only there to support legacy users who would prefer not to change).

For SA, it is recommended to run Dirmon2. You can set up Dirmon to scan your recording directories every X minutes and initiate multiple instances of SA. With this setup, you can have commmercial detection running only a few minutes behind the recording. The commercials will automatically show up in the time bar as they are detected.

I believe I have read that the next version of SA is slated to include Dirmon-like features so that the separate program will not be required.

Aloha,
Mike

[bstowers]

Well, I've spent 2 hours trying to get DirMon2 to work, and I'm pretty fed up with it at this point. I know my old system did what I'm trying to do just fine, and i didn't involve DirMon2, so I think I've wasted enough time on it.

[Skacey]

What doesn't work about Dirmon2?

I've come close to getting it to work for about 24 hours at a time on a Vista based machine. It did take quite a bit of tweaking to get there and so far, no fix has been suggested from the forum.

I do find it a bit ironic that in scanning the forum I see the solution to most Comskip problems seems to be to recommend Show Analyzer - While Show Analyzer challenges get referred to Comskip. Same for Dirmon2 and Comskip Monitor.

On my system, I have found that for me Comskip and Comskip Monitor is a bit more stable but does not process shows until they have completed recording. Show Analyzer and Dirmon2 processed shows almost immediately, but crashed after 24-48 hours of running.

As to the installation for both, on a Vista machine I had to run the installer as an Administrator (otherwise it would not have enough authorization to run) I then had to go to the service (CSM for Comskip Monitor and DirMon2 for DirMon2) open the properties, set the user to Administrator and Autostart. Then a reboot and it ran.

For both, I could not tell when they were running without opening the task manager and monitoring the Recording Directory.

-Skacey
-Orlando, FL

[bstowers]

What doesn't work about Dirmon2?

Well, on my real DVR system, I set it up according to the SageTV specific guide that I found in the Dragon Global support forums. I left it running the most of all day, and that evening none of the newly recorded shows had any commercial detection at all. I double checked the settings (both DirMon2 and SA) against the guide and could find no differences. This is on a Windows XP system, not Vista.

So, I installed DirMon2 on my development system and created a small program that when executed with a command line parameter, creates a new file with the same name, but with a number for the extension. It looks for the first free number. So, if you run the app with "C:\DirMonTest\Foo.txt", it will create a file named "C:\DirMonTest\Foo.1", unless that file already exists. If it does, then it creates a ".2" file, again, unless it already exists. I think you get the idea.

I then configured DirMon2 on my system according to the same guide for using it with SageTV and SA, except I used my new app as the program to run, Target Extensions was set to "txt" and a "Must Not Exist" trigger of "1" was used. I also set the polling time to 5 seconds so I didn't have to wait forever to see if it worked.

So, I installed and started the service, and every 5 seconds a new file was being created the test directory once I created a "foo.txt" file. I have no idea what's going on at this point. Not only does it not behave like it did on my other machine, it still fails, just in a new way. Now it does run my program, but it won't stop running it when the "must not exist" file does exist. When it ran the first time, it created "foo.1", so it should have stopped after that, but instead I got a "foo.2" on the next polling interval, and then "foo.3", etc.

At that point, I started flailing away at the "Must Exist", "Must Not Exist" and "Target" values trying all sorts of weird combinations just to see if maybe that guide I had been using was somehow out of date or something, but I never got it working.

Then I realized how long I had wasted trying to get it to work, and so I quit wasting my time.

[gplasky]

On your Windows XP system (or Vista) you need to make sure you setup the service with a user that has a password and is an administrator of the system. You can do it thru Dirmon or thru Services.

Target should be mpg
Must exist would be mpg
Must not exist should be edl

I've also enabled a blackout so none of them are processed until between 1700 and 2330 so it won't impact users during normal viewing hours. Runs like a champ and the latest version of SA gracefully skips the HD-PVR h.264 files that it can't process...yet.

Gerry

[nyplayer]

Obviously you are doing something wrong... Why not post your ini file and stop complaining that Dirmon does not work.. It works as designed if configured correctly. Also go to control panel administrative tools then services find Dirmon2 double click it and on the logon tab retype your user name and password.

Originally Posted by bstowers

Well, on my real DVR system, I set it up according to the SageTV specific guide that I found in the Dragon Global support forums. I left it running the most of all day, and that evening none of the newly recorded shows had any commercial detection at all. I double checked the settings (both DirMon2 and SA) against the guide and could find no differences. This is on a Windows XP system, not Vista.

So, I installed DirMon2 on my development system and created a small program that when executed with a command line parameter, creates a new file with the same name, but with a number for the extension. It looks for the first free number. So, if you run the app with "C:\DirMonTest\Foo.txt", it will create a file named "C:\DirMonTest\Foo.1", unless that file already exists. If it does, then it creates a ".2" file, again, unless it already exists. I think you get the idea.

I then configured DirMon2 on my system according to the same guide for using it with SageTV and SA, except I used my new app as the program to run, Target Extensions was set to "txt" and a "Must Not Exist" trigger of "1" was used. I also set the polling time to 5 seconds so I didn't have to wait forever to see if it worked.

So, I installed and started the service, and every 5 seconds a new file was being created the test directory once I created a "foo.txt" file. I have no idea what's going on at this point. Not only does it not behave like it did on my other machine, it still fails, just in a new way. Now it does run my program, but it won't stop running it when the "must not exist" file does exist. When it ran the first time, it created "foo.1", so it should have stopped after that, but instead I got a "foo.2" on the next polling interval, and then "foo.3", etc.

At that point, I started flailing away at the "Must Exist", "Must Not Exist" and "Target" values trying all sorts of weird combinations just to see if maybe that guide I had been using was somehow out of date or something, but I never got it working.

Then I realized how long I had wasted trying to get it to work, and so I quit wasting my time.

[bstowers]

Why not post your ini file and stop complaining that Dirmon does not work..

Because I don't care about it any more. Skacey asked what didn't work, I told him. Sorry to have offended you.

[nyplayer]

You didn't offend me at all I was just trying to help. I have been in situations where things do not seem to work I get pissed so I know the feeling only to find out it was something small. One thing if you are using Comskip you have to tell Dirmon2 where the ini file is in the command line section.