Running Comskip server

[zakrzep]

How is everyone kicking off Comskip to begin detecting commercials? "Comskip Monitor", "Dirmon2", etc.?

Thanks

[rtengvad]

I use Dirmon2 to control both Comskip and SA

Rasmus

[alfi33]

I use Comskip Monitor and it's working pretty well for me. I'd be curious to know what advantages (if any) there were to using Dirmon2.

[erik]

I don't use any of them but from memory:

• Comskip monitor will only run one instance of Comskip at a time
• Comskip monitor is easy to setup.
• Dirmon2 can run multiple instances of Comskip on multiple shows.
• Dirmon2 requires you to pass the -ini=..... parameter otherwise comskip can not find its ini file and will deliver very bad detection results.
• Dirmon2 is more complex to setup.

[nyplayer]

I use SJQ it's the most flexible.

[megamojo]

Originally Posted by erik

I don't use any of them but from memory:

• Dirmon2 requires you to pass the -ini=..... parameter otherwise comskip can not find its ini file and will deliver very bad detection results.

I've never heard of that before, but did have problems at first. My solution was to put the ini in the recording directory(ies), not the directory where comskip.exe lives. It worked just fine after that.

[erik]

Originally Posted by megamojo

I've never heard of that before, but did have problems at first. My solution was to put the ini in the recording directory(ies), not the directory where comskip.exe lives. It worked just fine after that.

That also works but when you have many recording directories its cumbersome

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by erik

That also works but when you have many recording directories its cumbersome

Why not just create a simple batchfile like the one I use. Then if upgrades or change in ini you only have to change in one place. It works with dirmon sjg and all others. Simply use the batch file instead of the comskip.exe. In dirmon etc...

comskip.bat
cd comskip ---> you comskip directory
c: ----> drive letter of drive
start /b /w /low comskip.exe "%~f1"


Better yet if you only want one comskip instance to maintain and have multiple systems. Share the comskip Directory. and use a similar batchfile below.

comskip.bat
"\\youserver\comskip\comskip.exe" --ini="\\yourserver\comskip\comskip.ini" "%~f1"

[CollinR]

I gotta agree with nyplayer, SJQ (Sage Job Queue) is the best method, however getting it setup correctly isn't the easiest.

You can use different comskip.ini based on info from the SageTV database, like IsHD, Channel or Title. The control is several orders of magnitude better however while installing I updated my version of comskip and realized I have no need for multiple ini. Great work there erik and none of this would be possible without your work. Still after it's done with comskip it uses entirely different logic on which files it should now transcode and to what format. This using the built in SageTVtranscoder which makes it very very nice.

The only thing I may suggest is a day of the week, it seems you can control comskip and transcoding to the second in a day you can't make a weekly schedule (??I think??).

Later today I will get some screencaps from my install. The install itself is cake it has a real installer option that does everything for you. Have Niel's web user interface installed in advance and the installer will simply add an SJQ menu item. Click that and you are on to configuration, this is where you may get confused depending on how complex you want it to be.

EDIT:
Screencaps are up
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...741#post304741

[toricred]

Another method is to use DVRMS Toolbox. I started using it recently and after working out a few kinks (waiting for babgvant to make it work with .mpg files) it works great. I found it much easier to configure than SJQ and you can have multiple computers working together to process your files.