Comskip Playback for v7

[chughes]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I had this at one time, as well. When you rebuilt, did you happen to copy your properties folder or perhaps even the entire Sage folder over from the previous system? Are you running the latest SageTV (7.1.9) with all the additional STV updates? Also, did you ever go into SageTV Studio and do any editing and overwrite the STV with plugins loaded?

None of the above. My previous system HDD just up and died. It wouldn't initialize. I'm still trying to see if I can recover the remote control mapping from it.
I think I'm running the latest Sage. I will have to check when I get home.
I've never used Sage Studio.

[Doubledose]

I have not been very active on this board since they kinda pulled the plug on sage. So my question is, is there a lot of differance between comskip 80-042 where I am at now to the latest 81-046? My comskip is off and has been for a little while now. I tried doing the tweeks way back in time, helped it some ,but have put up with it being off a little. After stopping back by here I may try to see if I can help it any. If I remeber right, wasn't the best way to set up an ini file for each channel such as cbs, abc, nbc, fox? or is there a better way to handle this now days?
Thanks for any info
Wayne

[Fuzzy]

If i had to guess, when you say your comskip's are 'off', it's not that they are missing the commercials, but the start and stop times are not exact. Most likely further off the later in the file you are. This is a result of sage's 'scaling' of the timeline to the airing duration. For instance, say it is a 60 minute show, but because of the time it takes to start and stop the recording, the file itself may actually be only 59m50s. Sage fakes does some timescaling on the timeline (which is what the comskip playback plugin uses) to make it LOOK like a 60 minute recording, but in reality, what happens is that it is off progressively from the 0 seconds at the beginning to the full 10 seconds at the end. If it weren't for comskip, it wouldn't matter - but with comskip, you have to disable that feature. This can be done in Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Comskip Playback Options -> Operation Options -> Disable Timeline Scaling to Yes.

This will likely make your skips pretty close (within a second).

[Doubledose]

Thanks Fuzzy

It was set to no. I will watch recordings and see if this helps.
Thanks
Wayne

[valnar]

I had Comskip installed for awhile and it works great with my HDHomeRun and analog tuners. I just recently added a USB Hauppauge HD-PVR. Recordings from that device don't seem to have any commercials. Is there something I need to do?

Edit: I just saw the text file that says it can't Comskip a H.264 file. Does anyone know if the HD-PVR can be made to use MPEG2, or if Comskip can be made to use H.264?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by valnar

I had Comskip installed for awhile and it works great with my HDHomeRun and analog tuners. I just recently added a USB Hauppauge HD-PVR. Recordings from that device don't seem to have any commercials. Is there something I need to do?

The free version of Comskip cannot process H.264 recordings (which the HD-PVR makes). You will need the donator's 'Early Access' version.

http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/

[mdnttoker]

yup, donator's version works great on HD-PVR files...

[valnar]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

yup, donator's version works great on HD-PVR files...

Got it. Paid my $10.

[mhassman]

Hi,
Does anyone know who maintains the comskip playback plugin for sagetv v7?

I'm running v2.0.15 - just upgraded comskip to v0.81.056 to get live tv working. Comskip does what it's supposed to - .edl file is accurate. The problem is with "Disable Timeline Scaling" set to: yes. This setting appears to be ignored while recording is active - so commercials skip at the wrong time. Once recording is complete, skipping occurs properly.

Is there any way to contact the author?
Please let me know..
Thnx!

-Mark

[Fuzzy]

The disable timeline scaling is a sagetv setting, not specific to comskip playback. That said, i don't believe there is any scaling until a recording is complete, so I'm not sure why it would be a problem. (The scaling is done once a recording is complete to make a 29.9 minute recording look like the full 30 minutes on the timeline). I'm not sure why sage would be presenting skewed numbers while recording, but if it is, there's nothing that could be done in the UI-Mod.

[NetworkGuy]

Is there a way to run Comskip on a imported video file?

I am importing the file as a TV show, so it shows up the in TV Recordings. But when I click on the file, there is not an option to run Comskip.

Thanks,
John

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Is there a way to run Comskip on a imported video file?

I am importing the file as a TV show, so it shows up the in TV Recordings. But when I click on the file, there is not an option to run Comskip.

Thanks,
John

If it is just one file drag it to the Comskip.exe.... where ever you keep comskip

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

If it is just one file drag it to the Comskip.exe.... where ever you keep comskip

Does not work on AVI files.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Does not work on AVI files.

Correct. Comskip only works with MPG and TS files. Depending on the codec used inside the AVI, it may be trivial to simply repackage the file into a TS container. AVI really isn't a very common container anymore.

[cefisher]

Hi!
I've been using SageTV and Comskip for quite along time now, and am having trouble with playback.
Sometimes (quite often, actually) playback will hang (without showing video) after skipping over a commercial. If we wait a few seconds, the audio will stop, and then we hit rewind (back arrow). From that point on, playback is okay until the next skip.

Any idea what is up?

[Fuzzy]

not going to be a comskip issue, per se. Comskip simply skips to a specific point in time, same as if you had skipped with a large skip. If playback is pausing, then there is either a problem in the playback path, or a problem seeking further through the file (poor timeline in the file, poor hard drive performance.

[cefisher]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

not going to be a comskip issue, per se. Comskip simply skips to a specific point in time, same as if you had skipped with a large skip. If playback is pausing, then there is either a problem in the playback path, or a problem seeking further through the file (poor timeline in the file, poor hard drive performance.

I agree that it's probably not Comskip--but I don't know what in SageTV could be causing this behavior.

[JREkiwi]

You could try enabling
Detailed Setup/Customize/ComSkip Playback Options/Operation Options/Pause Playback Before Skipping

It may help. I know in the past I needed it enabled for recordings from one of my tuners to skip nicely.

John

[eqwalker]

Ok guys, I have read through the thread about all of the tweaking and issues over the years to get comskip working on Sage. I currently run SageTv 7.0.23 on a WHS v1 server (Tranquil server) with 3 HD300 extenders. I have never used comskip before but was thinking about giving it a try, but after reading all the issues that people have had and having to tweak this and tweak that I am concerned that it may not work in my environment. Is there anyone that is using comskip on WHS with HD300 extenders and is there a good easy to follow guide to install and set it up without breaking everything? I have not updated SageTV to any version higher than above because I'm afraid I'll break it. I had to upgrade the HD300's so they would play my .flac audio tracks without hanging up between track changes. I tried upgrading them to a higher version and it broke the .flac playback again so I took them back. Anyway, sorry so long a post, I was just hoping for an easy straight forward way to give comskip a try but really don't know where to start with a WHS setup like mine. Also, SageTV is the only thing running on the server and SageTV is pointed to all file locations using URL paths.

[adone36]

All what "issues"? You just install the server and client plugins and it works. The donator version works faster and is worth the donation.