Plugin: CommercialDetector

[Email68]

Tom,

I figured out my issue.

I had converted those shows to MP4. I had no idea sage would list them again on the recording page.

The MP4 extension is not one of these the plugin looks for, so I assume, offers no button to run comskip.

-Tim

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Tim,

Are you running on a SageClient or a Placeshifter/Extender? Any other plugins installed?

The button should say "Delete" if there is a .txt or .edl file for the selected recording. If you press the "Delete" button it should change to "Run Comskip". So you will see one or the other depending on if a .txt or .edl file exists for the recording.

To help me debug your situation please check to see if there is a corresponding .txt or .edl file for the recording(s) that will not display the "Run Comskip" button.

Thanks,

Tom

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Email68

The MP4 extension is not one of these the plugin looks for, so I assume, offers no button to run comskip.

Correct. Comskip and ShowAnalyzer do not work with .mp4 files. What you can do is run comskip against the .mpg before it is converted and keep the .edl files.

[kricker]

I accidentally queued all my previous recording twice. How do I view the queue and clean out the duplicates?

EDIT:
I found the *.DB file in the CommercialDetector folder and edited it in notepad. That seemed to work. Is there a way to do it in the Sage UI?

[jlmdxtv]

Extremely nice plugin tmiranda!

I see that "Delete All Orphaned and Extraneous Files" is only available on the Server. Could it be added to the Client too?, or have the Server do it automatically (e.g. very N hours, or when a new unrelated job starts)?

I find my Shows directory ends up with lots of these because I cancel recordings that are in progress at times, or watch & delete (the .mpg) outside of Sage using other utilities. I rarely even start the UI on my Sage Server.

thank you, john

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by kricker

I accidentally queued all my previous recording twice. How do I view the queue and clean out the duplicates?

EDIT:
I found the *.DB file in the CommercialDetector folder and edited it in notepad. That seemed to work. Is there a way to do it in the Sage UI?

There is no way to delete the duplicates, but I've been playing around to see if I can add it. No ETA, I'm busy with another project at the moment.

You can delete the DB file which will delete all of the queued recordings, but I would not try to edit it manually. Consider yourself lucky that it worked

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jlmdxtv

I see that "Delete All Orphaned and Extraneous Files" is only available on the Server. Could it be added to the Client too?, or have the Server do it automatically (e.g. very N hours, or when a new unrelated job starts)?

I find my Shows directory ends up with lots of these because I cancel recordings that are in progress at times, or watch & delete (the .mpg) outside of Sage using other utilities. I rarely even start the UI on my Sage Server.

thank you, john

John,

Making the function work on a Client is on my "to do" list.

If you cancel recordings that are in progress CD should clean up after itself, if it does not let me know because that would be a bug.

Deleting recordings outside of the Sage interface will certainly result in orphans. I'm a bit reluctant to put in an automatic scan because if you have lots of recordings it takes a long time, and puts a heavy load on the system. I'll give some thought to how I can accommodate your request without introducing performance problems.

[kricker]

No problem. Now I know to not press that option twice impaitently.

[electronics4lif]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I am actually in the same boat and that is one of my main drivers for implementing this. If you are interested in helping me test please PM me your email address and I'll send you somethig when it's ready. I would like more data than just my system can provide so I can "tune" things to work as smooth as possible. The way it's architected right now it will try to estimate how long jobs take to finish and as more jobs are run it should get better at estimating. Of course this is all theory until I can get enough data samples.

There is already the ability to totally block comskip from running during certian periods, I added that in the last update.

I know I am a bit late on this request, but I just turned off comskipmonitor today and installed your plugin. I have Intelligent Scheduling enabled. Let me know if there are any files I can send you that may help you still.

[electronics4lif]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

B - Sage will not display hidden directories in Linux or Windows. Filing a feature request with Sage has been on my "to do" list.

I didn't want to have too many moving parts so I did not update comskip to the latest. I'm actually considering breaking out the comskip files into a separate library plugin so I can provide upgrades independent of the UI and General plugin. I probably should have done it that way from the start...

Tom

I agree that having the comskip files in a seperate library plugin would be a nice addition.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by electronics4lif

I know I am a bit late on this request, but I just turned off comskipmonitor today and installed your plugin. I have Intelligent Scheduling enabled. Let me know if there are any files I can send you that may help you still.

I've been using it on my system and it works fine for me. Just turn on debug loggin in Sage and then set the leglevel on the COmmercialDetector General plugin to "Trace". If you have problems post here and attach the zipped logfile.

It will take a few days for the plugin to "tune" itself and figure out how long it actually takes to process the files. So don't be surprised if there is a gap in your recording schedule and no jobs are started. When you first install the plugin it assumes it will take 50% of the actual running time to process the file. (So it will wait until it has a 30 minute window before starting to process a 60 minute file.) It keeps track of how long it actually takes to process files (compensating for how many jobs are running and if there are any recordings in process) and gradually gets better at estimating how long it actually takes on your system.

[gbob]

When I go to an Imported Video Directory, the "Run Comskip" button shows for selected video (.ts), but when I click it nothing happens. Any suggestions...I do not have the "do not run comskip if there isn't enough time" selected nor was I running comskip on another file. Is it possible to run on imported videos?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by gbob

When I go to an Imported Video Directory, the "Run Comskip" button shows for selected video (.ts), but when I click it nothing happens.

The first thing that comes to mind is making sure you have the donator's version of comskip. The free version, that comes with the plugin, does not support .ts. If you make a donation to Erik he sends you a link to a version that does support .ts.

If that's not the problem you need to enable debug logging in Sage, set CommercialDetector's debug level to Trace, and post the logfile.

Tom

[gbob]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The first thing that comes to mind is making sure you have the donator's version of comskip. The free version, that comes with the plugin, does not support .ts. If you make a donation to Erik he sends you a link to a version that does support .ts.

If that's not the problem you need to enable debug logging in Sage, set CommercialDetector's debug level to Trace, and post the logfile.

Tom

Thanx for quick responce... the 2nd time I tried it started working...edl file being generated. Now I have another problem you maybe able to help with...I comskipped a recorded movie in Recording Directory and all looks good..ie edl generated..When I try and play it back on extenders or Sage Server I get circle of death that never goes away unless I Ctrl-Alt-Del and stop Sage. But I can play the file back fine from Sage Client with commercials marked/skipped just fine.

[tmiranda]

Does it play if you delete the .edl file? Is it just this one recording? All recordings in the recording directory? Only recordings with .edl files? I think it's a playback issue unrelated to CommercialDetector, but without more information it's hard to know for sure.

[gbob]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Does it play if you delete the .edl file? Is it just this one recording? All recordings in the recording directory? Only recordings with .edl files? I think it's a playback issue unrelated to CommercialDetector, but without more information it's hard to know for sure.

For some reason I had to change my video renderer on the Server...It's working now..thanx.

[RetroBox]

Sorry if I'm repeating things here, but I read a good potion of the thread and cannot find an answer. I currently use this plug-in with the free edition of Comskip and absolutely love it. What are the steps to integrate the donator edition of Comskip and continue to use the configuration menus and other benefits of the plugin while using the free version?

[tmiranda]

The plugin will work exactly the same regardless of what version of comskip you are using. To use the donator version do the following:

- Create a directory somewhere on your Sage server and put all of the files that come with the donator version into it.

- You can either edit the .ini file to your liking or take the quick and easy approach and copy the comskip.ini from the comskip directory (under the Sage install directory).

- Go to the CommercialDetector plugin (located on the General tab" and select Configure plugin.

- Look for the entries "Location of comskip.exe" and "Location of comskip.ini". Click on each of those and select the location where you put the donator's version.

Done.

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The plugin will work exactly the same regardless of what version of comskip you are using. To use the donator version do the following:

- Create a directory somewhere on your Sage server and put all of the files that come with the donator version into it.

- You can either edit the .ini file to your liking or take the quick and easy approach and copy the comskip.ini from the comskip directory (under the Sage install directory).

- Go to the CommercialDetector plugin (located on the General tab" and select Configure plugin.

- Look for the entries "Location of comskip.exe" and "Location of comskip.ini". Click on each of those and select the location where you put the donator's version.

Done.

Awesome, thanks so much for the quick rundown.... this will be my project for tomorrow. Thanks again!

[bigbill]

Tom, I have two questions. If the comskip verision shipped with this plugin doesn't work with .ts files, shouldn't the default for Valid Video file extentions not have .ts listed? Second question is, I see that Erik updates him comskip version fairly often. Whats the "best practice", should I keep the version I use with your plugin up to date?

Thanks, Bill


PS.. Very Cool Plugin!! I hadn't used comercial skip since moving from beyond a couple of years back. This was so simple to setup with your plugin I couldn't resist. I don't screw with the TV too much do to WAF...

[tmiranda]

Bill,

Thanks for the compliment, always appreciated

The list of default video types is used to determine if the .edl/.txt files are orphans (and should be deleted) or not. They are considered orphans if there is no corresponding video file - i.e. a file with the same base name and ending in one of the specified video extensions. The specified video extensions have no impact on what files are processed. I put this in because in an earlier version the .edl/.txt files were getting deleted after the original .mpg recording was converted into another format.

I rarely update comskip unless there is a good reason to.