Plugin: CommercialDetector

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by null_pointer_us

Can this plugin delete the files it generates?

While troubleshooting other problems, I found that starting the SageTV service kept one processor core at 100% usage for several minutes. So I looked in my recordings folder and saw a few thousand orphaned .txt/.edl/.logo files (i.e. the recordings had been deleted long ago). Apparently, the CommercialDetector plugin hadn't deleted any of the files it generated.

When I used to run DirMon2/comskip, I had it configured to autodelete orphaned .txt/.edl/.logo files, so my recording directory was nice and clean.

It should delete them. Look for the setting called "Files to cleaanup" (or something similar). That tells CommercialDetector to delete files with specific extensions.

[Dargason]

I tried comskip a couple years ago and never got it working satisfactorily. I've re-installed it again recently and I am quite impressed and how well it works and how nicely it has been integrated into Sage. Well done!

The only issue I have is the following. I use another great mod (PodcastRecorder ) occasionally to get a show from Hulu/Netflix that I've missed. This puts mpg files into an "Online Videos" folder in one of my recording directories.

Under normal circumstances, these shows won't get queued for comskip, which is fine because they don't usually have commercials. However, if I do a manual scan for unprocessed shows, they will be picked up and queued.

This is a problem because sometimes when processing these videos, the comskip service goes into an endless loop (I think it's because it sometimes marks the whole show as a commercial).

Is there a way to prevent these shows from being queued during a manual scan? Or is there a way to have podcast recorder put the shows into an import directory that isn't scanned by CommercialDetector?

[Fuzzy]

Does the podcast recorder store anything in the channel metadata field for those programs? If so, you can restrict ComDet to ignore that channel. If it doesn't, you may be able to make a script that will make/add data to the associated properties file... or, you could create empty .edl files and that should prevent it from being picked up.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Dargason

I tried comskip a couple years ago and never got it working satisfactorily. I've re-installed it again recently and I am quite impressed and how well it works and how nicely it has been integrated into Sage. Well done!

The only issue I have is the following. I use another great mod (PodcastRecorder ) occasionally to get a show from Hulu/Netflix that I've missed. This puts mpg files into an "Online Videos" folder in one of my recording directories.

Under normal circumstances, these shows won't get queued for comskip, which is fine because they don't usually have commercials. However, if I do a manual scan for unprocessed shows, they will be picked up and queued.

This is a problem because sometimes when processing these videos, the comskip service goes into an endless loop (I think it's because it sometimes marks the whole show as a commercial).

Is there a way to prevent these shows from being queued during a manual scan? Or is there a way to have podcast recorder put the shows into an import directory that isn't scanned by CommercialDetector?

There is no direct way, you'll have to do something like Fuzzy suggested. I'll have to review the code but I think it always sets the channel number to 0 and the genre to "podcastrecorder". Take a look at the detailed info for a recorded show and I think it will be clearer.

[NetworkGuy]

I have noticed that comskip seems to make mistakes most often at the end of certain shows. Is there a configuration option that will tell comskip to ignore the last 5 minutes of a show and not check it for commercials?

Thanks,
John

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

I have noticed that comskip seems to make mistakes most often at the end of certain shows. Is there a configuration option that will tell comskip to ignore the last 5 minutes of a show and not check it for commercials?

Thanks,
John

In the .ini file, add:

always_keep_last_seconds=300

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

In the .ini file, add:

always_keep_last_seconds=300

Just made the change.

Thanks!!
John

[sacrament055]

Idea for an enhancement to this awesome plugin. I've been thinking that adding an optional delay before commercial detection starts might be beneficial for those of us that browse TV shows we don't necessarily plan to keep and as soon as I hit stop it starts running comskip. If a delay were inserted that file would be deleted by sage as it was never a favorite or intended to be kept.

Alternately or in addition the option to only run comskip on favorites would solve this.

Thanks again.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Idea for an enhancement to this awesome plugin. I've been thinking that adding an optional delay before commercial detection starts might be beneficial for those of us that browse TV shows we don't necessarily plan to keep and as soon as I hit stop it starts running comskip. If a delay were inserted that file would be deleted by sage as it was never a favorite or intended to be kept.

Alternately or in addition the option to only run comskip on favorites would solve this.

Thanks again.

Good ideas.

[malbec]

Trouble shooting help please ... for some reason commercial detector does not seem to delete the left over .txt, .edl, etc. files automatically if I go into the setting for the plugin and query for the files, it will find them and then delete them ... but it requires me to do this "manually." Is this normal behavior? If not, thoughts/ideas on where to look? Thanks

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by malbec

Trouble shooting help please ... for some reason commercial detector does not seem to delete the left over .txt, .edl, etc. files automatically if I go into the setting for the plugin and query for the files, it will find them and then delete them ... but it requires me to do this "manually." Is this normal behavior? If not, thoughts/ideas on where to look? Thanks

It should delete them automatically. Turn on debugging in Sage, set CommercialDetector loglevel to Trace, then send me a zipped logfile after some failed deletions. I've had one or two other reports like this but I can't reproduce it and I have no logs to look at.

Thanks,

Tom

[adone36]

How does detector monitor which files to parse?? I just donated to Erik because the latest donor comskip allows wtv files. I want to add my 7MC directory to the Sage import path and have comskip mark the commercials.

Problem: The newest donor comskip does not run on live tv, so I assume I have to turn off parsing on start up. Where are the directories to monitor set up?

My 7MC box is also a SageClient. Would it be better to run a second instance of comskip (can you even do that?) using the donor version on the wtv files and leave the Sage version alone?

[Dargason]

The plugin doesn't monitor directories, it launches comskip on recordings as they are finished. Each instance of comskip processes one recording and then ends. Comskip doesn't stay running like ShowAnalyzer does. So there's no "turning off parsing."

In your case, what you probably want to do is force a scan of the recording/import directories in order to pick up the recordings you moved over. You can pretty easily do that in the plugin configuration screen.

Take a look at the plugin configuration screen -- I think it will answer a lot of questions for you. To find it, go into Settings->Sage Plugins then locate the Commercial Detector plugin, click on it, and choose Configure. (I think... I'm not at home right now.)

There's also a lot of good information at http://code.google.com/p/tmiranda/wi...ercialDetector

[adone36]

So the plugin only runs on the recordings Sage makes as opposed to the old version of Sage where you left comskip monitor running. Tom's plugin has to be the greatest add in to the nuts and bolts of Sage usage there is.

I definitely don't want to "scan" all the import directories because I have thousands of movie files. I suppose I could use my 7MC directory as an import path and then click on the individual files and "run comskip". I assume it will use the same path as the file for the edl files. Or I could just run comskip monitor on the 7MC server. I'll probably do the latter because I can leave the Sage install with "start comskip on recording start", which I cannot do on the donor version which reads wtv files.

[Fuzzy]

So are you using those WTV files in sage? or just in 7MC? It sounds like, if the new version of comskip doesn't work for your livetv sagetv recordings, you should continue using the old version with them, and then use something like dirmon2 with the wmc files and the newer version of comskip that does work with them.

[Dargason]

When you force a scan, it will skip any videos that already have edl files. Also, you can configure which file extensions to do, so you could have it ONLY do the wtv files for that time, and then when it's done you can add the other extensions back in.

I never comskip live TV (or watch it, for that matter) so losing that ability isn't a big issue for me. But Fuzzy's idea of running DirMon to monitor directories for wtv files and using that to start your comskip should work too. This would have the added feature of allowing you to use different ini files for the wtv files than for your sage files.

(Note: CommercialDetector allows you to use different ini files for different channels and even for specific programs, but I don't think you can have it choose an ini file based on the file type. I could be wrong.)

[adone36]

Since my 7MC server is a different box than my Sage server, Fuzzy's suggestion would be the way to go. I figured I would add the wtv directory to my import directories and I would have it all in one place with Sage. I read that Sage 7 would playback wtv files.

My new problem??? Apparently Sage does not recognize the wtv file type as valid, so the wtv files directory does not appear under Videos. I have a post in the Sage subforum asking about where Sage sets valid file types, but still no answers.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Dargason

(Note: CommercialDetector allows you to use different ini files for different channels and even for specific programs, but I don't think you can have it choose an ini file based on the file type. I could be wrong.)

You are not wrong.

[Hawaii50]

First, I want to thank you tmiranda for your work on this plug in. I've got Commercial Dectector running perfectly on new Sage recordings from a HD Homerun. However, when I want to run comskip manually on a previously recorded show, nothing seems to happen after pressing the button.

Other than enabling the button to appear, are there any other settings to enable this functionality that I've missed?

I am running Sage v7 on Win 7 64 bit with one HD200 extender.

[gacevich]

My comskip was working perfectly until a few weeks ago when I updated the comskip plugin after the system prompt that the is newer version. Now comskip does not automatically or manually run. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin. Still no joy. I been waiting to see if others have this problem and the potential release of another comskip update. Wondering if the issue is just me.

Sage 7, comskip 2.0.12, Java 7 (update 5).