Commercial Advance Beta Release

[insomniac]

You could change your drives to UNC. Works fine for me that way. Have no idea if that will screw up your bin file, but i doubt it. you could ask frey before you do it to make sure.

I.

Originally posted by Coolwave
First off, wow the commercial skip works awesome on the server. I haven't tried the automatic skip detection while sleeping or whatever, but only because you haven't really tested it. Does the automatic use your Favorites priorities in order to select your most favorite shows first for commercial detection. I would really like to see a seperate page for organizing the order it should automatically run comskip on.

Okay, I can't get malore.stv to work for me on the SageTV Client. I can get all of mlbdude's stv and even MalDude.stv to work on the client, but not even the official release of malore.stv. I hadn't tried out malore's until now, so I don't know if the problem came up in an earlier release.

For client support wouldn't the requirements for commercial skip support on client be the same as using Sage Recorder. On my server I have my recording drives as H: and T: and on my Client machine I have them mapped on the network as H: and T: so both the server and client have the same drive access paths.

Either way I haven't gotten the client to load this version of malore.stv or the version on the malore information page.

Thanks for any help,
Brian

[ErsatzTom]

I'm not having any difficulty using it on the client side. But I didn't do anything particularly special either so I don't think I could be of any help.

t

[JasonJoel]

Tried that. It still didn't work. It doesn't mess anything up, exactly. Although it did make my used space/free space numbers incorrect.

All I know is that the problem is most likely NOT on the client side as far as properties file, per se. I did a complete wipe and reload of the OS (and Sage) on my client and get the exact same results. Could be an issue with the SageTV Client core software though I guess.

Just something going on it isn't happy about, on SOME client machines. Weird.

Jason

Originally posted by insomniac
You could change your drives to UNC. Works fine for me that way. Have no idea if that will screw up your bin file, but i doubt it. you could ask frey before you do it to make sure.

I.

[malore]

I'm wondering if the change I made to the disk space status indicator is causing the problem. See if setting "show_disk_status=false" in the sage.properties file on the client helps.

[kny3twalker]

repost because it was so long ago
well since I have seen anyone else write this but
why not have a way to enable comskip
it could just run while sage is a sleep
whenever SageTV is waked it would pause or when sage was recording
rather than have a your computer peaking 97-100% CPU while you want to watch something (I was able to watch stuff though just so you )

and can make the preview window on menus have a toggle on or off in the properties file
that is so annoying and I do not want to use video background

also for comskip2
are we suppose to replace the original comskip?

cause the only thing I noticed was that comskip2 was a lot smaller than comskip

[Coolwave]

Originally posted by malore
I'm wondering if the change I made to the disk space status indicator is causing the problem. See if setting "show_disk_status=false" in the sage.properties file on the client helps.

Instant fix. Now the official and beta work on my CLIENT machine. I just finished running my first commercial detection on my client machine and it worked very nicely.

Now I just need to find a way to import the cutlist into VideoReDo. After manually finding the frame numbers saved in the file, it does find the cut point right on when it detects properly. I hope you can get it to work better with Sage to translate the frames into the proper time.

[chrysek]

Originally posted by malore
Deadbolt: It should show up right after the .xml option when viewing the options menu in my custom version of SageTV Recordings (to set this, Custom Menus --> Settings -> Sage Recordings Style -> malore) If you switched the STV file without restarting SageTV, see if restarting it helps. Also be sure to download from the link on the first post and not from my usual site.

I am so sorry to bother you but I love this option to generate shows.xml and .xml for each .mpg file. Could this be done automatically after the show stops recording? I love this option, it, if I go to a disk without having my sage open I can read about this show. I wonder if even more info could be added or that is all.

Could you also add some way for your STV to create nowRecording.txt file where it would have show information that is recording at given time? If more shows would be recording I am not sure how that could be added but the reason why I would love to see this is that I have the LCD display on my HTPC and I would love to display whats beeing recorded on my box even when I dont have my TV on, that would be great option.

Anyway thanks for amazing job with the commercial skip, this is trully amazing and the greatest thing that came out

On the other note, can there be an option where we could maybe enter channels which do not have comercials? example, I have HBO and when I record something it most likely does not have any commercials so I would not need to run automatically commercial detection. Just an idea... (unless set movie channels already does it under custom settings.)

Thanks again for this amazing work.

Chris

[malore]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
repost because it was so long ago
well since I have seen anyone else write this but
why not have a way to enable comskip
it could just run while sage is a sleep
whenever SageTV is waked it would pause or when sage was recording
rather than have a your computer peaking 97-100% CPU while you want to watch something (I was able to watch stuff though just so you )

and can make the preview window on menus have a toggle on or off in the properties file
that is so annoying and I do not want to use video background

also for comskip2
are we suppose to replace the original comskip?

cause the only thing I noticed was that comskip2 was a lot smaller than comskip

The answer to your questions can either be found in other posts or I'm not clear as to what your asking.

From my first post:

. I have also implemented running commercial detection automatically when SageTV is asleep and no programs are scheduled to be recording in the next 15 minutes. This can be enabled on the Settings menu in the Customs Menu, but I haven’t had time to fully test it.

I've be using this and it has processed all my old files and has processed new files as they've been added.

The preview window can be turned on and off in so many different places I would be hard pressed to list them all. So I'll just list the one. Go to the Main Menu, hit the options button, and change Display video on menus to Never.

The comskip2 post was addressed to a specific person, who noted that comskip didn't work on a staticy file. A later post asked about it and I said to feel free to use it, but the only change was it was less strict about what it considers a black frame. The size is smaller because I ran an application compressor on it, intending to attach it unzipped, but the forum didn't allow it, so I had to zip it anyway.

[Jere_Jones]

Oops, forgot to post my results.

The new comskip did identify some commercials, but it did a poor job at it. Bear in mind that this is completely understandable. A good quality file is difficult enough, but add in a lot of noise and the problem gets much harder.

I did notice that comskip2 did not work as well on good quality recordings. It seemed to trigger on amost any black screen. Too sensitive, IMHO. I've gone back to the original. When it identifies commercial segments it does so perfectly (at least for me).

Jere

[malore]

Jere_Jones, that compares with my results. Comskip2's settings are closer to the original code from MythTV, but I found instances where it was marking dark scenes as commercials, so I made some changes for the original comskip.

Note: Whenever I talk about making changes to the MythTV commercial skip code, it refers only to my implementation of the MythTV code which may not accurately reflect the quality of the original MythTV Code, because I haven't implemented it in its entirety.

[JasonJoel]

Yup. Adding that line as listed below (without quotes) to the properties file allows me to use the Malore STV on my client.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Jason

Originally posted by malore
I'm wondering if the change I made to the disk space status indicator is causing the problem. See if setting "show_disk_status=false" in the sage.properties file on the client helps.

[ToxMox]

Malore,
Ever since I installed this STV I've been getting a random conflict icon showing up and then going away hours later. When I go to the Recording Information screen there are no shows listed in there. Is this a known issue?

Edit:
I just realized...I think this icon is different than the conflict icon. I now see that it is a recording icon and that it goes on when I'm recording something. Never mind.
So far so good with the testing of the commercial skip...It is working great.

[SteveP]

ToxMox mentioned "So the background commercial processing only goes when sage is sleeping? I never sleep my Sage. How about if the Sage screensaver kicks in and there isn't anything scheduled in the next 15 minutes that it also starts background commercial detection." I also think this would be a good idea since I do not sleep Sage. Any thoughts on if this is possible?

Thanks,
Steve

[malore]

SteveP and others, I'm updating it to treat the ScreenSaver the same as if SageTV is asleep, for running background commercial detection.

ToxMox, you are not the first to mistake the recording icon for the conflict icon. I guess I made them too close for people not aware of it.

chrysek, I'll take a look at your suggestions. I've been thinking about making the commercial detection program quit it if doesn't find anything after a certain program length.

Coolwave, the VideoReDo cutlines time format consists of num1:num2:num3:num4 time1 time2 time3 but you only need the first two numbers which are the times in microseconds. Just multiply the framenumber by 33366.7 to get the time in microseconds. Somebody could probably make a batch file to do this fairly easily. Another post has reminded me that PAL uses 25 fps instead of 29.970 that is used for most of my calculations, so sometime I'll have to add PAL support.

[VideoReDo]

This message is in response to a request by CoolWave for me to join this discussion. As the developer of VideReDo I would be interested in lending what ever insight and assistance I can, especially in the area of interfacing VideoReDo with the Sage commerical detection project.

As some may know, we already support the commercial detection skip files created by BeyondTV (SnapStream). As we have many, many Sage customers of VideoReDo we would obviously like to do the same for them if possible.

Please let me know how I can help.

Regards... Dan R., VideoReDo

[insomniac]

Originally posted by malore
SteveP and others, I'm updating it to treat the ScreenSaver the same as if SageTV is asleep, for running background commercial detection.

Awesome. cant wait!

[malore]

Originally posted by VideoReDo
Please let me know how I can help.

Regards... Dan R., VideoReDo

Thanks Dan, it appears coolwave tipped you off, since I hadn't mentioned SageTV by name. I'll let you know if I need anything else once I get things more polished.

[wrwaugh]

OK, I need help. I can't get this to work.
I have used your malore.stv for a while and like it. I downloaded the above file and installed it as you indicated (I think). I put hte malore.stv int he OriginalV@.stv folder and the comskip.exe in the SageTV folder.

I now DO see the "commercial detect" in the options window. I tell it to detect and it does. After a time the dialog window pops up to tell me that it is complete. I tell it OK.

I set the Custom 4 button andthe Custom 5 button to keyboard commands and to remote buttons.

I view another recording then back to the recording which I had run Commercial Detect on and I do not see a colored timeline. I typethe "custom4" keyboard command and/or press the newly assigned remote button and nothing happens. Same for "custom 5."

I see the text file in the recordings folder (GoodEatsABowlofOnion-471524-0.txt). However, it is 0K big and when opened in notepad it is empty.

Can you assist?

-----

late edit. My OS resides in the 'E' drive, not the 'C' drive. SageTV is also in the 'E' drive. Videos reside on the "F" drive. The text file is in the video folder on the "F" drive along with the recordings. I don't think this should made a difference, but I thought you should know.

[malore]

wrwaugh, it is possible that it wasn't able to determine anything was a commercial, so you ended up with just a blank file. The blank file does serve the purpose of preventing automatic detection (if enabled) from rerunning on that file. It sounds like you're doing everything correctly, try another show.

[malore]

I've updated the beta stv file with some new features. See the first post.

Let me know if anyone is trying to use this outside of the United Stated. There are a lot of assumptions about the frames per second and size of commercial breaks that probably won't work anywhere else. But then you might not be plauged by commercals like we are either.