Comskip & Digital?

[nightwalker]

Nuts, the title should have been comskip & digital?

I recently changed over from getting analog straight from cable to having to go through a STB. The only difference I can see is instead of getting it straight from the cable I now get the signal from a STB, either way from my perspective it's still analog as it records the same mpg file it always has.

My problem is Comskip now gets very sporadic results. Sometimes it works just fine, other times it catches no commercials at all and other times it cuts an hour show to 20 minutes while cutting most of the show in the process.

Has anyone else noticed this when making the change to getting the signal from a digital source through a STB?

Since it's been so sporadic it's hard to even know where to start trying to fine tune it. Is there something different that happens between getting straight analog from the cable and getting analog from a STB?

[dennit]

Nuts, the title should have been comskip & digital?
.....
My problem is Comskip now gets very sporadic results.
.....
Is there something different that happens between getting straight analog from the cable and getting analog from a STB?

Did you just do a Comcast transition from analog to digital through a DTA? I'm scheduled to do that and hope I don't have too much trouble with Comskip.

Comskip has excellent logging features, so you can start by turning those on and seeing where your problem lies. The debug window is also great for this. Maybe it's missing the black transitions between commercials due to some change in the signal. Perhaps it's missing the silence at those transitions. Maybe it's missing aspect ratio changes by something added by the DTA/STB. Whatever it turns out to be, I hope you'll post back here.

Good Luck.

Edit, BTW, when I put Comskip into the thread title, I would often get Erik's direct reply. I don't know how much he still monitors here, but he always had super comments that helped me. You may not get him in view of your thread title oops. (I won't mind if you want to repost this same thread under the correct title.)

[nightwalker]

Yes, the conversion happened here a couple of weeks ago. I've hated it ever since. Enough so that this Monday Verizon is coming to install FIOS TV. I've had it with Comcast, even though I don't think my current problem has anything to do with Comcast. I have a feeling it's more due to the very slow channel changes that happen with STB's and DTA's, at least that's my thought so far. Looking at the output as comskip starts, it seems like it either works or gets very confused, about 50 50 on which way it goes.

[dennit]

Yes, the conversion happened here a couple of weeks ago. I've hated it ever since. Enough so that this Monday Verizon is coming to install FIOS TV. I've had it with Comcast, even though I don't think my current problem has anything to do with Comcast. I have a feeling it's more due to the very slow channel changes that happen with STB's and DTA's, at least that's my thought so far. Looking at the output as comskip starts, it seems like it either works or gets very confused, about 50 50 on which way it goes.

This doesn't make me look forward to it very much

I don't see how the slow channel changes would affect Comskip. Why don't you turn on the logs and see what's happening.

[nightwalker]

After my install on Monday I'll be playing with comskip a lot more. Right now looking at the logs it sometimes gets all fuzzed up with a lot of garbage characters and then straightens out as it tunes in finally. It's that first few lines that seem to be throwing it off. So far that's just a guess, it didn't seem worth the effort to fix until I'm finished the switch over.

Oh and thanks to whoever fixed my misspelled title. was that you sub?

[erik]

Edit, BTW, when I put Comskip into the thread title, I would often get Erik's direct reply. I don't know how much he still monitors here, but he always had super comments that helped me. You may not get him in view of your thread title oops. (I won't mind if you want to repost this same thread under the correct title.)

It still works but I have less time to scan the other fora.

[nightwalker]

It still works but I have less time to scan the other fora.

Perfectly understandable. I'm not getting too worked up about it just yet. After the conversion to Verizon and some fine tuning if I'm still having a problem I'll be stopping round the Comskip forums. Advance warning for ya.

[mvallevand]

This thread title is still misleading because it really has nothing to do with digital, sinc you are doing analog captures. You say nothing has changed, but aren't many more shows letterboxed 4x3 now? If you are zooming the output to avoid this maybe things like the channel logo that comskip keys on are lost?


Martin

[nightwalker]

You could very well be right, that's something I hadn't thought about and should.

The reason I was thinking it might have to do with digital is now that I've made the switch to STB's I get a lot more, and I mean a lot more pixelating than I ever did with straight analog, which was never. I've wondered if that happening at the very beginning of a recording could be part of the cause.

When the change over is complete next week I'll be digging into it a lot further than I am now. At this point it's more a curiosity question for others who have made the switch and maybe noticed the same results or have had to go back in and re-tweak Comskip. I personally was suprised that there was any difference at all, took me by suprise.