ComCut - Automatically clean recordings of commercials

[NiteShdw]

Sorry for the problems with the last build. Please download Build 89.

This build is fairly well tested and should work correctly in most circumstances.

Please let me know if you have any problems with it: niteshdw AT gmail, or post here.

[verbage]

Please let me know if you have any problems with it: niteshdw AT gmail, or post here.

I just downloaded and got set up with Build 89, and I've run into a problem when using mencoder as the cutting engine. I realize this is not a problem with ComCut itself, but as mencoder is now the default cutting engine, well, I'm sure other folks might run into the same problem.

Anyway, as further explanation, when I attempt to play the commercial-free mpeg produced using the mencoder engine in VLC Player, well, there is no audio, and the video just sits at the first frame and never changes. But if I select the mpgtx engine for cutting, the resulting commercial-free mpeg plays just fine in VLC Player (despite timeline issues).

As a further followup, I then selected the demux/remux option to fix timeline problems, and then tried with both engines again. Though mpgtx was able to successfully demux the mencoder-cut mpeg, mplex1 was not able to remux the components complaining of an error (command line log below). However, the mpgtx-cut mpeg was successfully demuxed, and then remuxed by mplex1.

So as I said above, there appears to be a problem with the commercial-free mpegs produced using the mencoder cutting engine I downloaded from NiteShdw's website. To further followup, I then downloaded the most recent mencoder binary from the mplayer website. That is version 1.0RC2. This results in the same issue, so that didn't help.

Here is the command line log of the error mplex1 spits out when attempting to remux the A/V streams that were extracted from the mencoder-cut mpeg--hopefully, it might give you an idea of where mencoder is going afoul.

Many thanks for the program, and again, I realize this issue does not seem to be with ComCut itself, but with mencoder.

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H:\blizz>mplex1 Blizzard_20080203_21002200.mux-0.m2v Blizzard_20080203_21002200.mux-0.mp2 Blizzard_20080203_21002200.comskip.new

Scanning video stream for a sequence header and pulldown type ...
no pulldown detected ...

Scanning video stream for pictures ...
Scanning video stream: 99% - byte offset 1778843440 of 1796811116.99 Found 78288 picture headers.
Video stream information
Stream length : 1796742276
Total time (seconds) : 2612
Sequence start : 5225
Sequence end : 0
No. Pictures : 78288
No. Groups : 5225
No. I Frames : 5225 avg. size 66016 bytes
No. P Frames : 20873 avg. size 27748 bytes
No. B Frames : 52190 avg. size 16719 bytes
No. D Frames : 0 avg. size 0 bytes
Horizontal size : 720
Vertical size : 480
Aspect ratio : 0.6735
Picture rate : 29.970 frames/sec
Bit rate : 1031250 bytes/sec (8250000 bits/sec)
Computed avg rate : 688750 bytes/sec (5510000 bits/sec)
Computed max rate : 1083400 bytes/sec (8667200 bits/sec)
Vbv buffer size : 229376 bytes
CSPF : 0
0
Scanning audio stream for access units information
Scanning audio stream: 26% - byte offset 19119100 of 73144200.26Error in MPEG stream at offset (bits) 154216161: supposed marker bit not found.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[NiteShdw]

The reason I included multiple cutting options was because they each work differently. It seems to me that different capture cards produce different quality MPEG-2 files.

Have you tried using GB-PVR to watch the commercial free MPG files? To do that, use the option to "Leave a backup copy. Replace original with commercial free version." That will move the original MPG file to ".original.mpg" and rename the new one what the original was. Then, use GB-PVR to select the episode and watch it.

In my case, I found that my DSM-320RD couldn't play the MPGTX cut files, but it could play them after remuxing it. Mencoder works without remuxing, for me.

Is there a reason that you want to keep the files in MPG format? Cutting, demuxing, and remuxing, is very IO intensive and causes a lot of fragmentation. Maybe this is a good time to work on implementing transcoding using mencoder or ffdshow? Transcoding to MPEG-4/MP3 would fix all the errors by producing a completely new video file.

[verbage]

Dear NiteShdw,

First, I want to stress something that I probably did not do enough in my first posting--ComCut is fantastic. It's simple, functional, does the job well, and best of all is made freely available by you. Thanks so much!

Have you tried using GB-PVR to watch the commercial free MPG files?

I have not done this as I did the Comskip analysis and ComCut cutting of the mpeg file independently on a machine that is not my GB-PVR machine. In fact, while I mentioned that VLC Player choked on the commercial-free version produced with the mencoder engine, but not with the version produced by mpgtx, well, immediately after my posting, I did one more test. I tried playing both the mencoder and mgptx versions on Windows Media Player, and in fact, both played fine. So let me qualify my original posting by saying that of the two video players I have tried (i.e. VLC Player v0.8.6d and Windows Media Player v9), both the mencoder and mpgtx versions played fine with WMP, but only the mpgtx version played fine in VLC Player. So as you have stated in your next paragraph below, any possible issue will also be related to which player is used.

In my case, I found that my DSM-320RD couldn't play the MPGTX cut files, but it could play them after remuxing it. Mencoder works without remuxing, for me.

Yes, I agree the player part of the equation is important. But let me point out an issue that has sort of escaped, but again, is not the fault of ComCut.

The commercial-free version produced by the mencoder engine could be demuxed by mpgtx, but the separate A/V streams could not then be remuxed by mplex1. So mplex1 is also choking on the mencoder version. Or maybe it has something to do with how mpgtx demuxes the mencoder version...

So I guess there is a slight chance you may not have run into the scenario I mention because the mencoder versions play directly on your player without the need for de-/remuxing.

Is there a reason that you want to keep the files in MPG format?

I'm new to the PVR world, and have not yet decided on a "standard" codec/format for permanently archiving material I want to save. So I mostly concerned with maintaining quality at this point. Then when I do decide on a standard, I can work from original mpeg material instead of something that has already been compressed into a different format.

Cutting, demuxing, and remuxing, is very IO intensive and causes a lot of fragmentation. Maybe this is a good time to work on implementing transcoding using mencoder or ffdshow? Transcoding to MPEG-4/MP3 would fix all the errors by producing a completely new video file.

Sure, this would definitely be useful, and might help me decide which codec/format I should use for permanent archiving! Any improvements you make on your already fantastic tool would certainly be appreciated.

Thanks again.

[missithang]

First, thanks for making this tool available!

Second, herein lies my dilemma...
My 'new' videos don't normally play correctly.

What i do:

In BurnDVDx2 i put in my 'in and out' markers (and save them).

Exit out of PVRX2 totally.

Drag and drop my show file on a comcut shortcut on my desktop (or sometimes browse in the bulk window and run)
I have settings so it makes a show.original.mpg
The process completes successfully.

B4: when i would play the new show in PVRX2, it would jump ahead at different points in the show. If i looked at the green progress bar when skipping, some is darker green, like these are commercial marks, and it skips these sections of the show.
Now: i copy all the original files into another folder outside of 'My Recordings' folder, so the only files in the orig folder are the new mpg and it's jpg (for BurnDVDX2).

Now, when i play the show in PVRX2 it seems like it does the same thing as 'B4' but the darker green commercial marks are not there. If i skip back i see the part it skipped over.

Wondering if it was PVRX2 that was the issue, i burnt the show to DVD and watched on a normal DVD player.
It still did the same thing!
I was wondering if it was skipping chapters or something, but when i did chapter skips, the locations were not even close to where the first skip would happen.

Oh, just to clarify the skip thing...it's at a 'cut' location. As in, it should go right from the end of 1 section, straight into the 2nd, but it goes partway into 2nd instead. But i can skip manually 'back' to the beginning of 2nd.

Hopefully I'm making some sort of sense here! I can clarify, or send logs, or send a file that has been processed that is having this issue...whatever you need.

Thanks for any light you can shine on the subject!