Commercial Detection

[jorm]

How comskip works? Or how it is used by gbpvr?

The former
Multiple algorthims including closed captioning (new in ver .60), black frame detection, logo detection and scene change rate.

The later
You need gbpvr v22.7

you need to download comskip v.60 or greater and drop the exe and ini in the gbpvr directory. Edit comskip to change the framerate unless you are 29.97.

After the movie is recorded a low priroity thread is spun off to process the file. Leaving a txt file with the same name as the movie. It contains locations for commercial segments.

When you run gbpvr and are viewing a show with commercial skipping. Hit the blue button. You will see sections with green highlights. Those are for commercial segments.

When you hit one of those hit 0 skip and it will move to the end of the commercial. If you hit 0 skip and it is in the show it will jump to the next commercial start.

You can verify the accuracy of the detection with virtualdubmod or viewing the recording.

Jorm

[DavidJames]

Thanks jorm, it was the "latter"

[pancapangrawit]

Hi, I would also love to see some explanation of the configuration options in the ini. It's not that selfexplanatory if one doesn't understand the tv-cues used to identify commercials.

I'm trying to use this in Germany, with very little success so far. To me in Germany cuts into commercials just appear like other cuts in films, yet there might be things not visible to eyes. I had biggest hopes in Logo-identification, because that's the one consistent thing I obseve in Germany - I don't think there are ever logos in German commercials. Yet sofar no success at all - I wonder how I could verify whether the channel-logo is identified at all. I see a logo.txt file in the folder but don't know what to make of it.

As Jere said himself, the new cc might be of little use in Europe? In Germany VBI-Data contains Teletext information which is a quite extensive information service by broadcasting-stations. Most channels have many pages and you either need software or a compatible TV-set to access and select the pages. One of the pages per channel might contain subtitles - but neither the page-number is consistent between channels nor do all films have subtitles. So I guess no use for the cc-feature in Europe?

In the latest version a few options have disappeared from the ini-file, among others, it seems, the Zoomplayer chapter-files. Are they just left out or has the function been removed?

I would love to see this working in Germany as well, and if I can help, I'd try to. Jere told us to send logs, but I often get no cuts at all, and if I get any - would they be of any use without the video?

Again, I find this a great initiative, really really usefull. Yet now luck for me so far. I'd love to get a few tips what I could try or where I could get additional information.

Best
.r.

[colin]

Hey pancapangrawit,

I'm not sure if this is possible but Jere_Jones would probably benefit from some segments of European mpg's which he can look through himself. Again, unless people have good bandwidth this would not be possible.

I'm not sure if anyone here has good extensive knowledge of all the options in the .ini to give suggestions of tweaking it but as we learn more we'll certainly post our findings.

Out of interest what countries are so far having success with comskip? I know a few of us in the US are,

Cheers,

[sub]

I've had reasonable success with the few test files I've tried it on here in New Zealand.

[jorm]

I have had some good success with most shows using comskip. Some shows not as good.

Well I got an answer and a question.

First my question. I have seen on the comskip form that for the hauppauge driver 250/350 you have to modify the registry to get closed captioning. Do I need to do this?


Example:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Globespan\Parameters\ivac15\Driver]
"InsertCCInDvd"=dword:00000001 (set the encoder to insert the data into the mpeg, 1 for on, 0 for off)


The answer.

pancapangrawit,

http://www.sage-community.org/index.cgi/...kipIniInfo

Feel free to tweak away just post the results you find.

Setting Default
-----------------------------------------------
fps 29.97
border 10
max_brightness 100
test_brightness 60
max_avg_brightness 15
max_commercialbreak 350
min_commercialbreak 90
max_commercial_size 120
min_commercial_size 4
require_div5 0
div5_tolerance 1
detect_method 31
give_up_logo_search 600
play_nice_start -1
play_nice_end -1
delete_logo_file 1
global_threshold -1
two_pass_logo 1
logo_threshold .75
logo_max_percentage_of_screen .35
verbose 0
intelligent_brightness 1
black_percentile .0075
score_percentile .70
output_default 1
output_zoomplayer_cutlist 0
output_zoomplayer_chapter 0
output_videoredo 0
length_strict_modifier 3.0
length_nonstrict_modifier 1.5
combined_length_strict_modifier 2.0
combined_length_nonstrict_modifer 1.25
logo_present_modifier 0.0
excessive_length_modifier 0.0
padding 0
min_schange_modifier 0.5
max_schange_modifer 2.0
cc_commercial_type_modifier 4.0
cc_wrong_type_modifier 2.0
cc_correct_type_modifier 0.5
fps - set this to the fps of the source (NTSC = 29.97, PAL = 25)
border - the number of pixels on each side to ignore for commercial detection
max_brightness - a frame will not be labled as black if it contains a pixel brighter than this (0 - 255)
test_brightness - if all pixels in a frame have a brightness lower than this, the frame is black (0 - 255)
max_avg_brightness - the maximum average brightness for a frame to be considered black (0 - 255)
max_commercialbreak - a commercial break can not exceed this length (in seconds)
min_commercialbreak - a commercial break must exceed this length (in seconds)
max_commercial_size - any segment longer than this can not be a commercial (in seconds)
min_commercial_size - any segment shorter than this will not be labled as a commercial unless it can be combined with another segment for a proper length (in seconds)
require_div5 - segments must be divisible by 5 to be considered a commercial. ignored if fuzzy logic is selected (0 = off, 1 = on)
div5_tolerance - defines the tolerance for the div5 requirement. overrides the intelligent tolerance in fuzzy logic (in seconds)
detect_method - a sum of the detection methods to be used (1 - 15)
-- 1 = black frame detection (this is required, comskip cannot run without black frame detection)
-- 2 = logo detection
-- 4 = scene change rate monitoring (also supplements black frame detection)
-- 8 = fuzzy logic
-- 16 = closed captioning
give_up_logo_search - defines how far into the show comskip will try to identify a station logo (in seconds)
play_nice_start - determines the start time for comskip to throttle itself back (in military time)
play_nice_end - determines the start time for comskip to throttle itself back (in military time)
-- If the start time is after the end time then comskip will throttle back over midnight
delete_logo_file - delete the logo data file that is generated when running the second pass. can be interesting if you want to see what comskip thought the logo was (0 = no, 1 = yes)
global_threshold - overrides the intelligent threshold (score_threshold) in fuzzy logic
two_pass_logo - starts the detection process over when a logo is detected (0 = off, 1 = on)
logo_threshold - defines the percentage of similarity between frames when trying to detect a logo. higher is more strict (0.0 - 1.0)
logo_max_percentage_of_screen - if the potential logo exceed this percentage of the screen, it is discarded. useful for those enzyte commercials (0.0 - 1.0)
verbose - if set to 1 or higher, comskip will create a log file with varying degrees of information. (0 - 10)
intelligent_brightness - automatically adjust the brightness threshold to be determined a black frame based on the darkest frame decoded (0 = off, 1 = on)
black_threshold - the percentage of frames that should be labeled as black (0.0 - 1.0)
score_threshold - the minimum percentage of the show that should be labeled as show (0.0 - 1.0)
-- can be overriden with the global_threshold setting
output_default - output the traditional .txt file (0 - no, 1 = yes)
output_zoomplayer_cutlist - output a zoomplayer cutlist file (0 - no, 1 = yes)
output_zoomplayer_chapter - output a zoomplayer chapter file (0 - no, 1 = yes)
output_videoredo - output a VideoRedo? project file (0 - no, 1 = yes)
length_strict_modifier - score multiplier if block is a traditional commercial length
length_nonstrict_modifier - score multiplier if block is a less restrictive commercial length
combined_length_strict_modifier - same as above but this modifies block that are combined
combined_length_nonstrict_modifer - same as above but this modifies block that are combined
logo_present_modifier - score multiplier if a block has a logo detected
excessive_length_modifier - score multiplier if a block's length exceeds max_commercialbreak
padding - shrinks all commercial breaks by a set amount on each side (in frames)
min_schange_modifier - the minimum score multiplier for blocks that have a low scene change rate
max_schange_modifier - the maximum score multiplier for blocks that have a high scene change rate
cc_commercial_type_modifier - the score multiplier for blocks that have closed captions indicating a commercial
cc_wrong_type_modifier - the score multiplier for blocks that do not have the style of closed captions that is most common in the recording
cc_correct_type_modifier - the score multiplier for blocks that have the style of closed captions that is most common in the recording

[krypton_john]

Quote[/b] (jorm @ Oct. 23 2004,03:38)]Jere,

Great work!  I plan on testing the new release out today if work is slow.

Krypton_john,  

Do you have closed captioning enabled in your recordings?


I am considering turning it on to get the benefit of the new detection algorithm.

Just to save everyone from redoing my research

You have to change one setting the direct.ini file. Open direct.ini in a text editor and to each recording quality section (including live TV) add OutputType=14


jorm

I don't know if CC is enabled or not - I just changed the FPS value to 25 for PAL. The rest f the settings are as delivered in the ini file with 60.0. I don't want to touch it now!

Regards
JohnO

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]First my question. I have seen on the comskip form that for the hauppauge driver 250/350 you have to modify the registry to get closed captioning. Do I need to do this?

You have to change settings the direct.ini file. Open direct.ini in a text editor and to each recording quality section (except live TV) add OutputType=14

[jorm]

CC Testing by comskip is enabled with the ini. I ment enabling closed captioning with gbpvr, so I can test this new fuctionality.

[pancapangrawit]

Hi Jorm and Colin, thank you for the reply. It gives me a lot to look into :-). I'll be happy to send some videos - my upstream isn't too fast but I wouldn't mind sending a few-100 MB somewhere over a night or so. For this to be useful I should know what kind of segments to pick out and in which format to record.

I wonder whether anything of the cc-aspect is relevant to the European countries where tele-/videotext is used?

Best
.r.