Skipping commercials: Real frame numbers?

[sub]

Yep, .ads sounds appropriate to me.

Also since Sub, Erik and I (who would seem to be all the major players) are in on this conversation, are there any other changes to the format that would be useful?

hmm...nope, nothing that springs to mind at the moment.

[erik]

There was a request to add information on the total duration of the show.
We could agree there is always a zero size commercial at the end of the list.

[erik]

The .edl format used by mencoder/mplayer does already exist and contains the information sub likes.

Example

680.96 1084.36 0
2411.12 2876.64 0

Each line identifies a commercial in seconds with a fraction.
The zero at the end is needed by mencoder/mplayer

[sub]

Jere, I'm cool with using this existing .edl file format, is this also ok with you? It may give the users some benefit from pre-existing tools which can use this .edl file format.

[Jere_Jones]

The .edl format seems fine with me. Here is the spec for it: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html

It would seem that a 0 following the times means skip it and a 1 following the times means mute it. I would think that if GB-PVR is to accept this format it should probably do it correctly.

Also, being in complete agreement with erik's comment about adding the length, I plan on adding a 0 length segment at the end showing the length of the show. SA will only ouput that segment when it has completed processing.

How does that sound?

Sub, do you want any restrictions on the number of decimal places? Considering that HD is 60fps (here in the US) and that equates to 0.0166666 seconds per frame, it would seem that 4 places to the right of the decimal should be more than enough.

Jere

[erik]

OK for me.

Sub, could you elaborate on how to intend to maintain compatibility and also enable a transition.

A simple solution form SA/Comskip would be to output by default both formats.
Sub could implement a fallback in GBPVR (no edl, then check for .txt)

[sub]

It would seem that a 0 following the times means skip it and a 1 following the times means mute it. I would think that if GB-PVR is to accept this format it should probably do it correctly.

yeah... that'll have to be a phase 2 change...

[sub]

Sub, do you want any restrictions on the number of decimal places? Considering that HD is 60fps (here in the US) and that equates to 0.0166666 seconds per frame, it would seem that 4 places to the right of the decimal should be more than enough.

No restriction is required. If its on the MVP, it'll be give or take a second or two anyway. If its on the PC, it depends on the directshow splitter filter, it could be out by a little bit also. Its close enough though.

[sub]

Sub, could you elaborate on how to intend to maintain compatibility and also enable a transition.

A simple solution form SA/Comskip would be to output by default both formats.
Sub could implement a fallback in GBPVR (no edl, then check for .txt)

Yes, I think you should continue to output both. I'll implement logic that looks for edl first, then txt.

[Jere_Jones]

Erik,

What are you using for seperating characters of the times and the trailing 0? The original .txt files use a tab character, but the edl specification doesn't say if one or the other is required.

Jere