Automatic commercial skip

[jam_zhou]

I'm kind of confused guys. I have GBPVR set up to skip automatically. You can set it up through the Misc tab of the config I believe.

My only wish is that we can turn commercial skip on and off through the GUI...but usually comskip is pretty good so I don't really complain that much.

[jodajen2]

I am very frustrated with this whole process. I guess I am trying to do to many things. I am using the postprocess from REBOOT's thread. It is working for the most part, but it is not doing everything that I would like. I would like to have the commericals cut out on show I plan to keep but on show that I just plan on watching and dumping having the commericals skippable would be great also.
As far as I have seen Showanalyzer is doing a terrible job on marking commericals, I even slowed it down in the config. Several people have talked about SA doing a better job then VRD on the commerical detection but I am not sure if I need to change settings but it is terrible about finding them.

As I side note to Showanalyzer not marking well I have had a trouble with my computer system time running slow. So gbpvr was recording and missing the ends of shows. I tried to correct it by increasing the before and after record time. This works but now Showanalzyer thinks this is my show and without running through VRD again I am stuck with 3 minutes of a different show on the front and back. I have tried to use atomic.exe to keep the time updated but it hasn't worked either.

But back to the really problems. ELITE is right I would like to be able to just skip in GBPVR sometimes. I have a trial version of SA but I am not sure why and what I need to change in SA to output a txt not a .vprj. I know VRD needs the .vprj so am I stuck?
I am getting a txt and vprj but RENAME is changing the name so if GBPVR is looking for a txt file that like History_20060820_07000730.txt it isn't there because it now History_original.txt.

This is the contents of the txt file:
FILE PROCESSING COMPLETE
------------------------
18653 20414
34591 39565
45469 53108

This is the contents of the vprj file:
<Version>2
<Filename>F:\History_20060820_07000730.mpg
<Cut>6223890000:6811470000
<Cut>11541870000:13201530000
<Cut>15171500000:17720380000


Any help on this frustrating messing would be greatly appreciated.

[Jim_]

My only wish is that we can turn commercial skip on and off through the GUI...but usually comskip is pretty good so I don't really complain that much.

I’ve found that skipping backwards into a commercial a couple of times, disables auto-skip for the remainder of the show.
I didn’t report it to sub, because it’s a useful bug.

I am very frustrated with this whole process.
<snip>

Comskip’s incredible (haven’t tried SA), but most people (including myself) are disappointed with the initial results until the take the time to understand how it works, and properly tune it for individual channels and shows.
Taking shortcuts during the tuning process, or using someone else’s ini is a bad idea because the noise & resolution in “your” captures will determine the most effective ini settings. VRD can do a very good job and is very simple to setup, but it doesn’t have the advanced detection abilities of comskip.

Start slowly, choose one capture resolution and stick with it.
Check your cables and connectors, reduce capture noise –before- you start tuning comskip.
Start with a single recording, something you watch frequently. Keep tuning that recording until you’re happy with the results.
Then try another show on a different channel. If the ini you tuned previously doesn’t give the results you’re looking for, do not modify it, make a new ini for the new channel.
After a few evenings of comskip tuning, you’ll be much happier.

[erik]

One big cause of problems is recording on too low bitrate.
Comskip will NEVER work reliable when recording on low bitrate settings.
Use at least medium.

[elite]

As far as I have seen Showanalyzer is doing a terrible job on marking commericals, I even slowed it down in the config. Several people have talked about SA doing a better job then VRD on the commerical detection but I am not sure if I need to change settings but it is terrible about finding them.

As Jim_ says - it does take a bit of tweaking to get usable results

But back to the really problems. ELITE is right I would like to be able to just skip in GBPVR sometimes. I have a trial version of SA but I am not sure why and what I need to change in SA to output a txt not a .vprj. I know VRD needs the .vprj so am I stuck?
I am getting a txt and vprj but RENAME is changing the name so if GBPVR is looking for a txt file that like History_20060820_07000730.txt it isn't there because it now History_original.txt.

This is the contents of the txt file:
FILE PROCESSING COMPLETE
------------------------
18653 20414
34591 39565
45469 53108

This is the contents of the vprj file:
<Version>2
<Filename>F:\History_20060820_07000730.mpg
<Cut>6223890000:6811470000
<Cut>11541870000:13201530000
<Cut>15171500000:17720380000


Any help on this frustrating messing would be greatly appreciated.

OK, GBPVR will only read ComSkip.txt files (which SA can generate). Reboot is talking about auto deleting commercials using videoredo (gbpvr should just ignore these so it is safe to generate them aswell).

The following is a quick walk through of the settings you should have

In SA config, under "Global" and the "Output" tab you have "ComSkip(.txt)".

After SA has run (called from PostProcessing.bat) you have 2 files:

YOURSHOWNAME.mpg
YOURSHOWNAME.txt
(and optionally the following if you have SA set to generate VideoRedo files aswell
YOURSHOWNAME.vprj

This is as it should be.

When playing back a file GBPVR will look for a comskip file (.txt) called the same as the mpeg but with a text extention (using renamerecording is fine)

Looking at the files you've generated above - it looks like this is setup correctly.

Now, when playing back the file, you should see parts of the timeline greyed out (these are the commercials as identified in YOURSHOWNAME.txt) - If you see this all is good

Finally for GBPVR to auto skip (not delete - you need to use reboots solution/comclean to do this) you just need to check "Auto-skip commercials" in the Misc tab of the GBPVR config application

Hope this all makes sense

[dgeezer]

I'm kind of confused guys. I have GBPVR set up to skip automatically. You can set it up through the Misc tab of the config I believe.

True, this certainly works and actually works very well. However, a lot of what I record will tend to get saved for several months or longer and I don't have the hard drive space to spare. Cutting the commercials reduces the file size by probably 25 to 30%.

[rowle1jt]

I use post processing, and have found that Comskip is very accurate. I don't auto cut the video file with Comclean, as right now I can still manually "check" that the commercials are being skipped at the right point.

Comskip is by far the best 10 seconds I spent configuring my GB-PVR rig.

[jodajen2]

As Jim_ says - it does take a bit of tweaking to get usable results



OK, GBPVR will only read ComSkip.txt files (which SA can generate). Reboot is talking about auto deleting commercials using videoredo (gbpvr should just ignore these so it is safe to generate them aswell).

The following is a quick walk through of the settings you should have

In SA config, under "Global" and the "Output" tab you have "ComSkip(.txt)".

After SA has run (called from PostProcessing.bat) you have 2 files:

YOURSHOWNAME.mpg
YOURSHOWNAME.txt
(and optionally the following if you have SA set to generate VideoRedo files aswell
YOURSHOWNAME.vprj

This is as it should be.

When playing back a file GBPVR will look for a comskip file (.txt) called the same as the mpeg but with a text extention (using renamerecording is fine)

Looking at the files you've generated above - it looks like this is setup correctly.

Now, when playing back the file, you should see parts of the timeline greyed out (these are the commercials as identified in YOURSHOWNAME.txt) - If you see this all is good

Finally for GBPVR to auto skip (not delete - you need to use reboots solution/comclean to do this) you just need to check "Auto-skip commercials" in the Misc tab of the GBPVR config application

Hope this all makes sense

I looked through the SA config and I don't have a OUTPUT tab. The only item I have that was close was the Commerical Detection Ouput, but I couldn't find anything with a comskip txt option. I this is the latest version of SA.

Some one also metioned taking an evening or two to tweak the setting for SA. I guess I am not sure how to test it. At least with VRD you can see the edits it is selecting but with SA it just running without interaction. I guess you just adjust and test a mpg over and over again? It seem like a little black box to me.[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[elite]

I looked through the SA config and I don't have a OUTPUT tab. The only item I have that was close was the Commerical Detection Ouput, but I couldn't find anything with a comskip txt option. I this is the latest version of SA.

He he - Appologies I was running an old version

You have the correct settings to generate the .txt files - and from your post above it is generating them - (telling it to generate GBPVR files will generate the comskip .txt files and has replaced the setting I was talking about above)

Some one also metioned taking an evening or two to tweak the setting for SA. I guess I am not sure how to test it. At least with VRD you can see the edits it is selecting but with SA it just running without interaction. I guess you just adjust and test a mpg over and over again? It seem like a little black box to me.[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

It is a bit trial and error to get the right settings

It's probably worth having a look at this thread over at the DragonGlobal Forums to get some settings to get you started - then modify from there..

If you prefer to preview the detection in VideoRedo, you can enable SA to generate this in SA config (it should mark the same segments in both the .txt and the VRD)