Comskip works...well, maybe

[ccihon]

I have comskip installed as per the wiki, and for the most part, it does a great job finding and skipping commercials. Unfortunately, about a third of the recordings I do have an issue - the show will "lock" after the first few frames of playback if I have autoskip on (default). The lock appears to be where playback would otherwise skip a lead in to the actual show....looking at the edl files, most of my recordings indicate a skip of the first few seconds/minutes. I can temporarily remedy by deleting or renaming the edls so no skipping occurs, or turn off auto-skipping, though that's not what I would prefer to do, of course. Odd thing is, not all recordings exhibit this behavior, even though they have the same leadin skips - and the files with the issues behave the same on the clients or server machines (that can use comskip).....ideas on a permanent solution? The comskip documentation so far hasn't offered a solution. This appears to be a NexPVR issue. My unfounded diagnosis is that skipping so early in playback, before it is fully synced, locks it up. I can exit back, but not skip forward once locked.

[Reddwarf]

I have comskip installed as per the wiki, and for the most part, it does a great job finding and skipping commercials. Unfortunately, about a third of the recordings I do have an issue - the show will "lock" after the first few frames of playback if I have autoskip on (default). The lock appears to be where playback would otherwise skip a lead in to the actual show....looking at the edl files, most of my recordings indicate a skip of the first few seconds/minutes. I can temporarily remedy by deleting or renaming the edls so no skipping occurs, or turn off auto-skipping, though that's not what I would prefer to do, of course. Odd thing is, not all recordings exhibit this behavior, even though they have the same leadin skips - and the files with the issues behave the same on the clients or server machines (that can use comskip).....ideas on a permanent solution? The comskip documentation so far hasn't offered a solution. This appears to be a NexPVR issue. My unfounded diagnosis is that skipping so early in playback, before it is fully synced, locks it up. I can exit back, but not skip forward once locked.

It probably has to do with the video decoder(s) you use, I had the same problem earlier and I'v found that the absolute worst decoder was LAV. I since changed to Cyberlink PDVD12 and got rid of the problem. And yes, I agree that Comskip does a great job most of the time, but not on all channels.

[stustunz]

I find it better to turn off auto and press play to skip
If you do a short skip will the fill keep playing?

[Jaggy]

I used to find comskip worked fairly well in NZ with the old analogue recordings but after going digital it became much more "miss" then "hit".

stustunz: I assume from you message that you have got something that works with NZ digital recordings?? Where did you get your ini from & what version of comskip are you using??

[mvallevand]

Some stations do need different rules from default, but it is fantastic for me. I don't think it is NextPVR, I agree with Reddwarf to try other decoders. Also I'm not sure if the free version allows resolution changes with more than one thread. You tell comskip to allow the file to play first with the always_keep_first_seconds = ## setting in comskip.ini

Martin

[ga_mueller]

Never seen anything like the OP comments, for hundreds of Comskipped programs. Commercials leading into programs never cause any issues. I'm using the donator version along with ffdshow.

[stustunz]

stustunz: I assume from you message that you have got something that works with NZ digital recordings?? Where did you get your ini from & what version of comskip are you using??

I only record dvb-s
it doesnt always get it right but i use the latest free version and i think its just the standard ini file i played around at one stage but only got worse results

[Jaggy]

I also almost exclusively record dvb-s so I think I will need to give it a try again with the latest version & see what it does.... thanks

[ccihon]

OK - maybe I am on to something...I tried editing the EDL start point for the offending files....which let the video play until the first auto-skip, then stopped, Assessing all the files with the issue, it turns out skip fails with the 720p files only, and works every time with recordings from 1080i stations.

Will do some more digging - does this imply a place to look for a solution for anyone? I'm using the Cyberlink mpeg2 codec for playback of all TV recordings. Referenced in another post I made, I don't feel the quality I get with that codec is as nice as what I see via XBMC or even LAV decoder but each of those cause other issues like out-of-sync audio, etc. Reason I don't suspect the codec so much is that on the server machine, totally different hardware and decoder set, same thing happens with 720 content. That one, given it is Win7, is using Microsoft DTS-DVD decoder for the same content. Skip problems exactly like the client machine.

BTW - is there any way to correctly register and use the Microsoft DTS-DVD decoder with Windows 8? Does that require Media Center add-on to enable? The decoder is visible in NPVR setup as a choice for MPEG2 but does not provide video for me under Windows 8.

[ccihon]

So more info - and probably should move this to support - because it turns out I cannot skip at all without locking when viewing any recorded 720p content - either machine! So not a comskip issue - just a skip issue..

Any ideas? given this is on two machines using different OS and codecs, I'm stumped. all recodings are .ts straight from HDHomeRun Dual, ATSC via antenna