Comskip works...well, maybe

[johnsonx42]

certainly not a problem here, nor for any other users I'm aware of. There was a problem a few releases back where sometimes playback would pause after skipping, and the only way to get it going again was another skip, but that was fixed nearly a year ago. I do find the LAV decoders, either audio or video, to be a poor choice for NPVR and do give results like this. I've had no similar trouble with Microsoft DTV-DVD, Cyberlink PowerDVD, ffdshow, ATI MPEG-2, or Arcsoft decoders.

[ccihon]

So comskip didnt skip on some videos - turned out 720p recordings...

Then I determined I couldn't manually skip on these either - so no issue with comskip...

Further research - it turns out it is likely an issue with the way these recordings are created via the HDHomeRun Dual ( and maybe Primes) like I am using

Assorted posts suggesting post-processing of some offending broadcast recordings - but one mentioned trying SiliconDust latest beta drivers/firmware - appently a fix for the way the timecode/index is handled

Preliminary testing shows that fixed it!

If you have HDHomeRun and have issues with 720p recordings, and not 1080, give the beta a try. Thanks all and sorry for the mis-diagnosis run-around.

[johnsonx42]

interesting discovery. it seems I've read of HDHR users playing 'musical firmware & drivers' before, trying to solve this problem or that. the very latest wasn't always a good idea, but it sounds like it is this time.

[ccihon]

As usual spoke a bit soon. While the new beta helped some, it did not eliminate the problem entirely. I am reading posts about applying some VLC PostProcessing.bat that can solve the issue...although I am unclear on the syntax for that file...here is another user's recommendation:

"c:\program files (x86)\videolan\vlc\vlc" -I dummy -vvv "%~dpn1.ts" out=#transcode{}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="%~dpn1_vlc.ts"}} vlc://quit

...so I'm not clear what I should edit here. What I'd like to do is apply this processing thru VLC, but write or overwrite the pre-existing file so it plays seemlessly from recordings, and removes the previous version - I believe this creates a new file with a "_vlc" extension to the name instead?

Also, I'd prefer to apply this to only files recorded from 2 specific channels....unclear as to how I might do that.

[mvallevand]

A few users have reported an inconsistant problem with clear QAM on some shows (I think on Fox) that were not seekable. A user even uploaded a sample and the problem was the stream itself did provide a full transport stream just elemental audio and video which NextPVR can't proceess.

Martin

[ccihon]

I do have issues with FOX, sometimes ABC also - but both via ATSC (HDHomeRun Dual) - I believe I saw that exchange. So the PostProcessing script would offer no solution? It currently generates a sidecar file with the "_vlc" extension and I'm unclear how to play that file rather than the original recording with NPVR

[mvallevand]

I suggest posting a link to large enough sample to show the problem. atsc should be reasonably standard.

Martin

[mulletback]

I've never seen this kind of skipping problem in seven years of using comskip - but I never use autoskip, only manual. I'm running the MS DTV Video decoder, LAV audio decoder for mpeg2. No issues with ATSC, clear QAM, encrypted QAM through the Prime (
Release 20130117 firmware, not beta), no problems with H.264 through the Colossus either (Arcsoft decoder). No issues with 1080i or 720p. When the feed gets noisy, all bets are off with comskip, but the recordings are awful too.

Comskip varies in it's ability to detect depending on the channel, e.g, for me, NBC skips are perfect, the Golf Channel fails utterly, many channels are so-so. This is why I don't use autoskip. I have tried with varying success to tune .ini files for specific channels.

[ccihon]

I should make clear comskip works great...so this issue is now misplaced in the forum. Turns out I cannot skip manually or automatically via comskip edl file for certain recordings.....specifically almost any FOX ATSC recording longer than about 5 minutes, and less often, ABC recordings. These are both 720p...NBC and CBS, PBS recordings behave perfectly. It was pointed out that this may have to do with the way these are broadcast specifically. I'll try to figure out where I might place a bigger chunk of one of these recordings for analysis.

I'm going to try beefing up my antenna signal for these, although the signal is generally pretty good, and possibly see if transcoding these does any good.