Comskip in NEXTPVR and X-NEWA in KODI?

[zigzag930]

Ok, have made a key observation that I hope may help fix this problem.

When I play the recorded file on the via NextPVR on the host, when the recording begins to play - the time counter is zero (0).

When I play the recorded file on Kodi via (video/file or xnewa) the time counter begins at 10 seconds for the exact same position in the recorded file. That explains why everything is off 10 seconds.

Now, the question is why is this happening? I'm guessing both XnewA and video/file simply call Kodi's DVD Player to play the recording. So why would Kodi's DVD Player see this 10 second offset? I've tested this on Mac Kodi and a Linux version as well.

More info, when the recording is played via VLC (on the same mac) there is NO offset of 10 seconds. So, this appears to be an issue with Kodi's player for some reason on the recordings made from OTA on HD HomeRun Extend

[mvallevand]

That 10s seems about right and is what I reported it to SiliconDust as a problem with there transcoding remux. My gut for my problem is that is related to start of transcoding and they don't get it right. However you say you aren't transcoding, sounds like you have a different problem but I don't think h264 is even broadcast OTA for ATSC just QAM.

You could report it to Kodi and/or ffmpeg if you'd like.

Martin

[zigzag930]

I have reported this to both Kodi and SD. As the timestamp is correct when playing with VLC, I'm thinking some incompatibility between SD and DVDPlayer in Kodi. However, I suppose NextPVR could be the issue as well as it actually does the recording part, right?

[mvallevand]

I have reported this to both Kodi and SD. As the timestamp is correct when playing with VLC, I'm thinking some incompatibility between SD and DVDPlayer in Kodi. However, I suppose NextPVR could be the issue as well as it actually does the recording part, right?

It captures what the HDTC sends not much more except a few filters. I think it is HDTC related but again the raw stream works fine for me in Kodi.

Martin

[zigzag930]

For anyone following this thread, I now have this working. The Kodi dev team told me the timestamp at the 0 point of the .ts files (I sent them) was set to 10 seconds. Kodi's player, unlike other players will accept a non-zero starting timestamp by design, where other players will apparently force set to zero.

In any case, I currently have HDHomeRun transcode settings to "native" and have changed all the channel record formats (in nextpvr) from MPEG to h.264. For whatever reason, the timestamp problems have gone away. I don't know if this is actually a SD issue or NextPVR issue as the fix was facilitated via the nextPVR channel settings. BUT.... it now works.

[sub]

For anyone following this thread, I now have this working. The Kodi dev team told me the timestamp at the 0 point of the .ts files (I sent them) was set to 10 seconds. Kodi's player, unlike other players will accept a non-zero starting timestamp by design, where other players will apparently force set to zero.

In any case, I currently have HDHomeRun transcode settings to "native" and have changed all the channel record formats (in nextpvr) from MPEG to h.264. For whatever reason, the timestamp problems have gone away. I don't know if this is actually a SD issue or NextPVR issue as the fix was facilitated via the nextPVR channel settings. BUT.... it now works.

When it comes to recordings or live tv from digital tv, you're pretty much get a dump of the digital broadcast, so timestamps will be whatever the broadcast timestamp was up to at the time the recording started.

Usually that timestamp will increase during the recording, but that's not always the case. Some times the broadcaster resets the timeline when they insert adverts or get to the end of a show. These are just normal complications of dealing with live tv, and most apps that play these streams (like NextPVR itself), realise that'll be the case and have strategies for dealing with the unreliable timeline of tv.

[araghava]

I've been trying for the past week and am unable to get comskip to work in Kodi or X-NEWA. I'm using pkscouts mod for Confluence.
When i run NPVR directly comskip works correctly and I can see the breaks in the timeline.

I store my recordings in D:\Recorded TV. I've shared the D drive. I know that it is shared because i have my movies in D:\MOVIES and i'm able to see and play my movies.

When i play the same recording from either Kodi or X-NEWA i don't see the breaks and it doesn't skip.

I've tried various combinations in advancedsettings.xml to no avail.

This is what it looks like

<advancedsettings>
<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>D:\Recorded TV\</from>
<to>http://127.0.0.1:8866/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>

When i play the recording from X-NEWA i see the following in kodi.log

09:58:01 T:11616 WARNING: CSkinInfo: failed to load skin settings
09:58:27 T:23272 WARNING: Previous line repeats 1 times.
09:58:27 T:23272 ERROR: CCurlFile::Exists - Failed: Failure when receiving data from the peer(56) for http://127.0.0.1:8866/The%20Big%20Bang%2...rcation.ts
09:58:27 T:21076 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://127.0.0.1:8866/live?recording=1594

When i try to play directly from KODI i only see the following line

09:58:27 T:21076 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://127.0.0.1:8866/live?recording=1594

How do i get comskip to work.

Thanks.

[zigzag930]

recheck your "from/to" settings.

I believe you must force Kodi to use SMB instead of HTTP: so you should have to: smb://ip.address NOT http://ip.address. Also, verify the IP address of the NPVR server is correct. 127.x.x.x is a local address, is Kodi running on the same machine?

[araghava]

This is a local machine. Do i still need to setup a smb? Even if that is true for KODI shouldn't X-NEWA work correctly. So far, only running NPVR directly works for commercial skip.
If i get this working I will then setup my 2 Fire TVs.

The IP address is correct. X-NEWA is setup with 127.0.0.1 and works correctly.
If you look at the log snippet below, it works correctly for the 2nd case. In a

09:58:27 T:23272 ERROR: CCurlFile::Exists - Failed: Failure when receiving data from the peer(56) for http://127.0.0.1:8866/The%20Big%20Ba...Bifurcation.ts
09:58:27 T:21076 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://127.0.0.1:8866/live?recording=1594

[dgeezer]

I think that the path substitution the way you have it is causing Kodi to stream your recordings from your local share using http instead of as a file share. You shouldn't need any path substitution file at all for a stream to kodi on the same machine.

I would try deleting the advancedsettings.xml and trying to play a recording natively in kodi. Got to <Videos> <Files> <D:\RecordedTV> and play a file from there. This should skip if an .edl is present. Pressing the letter o on your keyboard while the video is playing will bring up the codec playback info screen. I think that the second to the last line has an entry such as "edl6b12" which tells how many commercial breaks Kodi sees.

To have comskip work on the fire tv you will need an advancedsettings.xm file on each remote installation of Kodi. Here is mine:

<advancedsettings>
<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>H:/TVRecordings/</from>
<to>smb://NPVRSERVER/TVRecordings</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>

This works when playing back on my raspberry pi from my windows 10 install of Npvr.