Upgrade to latest version, COMSKIP no longer works well

[zaldwaik]

Last night I decided to upgrade to the latest GBPVR. Everything seems to go well. However, since then comskip perfomance has degraded. It used to be about 99% acurate, now it misses lots of commercials. It happened with CBS 60 minutes and NBC dateline. I checked the version with what I had, both are .77 with the same ini and dictionary file (same timestamps). The logs do not show any problems. I never changed the ini file, so I have no idea where to start to fix this problem. I do not know what changed in GBPVR that would affect comskip, especially that compskip did not change. Any help is greatly appreciated, I did realize how useful comskip has been until today.

[sub]

comskip is entirely separate from GB-PVR. Upgrading the version of GB-PVR wont change anything about comskip's ability to find commercials.

[erik]

I may be able to help if you follow this procedure
http://mk.kaashoek.com/comskip/viewtopic.php?t=34


Or set verbose=10 and send me the log file for a quick look

[capone]

I noticed lately that SA using the comskip helper is not running at all sometimes, too, lately.

[sub]

I noticed lately that SA using the comskip helper is not running at all sometimes, too, lately.

Thats not what he is saying though. He's saying it not being as successful at find the ads as it has been in the past. This is quite different from it not running.

In your case, I'd guess GB-PVR is starting SA but it dies for some reason. Maybe SA occasionally comes across something in the stream it doesnt like. If you look in GBPVRRecordingService.exe.log, it'll show each attempt to run comskip/SA.

[Ninto]

I'm having this exact same problem. Erik, could we keep the troubleshooting process public, or could I help things along? I'll set a recording with verbose=10 and either post the log here or send it to you privately if you'd prefer.

[zaldwaik]

I have deleted the recordings already. I will do that with new ones and post the file.

[erik]

If there are more people experiencing the same problem then we should keep it public.

My current assumption is that either the black level changed or that comskip is run in a different directory and it has problems finding the ini file.

[Lindsay]

Thanks for your prog and support, Erik. I would like to join this thread as I used to get very good ad detection using an earlier version (77.61) but when I tried 79.7 the ad detection went really bad. However, I have tried a tweak or two and my last hour long recording looked MUCH more promising. Comskip successfully found the prog start and 3 out of 4 ad breaks were perfect. The fourth break starrted two thirds into the actual break. So I will keep tweaking!

[erik]

Between version 77 and version 78 I changed the commercial detection approach
In version 77 everything was a commercial unless otherwise proven.
From version 78 everything is show unless otherwise proven.
This leads to less false positives (which should be avoided at al cost) and some more missed commercials (which is anyoing but not fatal)

I would realy like to receive your tweeks to improve the default ini file that is in the distribution.
For instance:
non_uniformity=500
should be
non_uniformity=2000
if you use Comskip on HD or
non_uniformity=1000
if you record in low quality, noisy signal or with a lot of mpeg artifacts.

shrink_logo=5
is conservative, if you have logo's going wel into the start of the commercial then this has to increase.
In the log file you will find a line
Suggested shrink_logo: 5
where Comskip has calculated a suggested setting. If the value is higher then the current shrink_logo value you may give it a try.

detect_method=47
includes Scenechange which often moves the score in the wrong direction, I personally prefer
detect_method=43
that is without scene change.

If your audio is not very clean then look at the line in the log file that says
Silence level found 50
If this is above
max_volume=250
divided by 4 then you should increase max_volume to the detected silence level times 4