Simple Comskip question

[moymike]

Every so often, I have a recorded show that won't skip commercials. When this occurs, I've been moving the show along with the comskip files to my videos folder, where it then skips commercials as expected.

I am playing the shows on my MVP, and using the '999' code on the remote, I can see the commercials toggle in and out of the timeline.

I have had limited success with hitting the "play" button on the remote to skip to the end of a set of marked commercials, but I think this only works when comskip is toggled off and the commercial is playing. Either way, it does not do anything on a recording when comskip is toggled on, and the commercial does not skip.

The fact that moving the file with it's comskip .txt files to the video folder allows the comskip to work, suggests that somewhere something is being stored in the database for the recording that is blocking the comskip from working.

My question is, how to you get comskip to work on a recording once it is in this state? Is there some toggle like the '999' code that will get it working again?

[kayak4ever]

I have heard wonderful reviews of comskip, when used with or without comclean. In the config file, there is an option to auto-skip commercial (need comskip files). If I have downloaded the comskip utility and checked the box for auto-skip commercials, I still have to fast forward through commercials when watching a recording (consistent with MoyMike's comments). If I don't download the plug-in Comclean, I presumably need to add "Call Comclean %1" to a PostProcessing.bat file which is beyond my expertise. Does downloading Comclean eliminate that step or are there other steps? Once both utlilities are downloaded and auto-skip is checked in the config files, will the commercials be deleted when watching from the recording directory or is only intended to work in the video directory?

I know there are other threads which discuss this, but I didn't quite follow all the steps in those threads.

[HtV]

I think comclean works after a show has been recorded. It's not done while you are watching a recording. It cuts out the commercials using the comskip-info. It definitely needs some time and hdd-rumble. Some folks do a mux-remux (is that right?, well I hope you know what I mean:o ) to get rid of time-stamp errors first. So you can imagine it's not done on the fly.

[moymike]

First, you don't need to run Comclean to skip commercials that Comskip found. Probably the main value of Comclean is that the resulting file takes less space, with the downside being that Comskip is not 100% perfect, usually on the side that it leaves some commercials unskipped, but sometimes skips part of the show, especially the promo's at the beginning and end.

Comskip simply does an analysis on the MPG file, and creates a few TXT files that identify the positions of the commercials. It can be run during the recording, with a few tweaks, directly after the recording, OR on demand. I find it best to run during recording with two benefits being; when I come in ten minutes behind a program recording the comskip data is already there AND my machine seems to handle the load of running comskip with the recording better then after.

Now, as to using the comskip data ... You should be able to see the identified commercials in the timeline of the recorded show. If you do not see the gaps the commercials create, then you are either not running a successful run of comskip (check for the TXT files) or you have commercial skip on playback turned off. Another possibility is comskip found no commercials, which I see when we have bad weather in the area, as most stations keep weather info on the screen, not allowing it to ever go fully black.

If you see the commercials in the timeline though, the playback should skip past them. If the skip does not automatically occur, try hitting <PLAY> once the playback is within the commercial.

If you find it still won't skip the commercial... then you are experiencing the problem that I am having here and there. It seems to happen to me maybe one in 5-10 recordings. When I get a file that won't skip the commercials, I can move the recording, along with the comskip TXT files to my videos folder, and play them from here with full commercial skip.

I figure there's a better way to get GBPVR to re-enable the comskip though.