Comskip messes up timeling during playback

[philly_phenom]

I thought I had a problem w/ my HD-PVR recording w/ messed up timelines, so I played around with adding tsmuxer to PostProcessing.bat, but it turns out that simply deleting the comskip files causes the files to play back correctly.

Couple things I noticed:

1) If a file appears to have timeline issues (skipping always jumps to the beginning of the file), deleting the comskip files makes this problem go away - although comskip won't work then...
2) Alternatively, I can manually run tsMuxeR to re-mux the file and the problem goes away - plus I still have comskip
3) When I added tsMuxeR to PostProcessing.bat & ran PP.bat manually on the file, if comskip ran BEFORE tsMuxeR, everything was fine. If it ran after, the file was messed up (deleting comskip files restored timeline during playback)
4) If PostProcessing.bat is called from GBPVR, even w/ comskip running BEFORE tsMuxeR, the file appears corrupt - again removing comskip files corrects the problem.

Time line "corruption" appears both on the PCH & on the PC (although I really only view from the PC if I'm debugging stuff)

The last file I tried viewing that displayed timeline issues was an episode of Semi-Homemade viewed between 8-8:30 AM - once w/ & once w/o comskip files available.

[pBS]

i see a problem in logic of remux batch...specially if run outside of gbpvr..no %2 unless you specified it after filename when running manually.. "postprocessing filename channel"
and 2 branches:
if %file_type% EQU h264 and if %file_type% NEQ unknown are essentially the same...
because h264 is also not equal to unknown
you can use "if xx then (xx) else (xx)" in batch files, but since they do same thing, just combine the 2, removing the "if %file_type% NEQ unknown ( " part and the ending ")" on first section..making it just one section...
also, you can check current path with %cd% and easy access to batch file's path as "%dp0"
[%0 is batch file name]
i'll rewrite it real quick, with a little optimization..

oh, are you sure you need the fps setting? if not specified: "H.264 muxing fps not set. Get fps from stream." meaning auto..:

[philly_phenom]

When I run manually, I specify channel after filename.

As far as the if checks, if it's H264, I WANT it to run both times.

The reason for the 2 different checks (EQU h264 & NEQ unknown) is so I can add logic later for channels recorded via HD Homerun or PVR-500 (although haven't had issues w/ those recordings yet). Recordings from other sources would need a different meta file, but I'd want them to execute the steps in the "NEQ unknown" section.

For example, I could see adding the following:

if %2 EQU 231 set file_type=FOX

Followed by:

if %file_type% EQU FOX (
echo <bunch of crap into meta file> )

The script works - it runs comskip & then calls tsMuxeR with the specified meta file for the given channels - it's just what happens in GBPVR during playback when comskip files are present.

I initially thought that I needed to re-mux the files, but it turns out the problem is w/ the comskip files.

I'm trying to get help determining if the problem lies in comskip (bad comskip output tricks gbpvr) or gbpvr does something funky when processing comskip files that hoses the timeline.

[pBS]

ok...skip that last one then...
i would still let it determine framerate tho..[take fps setting out of remux]

do you use edl files as preference over .txt? might help...
<PreferComskipEDL>true</PreferComskipEDL>
or change whatever it's set to and see if any changes..
[oh and be sure to make comskip output .edl too]
all i got...

[philly_phenom]

I only saved a meta file when I remuxed w/ the gui & it had the fps setting in it. should I just take that part out?

will tsMuxeR run w/o the fps specified?

I'll change the PreferComskipEDL setting & see if it makes a difference.

Thanks for the response (comskip already outputs both txt & edl files - not sure which gbpvr is using right now though)

[pBS]

yea, it detects the fps when not specified...that's where i got that message from..
it's really good at detecting, so letting it be auto should work nicely..
supposedly .edl files are more accurate, down to frame level instead of time level..

hopefully that will work it out...a hdpvr might be in my future so hoping comskip isn't a big headache...

also, tsremux works from cmdline easier, just tsremux input output no meta file needed..

[philly_phenom]

Does tsremux do mpg2 & h264?

[pBS]

h264 yes,if inside a .m2ts or .ts...
well, on my regular sd captures it does...
some other conversions it didn't like tho..
no problem atsc hd .mpg with ac3 audio tho..

so yea...
cool, finally something that makes decent .ts's out of just about anything...

has weird help for cmd line, must type "tsremux ?" in a cmd line box to see anything..

[philly_phenom]

Looks like PreferComskipEDL was set to true. I changed it to false, and while it seemed the timeline issue went away, the skip points weren't even close to the right place. In fact, most shows ended up having on giant skip in the middle of the show - even though there were several cut points in the txt files...

Anyway, I just tried playing back "In Plain Sight" with comskip files in place & with them gone. Playback was from the PC (not popcorn hour).

With comskip files in place (prefer edl set to true), PVRX2 actually hung - I've seen this before - PCH will play them, but the playback marker is stuck at the end of the file & you can't skip or it goes back to the beginning.

When I removed the comskip files, it played back just fine.

[philly_phenom]

Don't know if this helps anything, but here are the comskip files from a show I recorded this morning. When I play back on the PCH, index is all the way at the end of the file - cut points appear to show correctly, but any skips jump back to the beginning of the file.

On server, GBPVR shows a blank screen - and the seconds move by really fast on the timeline.

Again, removing the comskip files makes it go away.

Do these files look like valid txt & edl files? (had to rename the edl file since forum doesn't recognize that extension).

I can try to upload the recording somewhere if that would be helpful - any recommendations for where to share large files?

BTW: I didn't remux the recording or anything - just removing the comskip files allows it to play clean (of course then there's no comskip)