smartskip generating an empty file.

[Bigbird999]

I just entered the 21st century and installed 4.7 on a new build. I am recording HD programming in very excellent quality, SD via svideo from my cableco HD receiver. (I know, I know, I should be doing HD, but I'm to far from the CN tower, I can't climb on my roof, no QAM in Canada and everything except the analog channels and National Geographic HD are 5 C encrypted) Previously I was doing the same thing with my 3.74 rig (in my sig). I am now finding that most shows are generating an empty cut list file when smartskip runs. Last night Heros, CSI Miami and Journeyman did this. Chuck generated a couple of commercials. My 3.74 box was pretty good (+90% I would say) at detecting commercials. My new build sux! Any ideas? Are there some settings to tweak?

I know smartskip is running because it is in the log and I can see the task running in task manager and in the recordings GUI it says "Smartskip is available for this recording" But progress bar in the TV UI is solid blue and the xml file says <cutlist> and nothing more.

I will run my 3.74 rig in parallel tonite and see if it is better at detection but in the meantime, is there an easy answer?

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[Bigbird999]

No replies cuz most of you were out preventing a recession by Black Friday shopping, watching football or digesting Turkey. So this is a bump and I will ask again in a different way.

Is the sensitivity of Smartskip in any way adjustable/user configurable (like comskip)? Or am I stuck with how it works out of the box? My 3.74 rig detects commercials pretty well, but my brand new 4.71 rig just plain sux!!! It often doesn't detect a single commercial. If I can't do anything to fix it I will work give comskip a whirl (I have it working well on Sage), but I would prefer to make Smartskip work.

Happy Turkey Daze

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[myktek]

try adjusting the brightness from the TV tuner in the Web Admin - Audio and Video Inputs.

[Bigbird999]

Thanks myk
Yes I thought of that yesterday and last night's recordings were better (at least I think they were better). Smartskip is looking for blackscreen, right? So maybe that is the fix. But the question of whether there are any user adjustable settings remains. Can I tweak Smartskip?

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[myktek]

nope, smartskip is not tweakable, it looks for black screens, logo's and etc

[Bigbird999]

myk

Thanx, that's what I figured. Lowering brightness helped, but I'm not happy with the PQ so I guess I will play with recording settings and see if I can get it to satisfy these old eyeballs and Smartskip. :-)

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