Commercial Skipping and cutting opinions sought

[Wintermute]

Hello,

I've been using BTV for around a year now. Before that I "cut my teeth" so to speak on GBPVR.
I have tried various commercial skipping and attempted various commercial cutting freeware. So far, I have not been very successful or satisfied with the result I have gotten. (Audio/video sync, corruption, cut too much or too little, etc.). So for some time I have just let the SmartChapter function run and use it as a guide, skip or FF until I get near the end of a set of commercials.
I am soliciting opinions from the veterans on what user-friendly single or combination of freeware or commercial applications you have had the most success where ATSC OTA digital recordings at SD and HD levels from 480i (or p) to 1080i in commercial detection and cutting for *.TP files transcoded to DIVX (commercial detection and cutting then transcoding).

Thank you ahead of time for sharing your experiences.

Greg

[Bigbird999]

This might be what you need???
http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/show...035#post239035

BB

[gsinpei]

Have you tried VideoReDo?

[Wintermute]

Thanks for your response. I have tried the AutoXvid solution. Didn't work well for me.
leecole certainly puts a lot of effort into that solution!

[Wintermute]

I have not tried VideoReDo as yet. I have seen many good and raving comments about that commercial application. I will admit to being somewhat cheap on myself in that regard. After spending as much as I have on a Fusion 5 Gold USB, BTV4 and all the audio and video cables for my setup, I have been reluctant to spend more. How well does the Adscan or AdDetective perform for commercial detection compared to ShowAnalyzer, Comskip or other commercial detection/skipping app?

[bits]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

I have not tried VideoReDo as yet. I have seen many good and raving comments about that commercial application. I will admit to being somewhat cheap on myself in that regard. After spending as much as I have on a Fusion 5 Gold USB, BTV4 and all the audio and video cables for my setup, I have been reluctant to spend more. How well does the Adscan or AdDetective perform for commercial detection compared to ShowAnalyzer, Comskip or other commercial detection/skipping app?

I have used them all and IMHO comskip is the best BUT ShowAnalyzer comes really close. Adscan is good but not nearly as tweakable and it is slower.

What VideoReDo brings to the table is an excellent mpeg cutting app with a GUI build for speed and for verifying/cutting commercials. It also is an essential app for OTA ts/tp files. You choose streams and fix them. As you probably know OTA ts/tp files have lots of junk in them and VRD cleans them nicely.

I have been cutting commercials for a few years now and as I said I have used them all. For the last 6 months I have been using comskip + Dirmon2. However I am picky so I do confirm the cuts using VRD and then I batch process them, again using VRD to make the final cuts. No commercial detection software is or will ever be 100%, it will come down to what you are satisfied with. For likes and dislikes fast forwarding is not an option...the commercial is still there...you can still see it.

The one problem I have not gotten around is OTA HD. I have not found a solution to being able to pick the correct stream 100% of the time automatically. Fortunately 95% of the OTA my family is interested in does not have commercials but just needs a snip at the start and end, which VRD makes easy work of.

[Wintermute]

bits,

Thank you for your reply. That is the kind of veteran opinion/feedback I am looking for.
Regarding the OTA HD stream issue. If I understand you correctly, you are having a problem with a broadcaster who is broadcasting sub-channels and selecting the right stream with comskip? Half or more of the OTA broadcasters in my area have sub-channels with different content.
Would StreamSnipping (or some other way) first then performing the other processes resolve that problem? If so, is there an automated way to do all of it? (hope, hope, hope!).

Thanks bits!

[Mamba]

Originally Posted by bits

For the last 6 months I have been using comskip + Dirmon2. However I am picky so I do confirm the cuts using VRD and then I batch process them, again using VRD to make the final cuts.

Bits, I'd like to use VRD to verify my Comskip'd shows before burning. I'm trying to use the Comskip generated chapters.xml files (BTV format, generated by Comskip via a PostHaste job) within VRD. But when I open one as a Project there are no cut marks created. The corresponding show file opens, but no marks. I know there are marks since commercial skip works while watching the recorded shows.
Any idea what I'm missing?

Also, if you have any tips for better Comskip accuracy they'd be welcomed. It works very well on some networks but on my "Heroes" recordings more like 80%.

[kklarson]

I highly recommend Comskip with VideoRedo for commercial detection and cutting. Use Comskip to create the *.vprj file that VideoRedo uses. You can specify the PID that you want so that you always get the right stream. Comskip's accuracy was recently improved for *.tp/*.ts files, so it's gone from very good to outstanding.

I use scripts to automate the process. Comskip has a mode that lets it start working while a video is still recording. That way, the *.vprj file is ready shortly after the recording is complete and the cutting in VideoRedo can proceed.

[ClamsTheCat]

I just use smart skip and import the video into IGCutter. I then just tweak the selections to cut out, and add the job to the queue. SmartSkip is close to right every time so there is very little tweaking. I will do 5 or 6 shows and then run the batch job and clip all the commercials at once.

Sometimes I ShowSqueeze the files first. It also does WMV files so it is no big deal, and it doesn't need to fully recode the files. It is a very fast solution.

[bits]

Originally Posted by Mamba

Bits, I'd like to use VRD to verify my Comskip'd shows before burning. I'm trying to use the Comskip generated chapters.xml files (BTV format, generated by Comskip via a PostHaste job) within VRD. But when I open one as a Project there are no cut marks created. The corresponding show file opens, but no marks. I know there are marks since commercial skip works while watching the recorded shows.
Any idea what I'm missing?

Also, if you have any tips for better Comskip accuracy they'd be welcomed. It works very well on some networks but on my "Heroes" recordings more like 80%.

I am not having much better results but that is the reason I verify the cuts. My experience shows that there would be very very few times that part of the show is be marked to be cut, so if you did not mind having a piece of commercial here and there then auto cutting would work.

Below is my comskip.ini file, make sure you have output_videoredo=1, this will generate a vprj file and when opened in VRD will show the marked areas for commercials but will also show the scene marks

This is my comskip.ini file:
detect_method=255 ;1=black frame, 2=logo, 4=scene change, 8=fuzzy logic, 16=closed captions, 32=aspect ration, 64=silence, 128=cutscenes, 255=all
validate_silence=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues if selected above.
validate_uniform=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues (like pure white frames) if blackframe is selected above.
validate_scenechange=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues if selected above.
verbose=10 ;show a lot of extra info, level 5 is also OK, set to 0 to disable
max_brightness=60 ;frame not black if any pixels checked are greater than this (scale 0 to 255)
test_brightness=40 ;frame not pure black if any pixels checked are greater than this, will check average brightness (scale 0 to 255)
max_avg_brightness=20 ;maximum average brightness for a dim frame to be considered black (scale 0 to 255) 0 means autosetting
max_commercialbreak=420 ;maximum length in seconds to consider a segment a commercial break
min_commercialbreak=45 ;minimum length in seconds to consider a segment a commercial break
max_commercial_size=145 ;maximum time in seconds for a single commercial or multiple commercials if no breaks in between
min_commercial_size=4 ;mimimum time in seconds for a single commercial
min_show_segment_length=120 ; any segment longer than this will be scored towards show.
non_uniformity=700
max_volume=500 ; any frame with sound volume larger than this will not be regarded as black frame
min_silence=12 ; Any deep silence longer than this amount of frames is a possible cutpoint
ticker_tape=10 ; Amount of pixels from bottom to ignore in all processing
logo_at_bottom=0 ; Set to 1 to search only for logo at the lower half of the video, do not combine with subtitle setting
punish=0 ; Compare to average for sum of 1=brightness, 2=uniform 4=volume, 8=silence, 16=schange, set to 0 to disable
punish_threshold=1.3 ; Multiply when amount is above average * punish_threshold
punish_modifier=2 ; When above average * threshold multiply score by this value
intelligent_brightness=0 ; Set to 1 to use a USA specific algorithm to tune some of the settings, not adviced outside the USA
logo_percentile=0.92 ; if more then this amount of logo is found then logo detection will be disabled
logo_threshold=0.75
punish_no_logo=0 ; Default, set to 0 to avoid show segments without logo to be scored towards commercial
aggressive_logo_rejection=0
connect_blocks_with_logo=1 ; set to 1 if you want successive blocks with logo on the transition to be regarded as connected, set to 0 to disable
cut_on_ar_change=0 ; set to 1 if you want to cut also on aspect ratio changes, set to 0 to disable
delete_show_after_last_commercial=0 ; set to 1 if you want to delete the last block if its a show and after a commercial
delete_show_before_or_after_current=0 ; set to 1 if you want to delete the previous and the next show in the recording, this can lead to the deletion of trailers of next show
delete_block_after_commercial=0 ;set to max size of block in seconds to be discarded, set to 0 to disable
remove_before=0 ; amount of seconds of show to be removed before ALL commercials
remove_after=0 ; amount of seconds of show to be removed after ALL commercials
shrink_logo=5 ; Reduce the duration of the logo with this amount of seconds
after_logo=0 ; set to number of seconds after logo disappears comskip should start to search for silence to insert an additional cutpoint
padding=0
ms_audio_delay=5
max_repair_size=200 ; Will repair maximum 200 missing MPEG frames in the timeline, set to 0 to disable repairing for players that don't use PTS.
delete_logo_file=1 ; set to 1 if you want comskip to tidy up after finishing
output_framearray=0 ; create a big excel file for detailed analysis, set to 0 to disable
output_videoredo=1
output_womble=0
output_mls=0 ; set to 1 if you want MPeg Video Wizard bookmark file output
output_cuttermaran=0
output_mpeg2schnitt=0
output_mpgtx=0
output_dvrcut=0
output_zoomplayer_chapter=0
output_zoomplayer_cutlist=0
output_edl=0
output_edlx=0
output_vcf=0
output_bsplayer=0
output_btv=0 ; set to 1 if you want Beyond TV chapter cutlist output
output_projectx=0 ; set to 1 if you want ProjectX cutlist output (Xcl)
output_avisynth=0
output_demux=0 ; set to 1 if you want comskip to demux the mpeg file while scanning
sage_framenumber_bug=0
sage_minute_bug=0
live_tv=0 ; set to 1 if you use parallelprocessing and need the output while recording
live_tv_retries=1 ; change to 16 when using live_tv in BTV
standoff=0 ; change to 8000000 when using live_tv in BTV
cuttermaran_options="cut=\"true\" unattended=\"true\" muxResult=\"false\" snapToCutPoints=\"true\" closeApp=\"true\""
mpeg2schnitt_options="mpeg2schnitt.exe /S /E /R25 /Z %2 %1"
avisynth_options="LoadPlugin(\"MPEG2Dec3.dll\") \nMPEG2Source(\"%s\")\n"
dvrcut_options="dvrcut \"%s.dvr-ms\" \"%s_clean.dvr-ms\" "
windowtitle="Comskip - %s"

[bits]

Originally Posted by ClamsTheCat

I just use smart skip and import the video into IGCutter. I then just tweak the selections to cut out, and add the job to the queue. SmartSkip is close to right every time so there is very little tweaking. I will do 5 or 6 shows and then run the batch job and clip all the commercials at once.

Sometimes I ShowSqueeze the files first. It also does WMV files so it is no big deal, and it doesn't need to fully recode the files. It is a very fast solution.

Does IGCutter fix mpegs/ts/tp files? Most of my ts files need fixing and VRD does a great job of doing that when it cuts the commercials.

In my experience SmartSkip is not nearly as good as comskip but maybe it has improved over the last year. When I did the comparison I was comparing using a wide variety of shows and channels and comskip seemed to be more accurate over a wider range of shows. But as I said that was about a year ago.

[Mamba]

Originally Posted by bits

Below is my comskip.ini file, make sure you have output_videoredo=1

Umm...I presently have "output_btv=1" as that way I can skip commercials while watching. Won't I lose that if I change the output type?
I haven't tried SmartSkip in awhile either. Comskip is 99% for most recordings, but less accurate on "Heroes" for some reason. But since it marks close to the right areas it would still speedup the manual check process if I could use the marks in VRD.

[bits]

Originally Posted by Mamba

Umm...I presently have "output_btv=1" as that way I can skip commercials while watching. Won't I lose that if I change the output type?
I haven't tried SmartSkip in awhile either. Comskip is 99% for most recordings, but less accurate on "Heroes" for some reason. But since it marks close to the right areas it would still speedup the manual check process if I could use the marks in VRD.

You will not lose anything by setting videoredo_output=1, leave your other settings the same as you have them. You will just get an additional file with a VPrj file extension.

Using the VPrj file in VRD makes confirming cuts very fast. At first I was not sure if having scene markers as wells as chapter marks was a benefit but it turns out that it is.

[erik]

Originally Posted by Mamba

Also, if you have any tips for better Comskip accuracy they'd be welcomed. It works very well on some networks but on my "Heroes" recordings more like 80%.

Can someone send me a .csv file for Heroes? Preferrably together with the edited .txt file to list the right commercials?
So I can try to improve Comskip on Heroes?