If its an OTA recording, comskip takes less than 5 min on my synology (Pentium N3710 1.60GHz).
If TVE, it takes longer.
watching on LG tv with a roku express
just watched, Jimmy Kimmel live, recorded last nite, so, perhaps, 10 hours later... full of commercials... I record, from, .. TVE
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The commercial skip settings are on the client. If you are watching on a Roku that is no longer being developed so I’m not sure if it has the option of auto skip (or skipping at all, frankly). Perhaps some others users with Roku clients can chime in.
slow computer is a relative term...
That would be a topic for another discussion. Depends on too many things.
Content video type and length, CPU load, CPU speed, CPU cores, comskip settings, speed at which comskip can read the recording to process it...
I've seen 30 minute mpeg2 SD shows comskip in less than a minute, some H.264 like TVE taking anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours for a one hour show, 3 hour H.264 movies taking 30 minutes to 3 hrs. And that's on my older/slower quad-core NAS.
If the Channels DVR server is software transcoding and/or updating the guide data during comskip it will slow it down also.
You can view the progress of commercial detection in the Channels DVR server web UI under Status>Activity.
If you want to know exactly how long comskip took for commercial detecting a recording you can see it in the Channels DVR server log.
2020/06/17 07:45:50.107714 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 21 (TV/Storage Wars/Storage Wars S02E18 2011-11-22 Auction Sesame 2020-06-17-0743.mpg)
2020/06/17 07:48:14.916124 [DVR] Commercial detection failed for Storage Wars S02E18 2011-11-22 Auction Sesame 2020-06-17-0743.mpg with exit status 1
Above is just a quick 3 minute recording from a TVE channel to illustrate it took 2 minutes and 24 seconds to detect commercials on my older/slower NAS.
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That log entry says that commercial detection failed, and the process did not complete. (Most likely because it was a brief and incomplete recording.) You cannot use a failure to exemplify a successful run.
(Also, the number of processor cores is irrelevant: the commercial detection process by default will only ever use a single thread on a single core.)
The process did complete, but didn't find any commercial blocks in the short partial recording.
comskip log
################################################################
Generated using donator Comskip 0.82.005
Time at start of run:
Wed Jun 17 07:45:50 2020
################################################################
...
Parsed 5220 video frames and 5805 audio frames at 46.46 fps
Maximum Volume found is 13493
Finished scanning file. Starting to build Commercial List.
...
Total commercial length: 0:00:00.00
...
5220 Frames Processed
################################################################
Time at end of run:
Wed Jun 17 07:48:14 2020
################################################################
True, I modified my comskip.ini to use two threads, but simultaneous transcoding/guide updates do affect comskip performance since both are processor and disk instensive.
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ok, thanks so much, I _am reading and tryin here... I find the log of a show, looks like Gone with the Wind... kinda long, doesn't mean much to me, but, its There, I will keep at this thing.
so, questions, is Roku... NOT the best thing for me to expect the best results with? I don't have appletv... I Do have an LG tv, but, I don't think there is a program for that?
so, in the Log, is there a 'keyword' to look for, to See, if its done, and successful at comskip? thanks
You can search the log for
commercial detection
You can also use a built-in rudimentary commercial editor on the recording to look at where it thinks the commercials are.
In a client player the commercial blocks will be highlighted in the progress bar.
You can see the Channels apps here: https://getchannels.com/apps/
The roku app you are using is unsupported and does not have commercial skipping.
thanks folks for the responses... so, what if I rephrase the question... IF you were gonna get the Best equipment to record as I have mentioned, WHAT would you recommend? thanks so much!
I would say the Apple TV 4K is currently considered the “flagship” client for viewing on a TV.
As far as what device to use for a Channels DVR server, you'll get different answers from everyone depending on what they have and their needs.
Kinda like saying "I need a vehicle, which one should I get".
Best thing about Channels DVR server is it runs on many devices/OS's and if you familiarize yourself with how to migrate your settings/recordings between different devices, you can try them all until you find what suits your needs.
Do you need quiet, low power, screaming fast, hardware/software encoding, able to run Channels DVR and Plex/etc.
As chDVRuser stated, all of the supported platforms work well. I do prefer Apple TV 4K though. If you want something that will run all of Channels features + access to all the latest betas, this is the device to have.
yes, I understand... read alot, got Roku, I really like it... finding somethings Need, real android... so, look at Fire... many love it, some say, not powerful enough.. Nvidia shield... Lots seem to Love it, its not as cheap as Roku or Fire, but, I don't mind an investment in hardware, what I WANT, is what I started this thread about. so, I'm just fishing for users prefered devises... maybe you get advise to Avoid something... thats useful too. so, thanks again for all these suggestions
It's hard to argue with a dev, but consider that I use a web browser as a client.
Are you saying you'd take a TiVo 4K Stream over an AppleTV 4K?
Or is it just a value proposition, more bang for the buck?
He asked for an android device that's powerful like the shield but cheap like the FireTV. The TiVo is a good compromise.
We consider the web UI an admin interface and wouldn't recommend anyone use it as their primary client. That's why we have apps for Apple TV and Android TV.
Breathing sigh of relief after I thought you were recommending it over an ATV4K 
I purchased your iOS Client before it was free, but barely use it as my TV is my PC monitor right now and I'm happy with your web UI player at this time. Works Great.
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