Another Call For Help: Does anyone manually edit the commercials on a lot of their recordings?

Channels DVR Server
#33

Sent you a DM regarding what you’d like me to do after the fingerprint scan.

#34

A post was split to a new topic: Replace my comskip.ini file

#35

I'd be interested in helping, but I haven't had any experience using the Edit Commercials function. The vast majority of my recordings I have get copied into other folders where I'll typically use the VPRJ file as a head start for VideoRedo to edit the in and out points or to just remove the commercials.

If someone could give me a brief description of how the Edit Commercials function is supposed to work (it seems much different than VideoRedo), I will be happy to use it for a number of programs I don't plan to move to import folders anytime soon.

#36

I completed the fingerprint scan. I have some files with commercials edited, not sure I have enough to qualify as "a lot" but figured I'd send it in and let you decide. Pretty decent number of files from a variety of sources.

#37

I have over 17000 recordings. Primarily Movies and TV series. Most are TVE, or ADBTuner captures. Some are imported from PlayOn and other sources.

Unfortunately, I have never manually edited or verified commercials on any. I haven't modified comskip.ini or recorded files.

I'm willing to help and learn.

#38

It had paused, so I thought it was completed. Its actually still running, 3 days later... Synology 224+, ~ 6000 recordings. Is this normal?

#39

Yes, it’s meant not use resources even the DVR has any other activity to prevent it from overwhelming the system, so if you were recording or viewing the fingerprinting would pause until those were completed.

1 Like
#40

I have about 68 shows with verified commercials (or as best as I can since sometimes the auto detected break points aren't fully correct). I've run the Media Fingerprints step and I believe it is complete (by looking at the log file and the status indicator).

#42

I just ran a small script to count the number of verified items using the API end point "http://127.0.0.1:8089/api/v1/all?verified=true":

C:\Users\mjitk\Documents\Scripts>python cdvr_verified_items.py
Number of items: 2339

That includes items from a few years ago until today.

Earlier, I started Generate Media Fingerprints but my DVR is busy now. I will let you know when it's done, if you are still interested.

1 Like
#43

We’ve made a big improvement to how we collect commercial edits to streamline the process for the future.

Please update to the latest pre-release:

and then go to the Live TV & DVR settings and enable Share Commercial Edits:

IMG_0980
IMG_09801206×1351 141 KB

This will automatically share all edits that have been made and any new ones as they are done.

3 Likes
#44
#45

Done!

1 Like
#46

As of this latest build it is no longer required to run Generate Media Fingerprints. It will be handled as part of the process of sharing commercial edits.

All that is required now is to enable the Share setting. Looking forward to seeing this data. Thanks everyone for assisting us in this endeavor!

2 Likes
#47

My DVR is still in the process of generating fingerprints when it's not recording.

I have an upgrade pending but it's always busy because of fingerprints. Is it safe to force the upgrade if it's in the middle of processing a video?

#48

Yes it’s totally fine to force it.

1 Like
#49

@eric how often does it send the data? I do 4 edits a day of each nightly news and watch them and then delete. Is that enough time?

I turned it on.

#50

If there isn’t a backlog of pending submissions (which there generally should not be) it should submit within a few seconds of saving.

1 Like
#51

Thank you everyone who has opted in to this! It's very helpful to have this data! :heart:

The more people we have, the wider range of channels and shows we can get that will hopefully make comskip behave better in more circumstances.

6 Likes
#52

I'm interested in helping out too, since I have around 1500 verified recordings.

@eric I'm seeing some issues and have some questions.

After updating to pre-release v2025.12.11.0247 on Dec 10 around 10pm EST, even though "Share Commercial Edits" had been set to Off (as it had been since the feature was introduced), I've noticed the following: starting at midnight every night since (first occurrence: 2025/12/11 00:00:47 EST), the DVR has automatically started generating fingerprints for a bunch of files even when the DVR server is busy, while the DVR server activity also displays "Submitting comskip recordings" for the first 15-30 minutes (even though commercial edits are not actually being submitted). The fingerprinting seems to be processing files both with and without comskip/ads info, and regardless of verified status.

Questions and Issues:

  1. Why is fingerprinting now running automatically at midnight when "Share Commercial Edits" is Off? Is this behavior intended—to fingerprint the entire library in the background—and not directly associated with "Share Commercial Edits"? My expectation was that setting "Share Commercial Edits" to Off would also disable fingerprinting in the background, but that is clearly not the case. (I have never run "Generate Media Fingerprints" under Settings > General > Maintenance.)

  2. The fingerprinting is not pausing when recording or watching like it is supposed to, which is overwhelming my server. Even if multiple recordings start, whether manual or scheduled, and I also start watching a recording from a client, the fingerprinting usually continues, significantly slowing down my Synology DS1520+ server (it's only an Intel J4125 CPU: 4 cores @ 2 GHz).

    • It seems like the busy activity "check" doesn't happen often enough, since it sometimes takes roughly 15 minutes to pause, or other times the fingerprinting doesn't seem to pause at all, despite recordings already in progress before midnight or being started manually.

  3. There is no clear way to stop the fingerprinting once it automatically starts.

  4. The DVR server displaying the activity message "Submitting comskip recordings" while the fingerprinting is happening makes it seem like the "Share Commercial Edits" setting is not being respected properly. However, after temporarily setting "Share Commercial Edits" to On, I could see that there was a specific message logged per recording when it was actually submitted; this was not happening when "Share Commercial Edits" was Off, so it appears to be just that the activity message "Submitting comskip recordings" is misleading in certain cases.

At 2025/12/12 00:52:59 EST, I submitted diagnostics as a5953080-738f-4f34-a8bb-a1bc95363dad.
Shortly afterward, I updated to v2025.12.12.0245 and temporarily turned on "Share Commercial Edits" for a bit before turning it back off, but that didn't stop the fingerprinting.

This automatic midnight fingerprinting behavior is still an issue for me with the recent v2025.12.20.0100 pre-release, since there seems to be no clear way to disable it.
At 2025/12/20 00:40:21 EST, I submitted diagnostics again as 37a8c5e1-ffd1-40ee-8096-4fec9deb464d.

#53

Thanks for catching this. We were reporting this activity even though no commercial edits were being shared (due to the setting not being enabled). The latest pre-release resolves this issue.

I've made some improvements to fingerprinting where it was being more aggressive than it should have been.

Thanks for reporting these issues. Can you try the latest pre-release and see if it lowers the load on your system?

Generating Fingerprint