Thanks, I'll try to do better to submit those.
My comments would be that
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it's definitely better than the previous pure comskip system
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it's still not perfect
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it would be nice if there were a way to have these as the numbers recorded in the video.ffsplit file rather than the "pure" comskip numbers. I can (and do) edit the video.ffsplit file, but less work is better!
I have found that live commercial detection works extremely well for NFL football games. I start watching the game about 60 minutes after it begins and I end at the same time it does, and rarely ever watch a commercial. It also works very well for the local news and most OTA shows as long as I watch at least 10 minutes behind the live feed. Commercial detection [overall] works poorly for the TVE channels that inject their own holding pattern screens.
That's great to hear
Before the update, commercial skip was all but useless on World News Tonight and my local news. Now, I'd say it's about 90% better. Still not perfect, but close enough to actually use it on those shows now.
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CBS and NBC NFL yes, ESPN and FOX no. Lots of false positive skips on the latter.
No way can I enable autoskip on NFL.
Okay.
Been using comskip for a decade or two now, and I think there was another algorithm somewhere in there ... 'commercial detector' that was used for a while in Sage. I've come to understand that they aren't perfect, but I appreciate Eric's attempt to improve it to be the best it can be, and quite frankly I'm not sure how many other developers (other than Eric) are actually working on this today.
EDIT: I should probably also mention that I may be more forgiving than some users with reagard to commercial detection. If it fails, I still have the ability to fast-forward through commercials, the likes of which can't be done on some platforms any more (where you are forced to watch a commercial to get to the content).
I still don't think it's very good with ABC World News Tonight.
There is always a very short minute segment about three quarters of the way through the broadcast that is always missed because it's in between longer commercial segments.
When I looked at last night's broadcast, it missed even more than that.
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I too have had issues with the commercial skipping with my local news and ABC World News Tonight. I've been submitting corrections the past few weeks, but haven't seen any improvement. Sometimes the issue is with the "edit commercials" interface not allowing edits that are precise enough. (it will group the show and a commercial within the same block with no way to split it).
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@eric Why would these tiny little segments get flagged as show under enhanced commercial detection?
Show: TV/Mighty Cruise Ships/Mighty Cruise Ships S02E03 2017-02-26 Viking Sea 2026-04-07-1100.mpg
The crazy thing is if I select standard they are not selected. I'm finding that with some shows, standard detection is much better than enhanced (usually for non primetime stuff)
Here is another one:
Show: TV/Contraband Seized at the Border/Contraband Seized at the Border S02E07 2023-11-27 Crying Uncle 2026-04-07-1059.mpg
This is enhanced:
This is standard:
I am using the new webvtt stuff so I'm not sure if this a factor....
I submitted diagnostics:
07e8dba0-cfda-44b8-ac31-7495cb668703
@slampman Honestly there isn't a good explanation for "why" when it comes to these things other than "we need more data for this sort of recording".
I'm in the process of training another model with the latest submissions, so once that's released, hopefully it'll do a better job with these situations (and the news situations mentioned above).
We've released a new model 2026.04.07.1758 that can be updated by restarting the DVR or tapping the Check For Update.
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Was verifying commercials on a recent recording, and while the last frame is the last frame of show segment shown in the commercial editor is of the show segment, there's about at least 90 seconds of commercial included after the last frame of show shown.
@TheDaveAbides Yes, as we talked about previously in this thread, the segmentation we are using comes from the comskip project that we have always been using. Improving the segmentation is not something that is part of this initial work, but is something we hope to tackle some time in the distant future.
The new Enhanced Commercial Detection is definitely an improvement over the default Comskip, but I’m still seeing a lot of inconsistent markers. One common example is when a few‑second segment of the actual show gets flagged as an ad between two normal show blocks.
I record the same set of daytime shows every week, and the results vary a lot. Sometimes the enhanced detection is perfect, and other times—on the same show, just a different day—it incorrectly marks a short show segment as a commercial.
I previously shared a custom comskip.ini that I’ve used for years, which performs better than the default Comskip settings. With my ini, show segments are grouped into a single continuous block much more consistently, instead of being split into multiple smaller blocks like the default configuration does. I’m wondering if those extra split show blocks are contributing to the inconsistencies I’m seeing with Enhanced Detection.
Is it possible to use Enhanced Commercial Detection while still supplying our own comskip.ini?
Yes, I understand how comskip works. I've done probably thousands of manual comskip runs using MCEbuddy, looking through log files, and tweaking different comskip.ini files along the way. I know that sometimes it just doesn't find a cut point for whatever reason. I just would've expected the last frame to be the true last frame of the segment.
No, it's not possible to use a custom comskip.ini.
The reason why we need to all use the same comskip.ini is that it the model learns through consistency, so everyone having the same settings means that it has the best chance of understanding what the segments mean.
I'm confused what the issue is that you're reporting, in that case. Are you saying that the segmentation is fine but the commercial editor is picking the wrong frame to display (one that is outside of the segment)? If that is the case, that would be unrelated to the enhanced commercial detection and we can start a new thread to look into that.
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Ding ding!
I was under the impression the last frame was much closer to the actual end than 75% of the way through. That's not as helpful on longer segments. Enhanced did help on this recording, I just personally prefer to know if the detected segment had commercial at the beginning or end.