BETA: Enhanced Commercial Detection

Channels DVR Server
#121

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?

#122

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.

#123

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.

#124

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.

1 Like
#125

See Another Call For Help: Does anyone manually edit the commercials on a lot of their recordings? - #32 by chDVRuser

#126

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.

#127

For marking shows as Verified, should you still mark them even if there's still some commercials in the block? Like if it's as good as the system can do?

#128

Yes, if there’s part of the show you would want to watch, mark it as show.

#129

The only program that I commonly edit is CBS News Sunday Morning. I have yet to see a day where the enhanced detection outperformed comskip. Usually enhanced is considerably worse. Today it came fairly close.

Usually, comskip misses a couple of bumpers. It almost always marks the last part of the People Who Died This Week segment as a commercial. Enhanced always seems to err on the side of marking a significant portion of program content as commercials. Today was a bit unusual in that a 30-second commercial sandwiched between two program segments was marked as program content.

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#130

Thank you for doing this. News is our lowest category for edits. Getting more for this unique show layout will help us make it better.

1 Like
#131

Is it wrong, really? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#132

I submitted dozens of edits for my local news and ABC World News but recently gave up because I wasn’t seeing any improvements. It’s become too difficult to submit edits because of the way the editor groups segments together. It’s not “specific” enough and I didn’t want to submit bad edits when both the show and commercials are grouped together.

#133

@sdschramm thanks for your help! every bit helps and I'll be releasing a new model that incorporates those changes when I get a chance.

As for the situations where the cut points aren't right: it's definitely something we understand is an issue and would like to improve in the future.

#134

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