BETA: Smart Commercial Detection for TVE & Pluto

miles · January 16, 2022, 5:21am

I also miss this behavior when using the new Smart Commercial Detection. With Comskip, I was able to mark the end of the previous program and the start of the next program as "commercials" to skip right to the main content when watching.

Since programs sometimes start a bit late, in addition to having padding, this results in parts of adjacent programs being lumped together with the main content when using Smart Commercial Detection. Even if Comskip by default doesn't mark the previous/next programs as commercials, it still adds the cut points (allowing manual marking), unlike Smart Commercial Detection.

However, if there are no commercials between two programs, I can see how it might not be technically feasible to detect that cut point with the Smart Commercial Detection, since the next/previous program is very likely coming from the same domain as before (and not from an ad domain).

chDVRuser · January 16, 2022, 5:33am

I'm pretty sure that's correct.
Unlike comskip, the new detection method doesn't break out as many blocks in the edit commercials.
One can always manually redetect commercials which uses comskip.
And yes, that would be a manual workaround. Another reason why someone would want to disable the new ad detection.

mjitkop · January 18, 2022, 2:52am

Apparently, Channels doesn't want anybody in my family to watch the Hallmark movie "When Sparks Fly". Indeed, it marked the whole movie as a big commercial block!

I first noticed this when I opened "When Sparks Fly (2014) 2022-01-14-2057.vprj" in VideReDo and then checked the content of the file:

cdvr_vprj_content

At first, I was not sure whether this was a bug with the commercial detection algorithm or the conversion to VPRJ.

So then I opened the Edit Commercials menu and it confirmed that the detection was the problem:

cdvr_ad_detection_bug

Is this because this new smart commercial detection doesn't support the Hallmark channel yet?
But, if that's the case, shouldn't it still use comskip?

I forced the detection of commercials to see what comskip would generate and it seems to be working:

cdvr_ad_detection_comskip

I forgot to mention my version of Channels DVR: 2022.01.16.0341

tmm1 · January 18, 2022, 11:10pm

If you can send the debug log for that recording to [email protected], that would be helpful.

FWIW I tried a test hallmark recording today and it was tagged with commercials correctly.

mjitkop · January 19, 2022, 1:15am

Email sent.

Edwin_Perez · January 19, 2022, 5:36pm

I did some recordings on TVE WETV in some instances it Identified the commercial as a show and the Show as a commercial... Rerunning Comskip through the Web UI was spot on all correct. Is there a way to dsiable smart detection ? on some channels.

freeside · January 20, 2022, 4:11am

I had the same thing also on WETV law and order recording - commercial markings were all over the place and made for difficult navigation (I use the on screen skip prompt) as you couldnt manually FF with the skip prompt on screen.

Edwin_Perez · January 20, 2022, 11:22am

Can this be disabled somehow most TVE channels besides game shows and news channels have no problem using my INI... on other channels this is not so Smart.

tmm1 · January 20, 2022, 3:38pm

Disabled for WETV

Morris_Altman · January 21, 2022, 2:05pm

Both Comskip and the new smart Commercial Detection work very well most of the time. In general, the source channel makes the difference so prioritizing recordings to a source produces the best results. I've done this using Favorites yet there are individual shows that seem to break the pattern.

An example of what I do is I have the science channel fevered via TVE while my HD Home Run is top priority.

It would be great if:

There was a selection of which commercial skipper to use for each channel
Passes could include a commercial skipping chose

I will repost the suggestion to that forum

Absenm · January 21, 2022, 9:00pm

I think the general consensus is becoming clear that there should be a choice between commercial skippers on a per-program basis. Most likely included in advanced settings in passes as the most logical place.

I personally like having the per show pass option idea. But I also think maybe a global option for recordings without passes. In that case a global setting could be like "Commercial Detection: Smart, Legacy (Comskip), and None."

tmm1 · January 21, 2022, 9:24pm

A setting per program doesn't make sense to me, because the option is not available on all channels. If you set a program to use smart detection, but it only records over OTA, it's never going to use smart detection and the setting just causes confusion.

Absenm · January 21, 2022, 9:31pm

Understood. However, the reverse I think is being wanted. If someone just wants the Comskip and not the Smart filter. ~If you want a program to use Comskip detection, but it only records over TVE, it's going to use smart detection anyway even if you really just want only Comskip~

Channels2021 · January 21, 2022, 9:36pm

You could use MCE Buddy to move recordings to the imports folder, for the shows that you don't want the commercials detected.

tmm1 · January 21, 2022, 10:12pm

If the detection is not working on a TVE channel, I would rather disable it once in the code. I don't expect every user to figure out which shows and channels it works on, and then change settings to make their DVR work.

Absenm · January 21, 2022, 10:15pm

Fair enough. And thank you for your time and effort and always being polite and considering our ideas and thoughts and really explaining your reasoning behind things. It is awesome to be able to get this kind of feedback from a developer.

Morris_Altman · January 22, 2022, 2:40am

I would not expect every user to switch the detection yet some will. We are also dealing with a moving target. What I've basically done is taken advantage of your super work on the new Smart Commercial Detection for the Discovery set of channels by making there TVE channels priority over my prime.

We watch all sorts of obscure channels. Do you want us to have to contact you every time a channel dose not work well with the Smart Detection? It seems we can change this our selves.

A more interesting setup would be to have those of us that make choices notify you so you can see which channels work best with which solution, sort of a vote. That process could be automated.

Right now I'm twisting the design to get desired results. This works for me yet others might want to use Favorites for what they are designed.

freeside · January 30, 2022, 5:34pm

Is there something I need to do to make sure its disabled on my end? My WE TV commercial detection is still all over the place.

tmm1 · January 30, 2022, 6:03pm

You need to update to newer prerelease

andi330 · January 31, 2022, 2:34pm

When I go in to edit commercials on Farscape (recorded from Comet TV), the changes don't seem to save. Sometimes, even after checking or unchecking boxes, the save changes button stays grayed out. And then even if I am able to click on save changes if I go back in and go to re-edit commercials again, all the changes I made have been undone.

Edit: I've gone in to watch the first episode, and I've noticed as I'm watching that the timing on the episodes isn't quite right even with the manual edits as well. Right as it jumps to commercial, you still see a second or two of the commercial. I think it's probably because the manual edits didn't save properly, because it's definitely where made a manual change.

Edit 2: I just went in and made manual changes to another episode, hit save changes and it said it saved. Then a few seconds later, all the boxes I checked or unchecked were back to the way they were before I made the changes. So there's definitely a glitch preventing them from saving properly. I just updated to the most recent pre-release today before starting this so I'm definitely up-to-date.