BETA: Smart Commercial Detection for TVE & Pluto

[daphatty]

I am in the process of sifting through some Nick Jr. recordings and I am finding that the initial commercial detection needs improvement. Specifically, I am recording Blaze and the Monster Machines from Nick Jr. via TVE. Most of the recordings I've worked with so far (Four out of 5) required a manual commercial redetect.

The initial commercial detection resulted in what I am guessing are hundreds of 5 second or less segment detections throughout a 30 minute recording. In some cases, there were segments that included the same smaller segments interspersed with a single large segment of 20-30 minutes.

Redetecting commercials with the Comskip method fixes the detections.

Not sure if this is still in active development but figured I'd share my experience. Logs have been submitted as 8c3a40de-8976-4276-b54f-c353c2e5dc35.

[miles]

@mtnbkr60

The new commercial detection works well on most of the channels it covers, but for some reason with Hallmark it has issues. The code is marking the breaks early in and early out. Catching the last 5 seconds of the commercial is not a big deal, but the early in point in the EDL means you lose dialog at each break.

I am also experiencing the same issue on the Hallmark channels, where the commercial markings are negatively offset by 5 seconds: the last 5 seconds of each content segment are marked as commercials, and the last 5 seconds of each commercial break are marked as content.

Interestingly, the smart commercial detection is consistently early by 5 seconds for Hallmark recordings. I've verified this across multiple recordings on the latest pre-releases at the time of recording over the last two months. The earliest Hallmark recording I have that used the smart commercial detection was from January 9, 2022, and it has the same 5 second offset issue.

[tmm1]

Next build will turn off smart detect on those channels

[miles]

For Hallmark, would adding a 5 second positive offset to compensate be possible instead?

If I may, completely disabling this feature on Hallmark was not the resolution I had hoped for; despite the consistent 5 second negative offset, the smart commercial detection is excellent at differentiating between commercials and content on the Hallmark channels.

[dschaper]

Hallmark does some funny things with their shows. They add in some black frames around commercials and I think that throws off some of the commercial detection. I'll pull a show from 2.27.2022 and see if there's any correlation between that constant 5 second offset and the black frames being introduced.

[bellbm]

I recorded some videos on pluto vevo channels (9434) and it did not detect any commercials. Reran detection and it was almost perfect

Can you remove the new detection from the Vevo channels on Pluto (and the Price is Right Channel - old detection was near perfect).

[chDVRuser]

All 11 of them?

Vevo '70s                (Pluto Channel 894)
Vevo '80s                (Pluto Channel 895)
Vevo '90s                (Pluto Channel 896)
Vevo 2K                  (Pluto Channel 897)
Vevo Country             (Pluto Channel 892)
Vevo Latino              (Pluto Channel 887)
Vevo Pop                 (Pluto Channel 885)
Vevo R&B                 (Pluto Channel 890)
Vevo Reggaetón & Trap    (Pluto Channel 888)
Vevo Retro Rock          (Pluto Channel 893)
Vevo True School Hip-Hop (Pluto Channel 880)

Your channel 9434 is not everyones 9434 (I don't have that channel# in my Pluto lineup).

[mjitkop]

Yes, I noticed it too.

Hallmark - black I frames in movie scenes after commercial breaks

I noticed recently when editing recorded movies from Hallmark to remove commercials that there is one black I frame about 3.5 seconds after the movie resumes. When you play the movie, you notice like a very quick flash in the middle of the scene. Not a problem thanks to VideReDo, I am able to remove them. [cdvr_hallmark_black_frame] Has anybody else noticed this? Could this have a specific purpose? I wouldn't think so.

[bellbm]

I’ve recorded from the 80s, 90s, and retro rock channel and noticed little to no commercial detection using the new method.

[chDVRuser]

I have to agree.
I recorded one program each from Vevo '70s and Vevo Retro Rock.
Smart detection was way off, only marking tiny sections of 2 ads in 2 of the 3 commercial blocks.
Comskip was much better (but nowhere near perfect).
Timestamps were messed up in both recordings.

[CScott]

Smart detect does not appear to be off for hallmark channels.
(My wife's been watching Golden girls because of Betty Whites passing and the new commercial detection is making her crazy by jumping out of the show 20-30 seconds before a commercial. I try to remember to re-detect them using comskip which sets the markers correctly but i don't get them all)

Might I be so bold to suggest, within the server, under Show Options a switch could be employed to choose the older comskip or the smart commercial detection?

Something like this:

Might save developers time as streaming channels change and a greater level of control to users as well as value?

[Absenm]

Yeah, I suggested something like that in January. I think it got ruled out because it could be confusing because new detection is only available on TVE and not OTA. I personally think just having a switch that simply says “Only Comskip” would be clear enough. The assumption with that kind of wording would be that the best available detection would be used unless “Only Comskip” was flipped.

[CScott]

Up to now is been a so-so PITA.

But now, I'll be working in the garage of something an I hear "it's bleepin doing it again!"

Therefore it's now officially a pain in the butt

[Morris_Altman]

I made an official request. You can vote for it here

Commercial Skipping Choices

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 c…

[CScott]

Hallmark from DTV STREAM still uses the smart detection NOT comskip

[andi330]

I noticed today while editing commercials on some videos that while the properties of the EDL files show that an edit has been made the json files don't. I know I could just use the edl file with MCE Buddy instead of the json, but shouldn't the json file be saving the new information too?

[tmm1]

Which json file are you referring to?

[andi330]

The corresponding json file for the video whose commercials I edited. So, for example, let's say I go into edit the commercials of Life of Brian. When I then go onto the hard drive to copy that movie, the edl, and the json files associated with it to another drive so that I can use MCE Buddy to edit the commercials out, if I check the properties of the edl file, it will show me that the file was recently updated. But the json does not show any change from the original date of the recording. Since I've edited the commercials, shouldn't the edits be saved to the json as well? I've noticed that I'm still having issues where, if I use the web client to edit commercials, those edits disappear. I don't have that problem if I edit commercials using the app, and I'm wondering if the fact that the edits don't save to the json file is the reason why. I can submit logs, but when I look at the logs I don't see anything related to editing commercials, so I'm not sure how useful it would be.

Edit: I have Channels running on a Pi that runs Raspberry Pi OS.

[Edwin_Perez]

Why would the Json file get updated it does not contain the EDL cuts.? I think you are looking at it the wrong way. MCEBUDDY reads the Json file for the metadata it reads the EDL if you want to remove commercials ... add chapters etc.

[andi330]

I guess I didn't realize that they weren't the same data. Thank you for pointing that out.