Can commercial detection be optimized for TVE channels that use placeholders? For example, CNN uses a static placeholder image for every single ad break but in my experience comskip fails to detect these 99% of the time. Once in a while, a long fade in from black will trigger it.
Commercial detection is based on the comskip ini used ... You can supply your own.... You will never get an ini that can insure %100 detection.
Channels DVR uses the station logo in corner to detect when shows are running vs commercials. It must consider those kind of CNN logo ads as part of the show and not a commercial.
I'm aware, but surely the default comskip ini that the server uses could be tweaked so that it's better out of the box for most TVE users. This was feedback that was previously considered by the devs while commercial detection was much rougher than it is today, but the thread has been inactive for months.
gotcha
1 Like
OR for most Cable TV watchers, or for most OTA watchers, or for most anime watchers, or...
It's like whack-a-mole. You come up with a perfect comskip.ini for a channel and things change and you have to redo it again, multiplied by all the channels you want to record. Channels DVR comskip is as close as I've ever seen to automatic, works most of the time. TiVo does it on some prime time shows using guinea pigs (human beings) to set the markers. If I really want to save a recording without adverts, I use VideoRedo to cut them, otherwise I just accept it's never 100% and use skip forward/back or fast-forward. Life is too short...
1 Like
I don't expect to get to a 100% perfect solution, but the placeholder / splash screens seen on a lot of TVE channels are a pretty specific thing, so it ought to be fairly straightforward to solve for them.
I find the splash screens more obnoxious than commercials so if I can do anything to help the devs gather data, provide samples, test comskip.inis, I'd be delighted to do so. I just don't know where to begin.
1 Like
While those splash screens are fairly specific to TVE streams, comskip is a general purpose tool that is not developed by Fancy Bits/Channels. The developers may make some modifications or improvements, but the primary development of the commercial detection software is handled by a third-party.
Correct, but it may be possible for the channels devs to tweak the default comskip.ini settings to catch these splash screens.
1 Like
Yes absolutely, I don't expect a comskip ini customized for every viewing scenario under the sun. But as @nickandjason42 mentioned, watching TVE streams is an extremely popular function of Channels DVR and I don't think tweaking Commercial Detection for a lot of channels with completely static placeholder images during ads is unreasonable. Almost every OTA program I’ve used with the included comskip ini works wonderfully, as do cable channels. If some TVE channels change their streams and detection is broken in the future, so be it. However, CNNgo has had a near similar placeholder for many years.
If the developers reply and say it’s unreasonable or would require some complete overhaul, then that’s perfectly valid. I just think it would be a great improvement to a lot of users and don’t think it would require too many resources to fix. This is a “Feature Requests” forum after all.