Commercial Detection for In-Process Recordings (Catch-up to live broadcast - especially useful for live sports/events)

Fix coming in next beta APK

4 Likes

Working now thanks.

2 Likes

Installed today's update and still see commercials and none shown in timeline.
Screenshot at 2022-09-16 10-50-49
Screenshot at 2022-09-16 10-50-14

Did you install the beta on your chromecast?

No. When I check the app on the chromecast it indicates there is no update. The screen has line saying "Google Play - Beta". Is there some other way to get a newer version?

See:

Voila! It works! Thanks for the amazing support for a great product.

Oops. It appeared to be working, but it missed several series of commercials and played a commercial while "skipping commerial" was shown. Much worse performance than the normal tagging after the recording is complete. Close, but not quite there in my testing.

Live Comskip tagging might not be as good as Comskip tagging a completed recording in my experience and I have been using Comskip for over 10 years ... is that completed recordings are more accurate.

That's disappointing. I did another test and the commercial skipping was messed up again. I will abandon this for now. Thanks.

I haven't been using this yet and don't have it enabled, but I'm seeing about half of my completed recordings displaying this in the log
[DVR] Running live commercial detection on file...
the other half display correctly
[DVR] Running commercial detection on file...

Appears to have started on 9/14 when Channels DVR updated to the new stable release v2022.09.14.2324

The ones showing live detection end with finished with 4 markers in 12m49.355204081s (live).
the ones using normal detection end with finished with 4 markers in 6m8.809653377s. and no longer show # threads used like it used to finished with 10 markers in 15m2.687154595s (2 threads)

Doesn't appear to be using live detection since it runs after the recording is complete and the comskip log doesn't show live being used. I just miss that (2 threads) and it may make it harder to troubleshoot issues since it's a misleading log entry.

2 Likes

Last night I had a server crash (Logs: 3db1edfa-d907-4869-80d5-87db47f8b5a3) and I think it may have been related to this feature. I had both NFL games recording, one that I was watching after it started recording, and there were a bunch of other programs recording / processing at the same time. The crash happened right around 9:50pm ET.

The server restarted no problem, but when it did so the live commercial detection was happening for both NFL games, even though I had not successfully launched the second one (I had attempted to do so before I realized the server crashed). But anyway, since the first game spoiled the second (and both were blowouts) and it was bedtime anyway, I decided it wasn't worth continuing to record. So from the Web interface I moved both recordings to the Trash.

That's when I saw the live commercial detection was still continuing:

JPScreenShot_2022_09_19_22_05_58

I tried to empty my trash, but that failed:

2022/09/19 22:04:44.246546 [ERR] Failed to delete #80480 C:\Files\Media\Channels DVR\TV\NFL Football\NFL Football Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles 2022-09-19-1955.mpg: remove C:\Files\Media\Channels DVR\TV\NFL Football\NFL Football Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles 2022-09-19-1955.mpg: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
2022/09/19 22:04:44.247546 [ERR] Failed to delete #80478 C:\Files\Media\Channels DVR\TV\NFL Football\NFL Football Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills 2022-09-19-1855.mpg: remove C:\Files\Media\Channels DVR\TV\NFL Football\NFL Football Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills 2022-09-19-1855.mpg: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

However, when I got back this morning, the trash was empty, so I guess it finished after the game and followed the failed command?

Anyway, it was a confluence of messes all at once.

1 Like

I disabled this permanently as I find recordings where Comskip was not run-on certain shows. It states it processes them but no commercials are detected ... Running it manually finds the commercials.
9-1-1 says it processed but it really did nothing.

2022/09/19 21:03:00.072643 [SNR] Statistics for "TV/9-1-1/9-1-1 S06E01 Let The Games Begin 2022-09-19-1959.mpg": ss=99%,97%-100% snq=72%,66%-77% seq=99%,0%-100% bps=6492585,1598752-13227680 pps=555,149-1133 sigerr=1%
2022/09/19 21:03:00.072654 [SNR] Buffer statistics for "TV/9-1-1/9-1-1 S06E01 Let The Games Begin 2022-09-19-1959.mpg": buf=0% drop=0%
2022/09/19 21:03:00.079333 [DVR] Finished job 1663642770-1-EP026956620113 9-1-1
2022/09/19 21:03:00.092398 [DVR] Waiting 56m29.907605515s until next job 1663649970-1 Quantum Leap
2022/09/19 21:03:00.123089 [DVR] Processing file-10369: TV/9-1-1/9-1-1 S06E01 Let The Games Begin 2022-09-19-1959.mpg

manual comskip ...

2022/09/20 09:09:19.243029 [DVR] Commercial detection for Skip and Shannon Undisputed 2022-09-20-0629.mpg finished with 16 markers in 8m10.309160722s (3 threads).
2022/09/20 09:33:23.009611 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 10369 (TV/9-1-1/9-1-1 S06E01 Let The Games Begin 2022-09-19-1959.mpg)
2022/09/20 09:35:16.554281 [DVR] Commercial detection for 9-1-1 S06E01 Let The Games Begin 2022-09-19-1959.mpg finished with 10 markers in 1m53.544940834s (3 threads).

Looking at your logs, it appears the system ran out of memory. Do you run other things on the computer that could have been taking up lots of memory at the time? This could be an issue with a recent build or with comskip, but we haven't seen other reports of that so far.

2 Likes

At that time of night, the only things that would have been actively doing anything would have been Channels and Plex. I mean, Excel, Word, Textpad, Firefox, and Plex desktop were also open, but they weren't being actively used. I also had started an Ubuntu session to my Pi that was installing a Docker, but I think it had already finished well before then. Channels is the only thing that crashed (and it reopened as soon as I manually launched it a few minutes later).

1 Like

Just updated to today's server Version 2022.09.21.0610, hoping may it's working. Started playing about 15min into a 30min recording program. The time line showed a commercial skip. When it got there it flashed "Commercial Skip" but played all the commercials. I hope the devs can get it working. It woud be a really nice feature, especially for football.

1 Like

What client device?

2 Likes

Chromecast with google tv. App updated last week to beta version 4.3.3-v309152306.

2 Likes

Since these changes some shows are not getting comskipped even without this enabled. I keep having to manually comskp some shows even though they recorded with no interruptions or failures. The voice did not even comskip last night.

1 Like

Okay I'm making a possible fix to turn off more of the new code when the option is unchecked.

1 Like