Commercial skipping - is there a way to auto skip commercials during playback?

Channels DVR Server
#21

Perhaps I'm a bit opinionated, and this might come across with the wrong tone online. However, if you are happy using SageTV, but it has missing features you would like to see implemented, you are aware that it is open source, yes? There is nothing stopping you from implementing the missing features yourself, especially as it sounds as if you believe it will be easy since you think there won't be much extra work for the Channels team to implement them.

(If you do not wish to add the features yourself, there are several ways to contract third-parties to implement them for a fee. It all comes down to how much you value these features, and how necessary you feel they are. But, Channels is not an open code base, so you do not have the ability to modify it. SageTV, how, does offer you this route to implement missing features, or even improve their clients.)

#22

I'm a paying user of Channels DVR, and my request for adding a feature is as valid as yours. I don't see why you keep pushing this discussion off topic to try to invalidate my opinion and discourage my use of Channels DVR. The purpose of this forum is to discuss how to improve Channels DVR. This particular topic is requesting the auto-skip of commercials without requiring the user to take unnecessary action. There's a secondary request to do this for in-process recordings.

If you think you would use these features, then say so. If you don't think you would use them, then that opinion is related to the topic as well. But please don't take the discussion off topic by telling me how to spend my time and money on things not related to Channels DVR.

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#23

I see what you're saying about the live TV buffer, and that would definitely be a significant architecture change if implemented that way. But I don't think the live TV buffer on the client should be targeted for this feature.

The implementation that would be much more compatible with current architecture is to only run comskip server-side against in-process recordings - against the portion saved on the server, and not on the client at all. If the client is buffering what is being recorded on the server, the server could push a message to the client saying "your buffer has a commercial starting at 505.12 seconds and ending at 565.73 seconds", and the client could flag that portion of the buffer. But if the client is buffering live TV that is not being recorded to disk on the server, then that content would be ineligible for server-side comskip analysis.

So to be clear, in-process comskip analysis would never happen when flipping through live tv channels. It would only happen for scheduled recordings that are being watched while being recorded, with the watch delay being ~5 minutes or more.

#24

I'm also a former SageTV user and the thing I like most about Channels is how well it works for live tv,
It's much more responsive than SageTV which records everything on the server. This has made my wife much happier with Channels over SageTV, plus there's less "moving parts". Even if the server is down for some reason she can still watch live tv. However, the thing I miss the most is the automatic commercial skipping for recordings.
You guys seem to be intertwining two separate things here. Comskip can run either during a recording or after it's finished. As far as I can tell Channels only allows for running comskip once the recording is finished. In my experience this is fine. My server is fairly fast and can finish marking all the commercials in less than 10 minutes. This same server can run comskip on an in-progress recording in SageTV with no problem. However, I've never tried it on 2 recordings at the same time.
It would be nice to be able to run it on an in-progress recording. In our case we often watch a scheduled recording about 30 minutes in. In this case I think that comskip would work.

This is completely separate from having Channels automatically skip to the end of a commercial break during playback of previously recorded shows without having to touch the remote. I also think that this would be a great feature. However, to be fair, this wasn't a native feature of SageTV, which was also a commercial product, but was a user developed add on.

1 Like
#25

I’m with you, I’d subscribe again in a heartbeat if the com skip was automatic.

#26

One can playback Channels recorded shows with MrMC (iOS, tvOS, android) or Kodi (most platforms except iOS/tvOS). Both auto skip commercials.

Caveats:

Must wait until Channels commskip process has completed for recording

Run the edl hack as described in this forum. One time command.

#27

Heck, for a while now, channels dvr isn’t detecting commercials correctly for me, it’s hit and miss on everything I record, so if they were auto skipped or removed the outcome would be a disaster.

#28

Yup. It's close, but sometimes detects program resumption in the middle of commercial breaks--followed by another commercial break, detects the end of commercial breaks late, or fails to detect program resumption entirely (usually at the end of a program). Not taking a shot at Channels' devs, cuz I love these guys, but I'd never base commercial auto-deletion on Channels' commskip data.

Personally, I don't find having to hit a "commercial skip" button all that onerous, but to each his or her own.

1 Like
#29

Ideally the user would be able to customize the comskip ini file, or use one already customized (like the one MCEBuddy and I use). Still not perfect (and won't ever be), but my comskip nearly always gets it right, or errs on the side of programming, but that's for me and the channels I use. Network editing practices make huge differences in comskip performance - hence the ability to alter or replace the comskip ini with one that might work better.

Personally, if there's a way for me to do something to improve the automatic removal of an advertisement so I won't have to endure the interruption later - I'm gonna do it. I can, so I did. If, one day it stops working all together (for some reason), I'll do something else until the only thing left is skipping through ads with the remote (the last and least preferred option).

#30

You can customize it if I remember right. I think you can find how here: Feature request: Comskip ini access but I've never used it.

#31

Comskip hasn’t worked correctly for days for me with the constant school closing notices across the bottom. I need a polar vortex filter for comskip.

#32

Good info will likely help others, but I don't need it. I've been using a custom comskip ini for years with MCEBuddy.

#33

Hello, I'm new here and I would like to respond to your comments on "LIVE TV" commercial skipping. Specifically this statement "And, if you're skipping commercials in live TV, how does that even work? Blank the screen when a commercial airs?". My solution has been to substitute ROKU video when the commercials start and return to the LIVE video when the commercials stop. Although, this process begins with a single button press on the ROKU remote and concludes with another single button press on the STB (in my case) remote to return to the original watched video it is and has been 100% accurate. In order to implement this process I only needed to purchase 3 items from Amazon totaling ~ $30. The best part is no software is required, ,just a finger ( ;>). I welcome the communities comments.

#34

The situation has changed from when this was originally. There is now a setting in the DVR to run Comskip on live streams. (Comskip has always offered an option to be run on live streams, but there was never a good way to integrate it into Channels.)

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#35

Hi racameron. So when I sit down to watch the LIVE news at 6:00 PM I would see ROKU video during all the commercial breaks instead of their commercials and at 6:30 PM the news would be over and I could switch channels to another program to repeat the process. Is that correct?

#36

No. The commercial detector runs in the background and continuously works to mark commercials for skipping while the recording occurs, instead of only running after the recording has finished.

#37

Hi and sorry for this delayed response. Our daughter is visiting for the holidays. Since I do not have either Channels or Comskip at this time I am having trouble understanding their operation in the commercial deletion process. I'll ask a single question that will help me better understand what happens with Channels and/or Comskip when the first commercial is encountered in "real time". If I turn on the TV at 6:00 PM to watch the news and commercials are presented at 6:05 PM thru 6:08 PM what will I see on my TV at 6:05 PM thru 6:08 PM with Channels and/or Comskip?

1 Like
#38

If you are recording the news, and have live detection enabled, then you will see commercial markers on the timeline, just like you do with recordings.

#39

Apparently, that means if I closely watch the "timeline" I would be able to detect when the commercials begin, terminate and normal programming returns. If that is the case, I should be able to switch my TV to the ROKU input to watch Youtube at 6:05 PM and then at 6:08 PM switch back to the TV's STB input to once again watch the news all in real time. Where does the "timeline" appear since I will need to monitor it during the entire news presentation? Is the "timeline" a hardware output from Channels/Comskip that I could employ to control the TV's HDMI input selection?

#40

If you’re not up to date and behind realtime, you wouldn’t have to switch to anything as it will automatically skip the commercials.

If you are at real time, you’ll never see commercial markers, except in the past, because you’re at real time. You certainly wouldn’t see them in the future. Channels can’t predict the future.

So I’m not really sure how it would help you in your scenario.

Either you’re not going to see any markers to help tell you when to switch to watching something else, or you will and it will auto skip for you, so you don’t need to switch to watching something else.