Is it possible to 'destructively' cut out the commercials somehow? Plex can supposedly do this, but I was wondering if there was a way in Channels or with a 3rd party application that can read the EDL.
There are many options, but nothing within Channels. You can use Ffmpeg, LosslessCut, MCEBuddy, VideoReDo, Avidemux, etc.
There is no actual integration. You have to remove the item from your Channels library, edit it, and then re-add it using the local content import.
To add to the list of tools provided by Racameron, I'd like to recommend the following tools which I use within my (very crude) bash scripts for OTA to MP4 conversions.
- Comchap/Comcut - set of Github scripts to "simplify" chaptering (Comchap) and the commercial removal process (Comcut)
- Filebot - Paid app for command line or UI based file renaming with TV/Movie metadata lookup capabilities
- Handbrake - Basically FFMPEG but easier to learn. The built-in quality profiles make the MPEG2 to MP4/MKV conversion process SOOOO much easier.
- MediaInfo - Used to analyze and identify Audio and Video statistics of source files which are then used to create MP4/MKV files with identical or modified settings (i.e. 720p to 720p, 5.1 Stereo downsampling to AC-3 Audio, etc.)