I've only been using Channels for 24 hours or so, and for the most part I am incredibly impressed. One area I'm having issues with is commercial skipping on my Apple TV. I double tap the Right button and it overshoots every time, and havde to skip back a few times to find the end of the commercials. So far I've only tried it on one recording (SNL last night), but the spouse reaction was not favorable. We've had TiVos for close to 19 years. Is there anything I can do to increase accuracy?
Commercial indexing is done with software and won’t be 100% accurate.
As background, Tivo actually has humans watch to determine where commercial breaks are. That’s why their commercial skip is limited to major network (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) prime time (8-12:30) television.
Yup.
I'm using MCEBuddy with Comskip - same as everyone else's, but I'm also using a 'Custom' Comskip INI file (one of many user provided 'Custom' files), that gets close to 95% accuracy, depending on channel and material. It's more accurate than the stock INI file, but still misses occasionally.
That's about the best anyone can hope for - at this time.
When I want accuracy for something permanent - I do like the TIVO guys and hand edit manually. With VideoReDo and my eyeballs all the guesswork is eliminated.
Thanks for the replies. It looks like MCEBuddy is out for me. I'm on a Mac.
Which INI are you using?
Comcast USA
I played with several and that was the one that worked the best for me. When we had Discovery (ahem) it was basically spot on. It works well enough that I'm not looking for something better, or thinking about tweeking it.
Just did a quick test using Plex's DVR and had it remove commercials. It worked perfectly. Obviously, Channels is superior for watching live programming. Worse case scenario: I use Plex's DVR and Channels for Live TV.
Plex's Comskip is the same Comskip everyone else uses, but Plex may be doing some tweeking behind the scenes (as I suspect @tmm1 is about to do).
There is no magic bullet here tho. No one INI or tweek is going to work for every channel, all programming, ect. Let one station toss a slam-cut into the mix (happens all the time) and all bets are off. The automated process of ad removal is, at best, adequate, but not infallible.
You have the right idea however - find something that works for you with the least amount of pain and suffering and go with it.
When you become a Plex Veteran you'll notice your ability to invent and use complex work-arounds on the fly has become one of the things you are really good at. You'll amaze your friends and family.
I did only test one recording. The true test will be when I can record the same program using both apps.
I would be perfectly happy if I could dump my mkv files into the Channels folder and watch everything there. I tried that, but Channels didn't see them. Is it even possible to make that happen?
No. You cannot add recordings to Channels database; you can only restore from a previous backup of a Channels database.
I would do it the other way - have MCEBuddy process your recordings and then copy them to the Plex Environment. Everybody will behave better.
Plex absolutely will misbehave if you use those DVR folders as Libraries. The DVR will misbehave if you try to add stuff manually (without a lot of gyrations).
Best to keep your worlds separate.
I can't use MCEBuddy - I only have Apple computers.
Right, sorry. Forgot about that.
I wouldn't be opposed to getting a mini PC to handle MCEBuddy. I'm sure there are some threads regarding that on here. Off to do some digging.
When watching live tv some devices may have trouble with the MPEG-2 streams, if you have any from OTA. If you use Plex/MCEBuddy you want enough horsepower to do some MCEBuddy conversions and any transcoding MPEG-2 streams on the fly that may be necessary.
If you're using HDHR's Premium TV and they ever roll out the elusive 'Stage 2' you may have to deal with HEVC - sure to be interesting (and sure to use some CPU... somewhere along the line).
I'd shoot for a passmark score of 4500 or better. That would give you two full blown 1080p on the fly transcodes. Might be enough.
There will definitely be times when I'm recording four things at once.
If you're looking for a non-Windows solution of what MCEBiddy does, you can roll your own with:
-
ffmpeg,gstreamer,vlcor other similar software for transcoding -
comskipfor commercial detection -
mkvtoolnix,mkvmergeor similar for packaging and metadata
Then, you can string all of this together with some basic scripting just using POSIX sh. If you require a bit flexibility or an OOP approach, feel free to use bash, python, ruby or something similar.
1 Like
I'd say 99.998% of all humans on Planet Earth don't have the skills to work all that - I don't and I'm smarter than your average bear. If faced with hammering together all those parts in a Rube Goldberg nightmare, or buying something so MCEBuddy can do the work it's designed for - it's the latter all day, every day.
MCEBuddy has been around for a long time so we don't have to do all that nonsense. For me, there are far fewer days ahead than there are behind. I have better things to do than micromanage my TV watching by inventing Warp Drive. Sure, FTL travel is nice, but now that Praxis has blown up Dylithium Crystals are really hard to get.
1 Like
I setup MCEbuddy and comskip, and started down that road of creating a manicured library. I got so tired of it that, getting angry when there were weather banners, presidential speeches messing things up. I decided to just record and delete as I watch, and if it’s ugly, so be it. There is so much content in the world I’ve never seen, why would I watch something twice.
1 Like
That was my thought as I was reading that as well. Back when I was a PC guy I had no problem opening it up and swapping out boards. After I switched to Macs I got out of the habit. 1995 Paul would have nosedived right into research to make the above work. 2019 Paul wants to buy an inexpensive mini PC to get the job done in the easiest way possible.