Questions about running DVR with win 10 or 7

Channels DVR Server
#2

Windows 7 is no longer supported and is obsolete OS.
TVE support on win 7 is buggy and has issues, see other threads.

What you wrote is a bit of a mess to interpret what exact questions you are asking.

Channels DVR support use of HDHR tuners, both the cable card based Prime and OTA antenna based tuners.

ATSC 3.0 support is still finiky and has some issues based on other users reports that have such channels to work with.

Channels DVR does have a comerical detection/skip. U set the setting in the server and it runs comskip after each recording has finished, once that finishes, then u can in the app skip commercial's. it does not remove or modify the recordings.

I suggest you do some reading and research on what Channels DVR is and how it works. There is plenty of documentation.

#3

Another thing to be aware of with your Prime is that if any of the channels have DRM protection, Channels won’t be able to access them. You can see the channel list with the DRM flag on the Prime’s web UI.

#4

Can't answer your Windows questions as I run it on a couple Synology NAS's.

As far as commercial skip, it uses the donator version of comskip and is pretty accurate most of the time.
If using a Channels app to playback it will allow you to manually or auto-skip the commercials.

I use VideoRedo to cut the commercials out of recordings I archive. You can tell Channels DVR to have comskip create a VideoRedo Project file for your recordings, then just double-click the Vprj file to open it in VideoRedo with all the cut points and scene markers defined, do some minor adjustments to the cut points and save the resulting file sans the ads.

#5

I realize that and have WMC if I need it but most of the channels I watch are not pay or encrypted other then being on Comcast.

#6

Cool, thanks for that info. It still wont open anything with AC4 in it but I just set it to record my Colbert Show using the ATSC 1.0 channels here to see how it does. I was using HD HomeRun record and it was working fine but I can't edit it. I didn't think to tell it to only use the 1.0 stream rather then 3.0 for now as so far it seemed to be waking things up to record fine, but whatever it had captured a weeks worth with no issues from the Quad 4k.
I ordered a year and will play with it to see if I like it better overall then WMC on my 7 box.

#7

So how do you have it create a comskip file? I've been all over it and I don't see a setting that sounds like what I need.

#8
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#9

You also need to make sure you've enabled comskip in Channels DVR on the main web admin page of the server. I think it may be enabled by default?

Screenshot_2021-05-29 Channels Settings
Screenshot_2021-05-29 Channels Settings944×208 8.67 KB

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#10

To find the VideoRedo project file for a recording, you need to know its recorded File ID number, then look in the Logs\comskip\FileID# folder for video.VPrj

Example;
Look at the DVR web admin settings page for the path to your DVR files
DVR path
In my case it's /volume1/arkives/ChannelsDVR

View Details for the recording to get the File ID number
File 3490
In this case it's 3490

the VideoRedo Project file for that recording is here
/volume1/arkives/ChannelsDVR/Logs/comskip/3490/video.VPrj

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Add Videoredo project file export to Experimental features
#11

Ok, that's good info so I'll poke around when it finally does a recording and see what I find. Been playing with the settings and figuring it out. It sees both tuners and I can pick which one to use, even if I have to manually type the number in on a season pass type thing.

#12

If you have mecbuddy it is easy to cut commercials as MCEBUDDY uses the EDL provided by Channels DVR to cut commercials automatically.

#13

I am running Channels DVR on Widows 7 with HRHomeRun Primes(Comcast) and Locast and have had no problems.

Other than learning how to learning how to use Channels. :wink:

The community and developers have been very helpful with that. :smiley:

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#14

I tried it a long time ago and liked videoredo and filebot and it's been working great so far so I've stuck with them. I could always give it another shot but I think as long as I don't record the 3.0 stream I can use what I have now.

#15

I don't have a video.VPrj in the one capture I looked up after rerunning the com skip. Is there something I'm missing or I need to turn on?

#16

Looking at your answer again as I'm figuring things out as I go and I think you tried to answer my question about hot to enable VPrj files and I'm trying it now to see if I did it right.

#17

curl method
curl -XPUT http://127.0.0.1:8089/comskip/ini/output_videoredo3/1
(replace 127.0.0.1 with the IP address of your Channels DVR server)

You can verify it took the setting (if you used the curl method) by looking at the json output here
http://127.0.0.1:8089/settings
(replace 127.0.0.1 with the IP address of your Channels DVR server)
It would have an entry "comskip.ini.output_videoredo3": "1"

If you use the override comskip.ini method add the following line to your override comskip.ini file
output_videoredo3=1

Explanation of the two methods (curl API vs. override comskip.ini)

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Edit video files
#18

I'm just not grasping how to either override the Com.ini or using the curl method. When I paste the command like it's shown I get Google trying to search for it. If I paste just the command it says 404 URL not found.
I don't understand how I'm supposed to run the overide command either. When I just manually add it with notepad and save it it goes back to the original commands when I run a commercial skip.
I'm sure there's something simple I'm overlooking and I can always just let Videoredo do the job but if I get it to work it would certainly make things a lot easier.

#19

From a command prompt/terminal window. It's not a web address, it is a command/program (curl) you run in your computer.

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#20

Thanks, I was thinking that might be the case but hadn't quite got there yet. I'm not up on all the latest abbreviations for things but that all makes sense now.
I just checked it with the verify URL posted and it took, Thanks a lot :smiley:

#21

Well I just upgraded to a monster computer for me. A 3900x 12 core AMD Ryzen so I had to reinstall the DVR and rerun your command line. It appears to have worked yet again and holy crap this thing recodes videos FAST now. I have a M2 1tb SSD and 32 gig of DDR4 on a really nice Asus ROG strix gamingE board so hopefully I'll be all set for a few years now. Thanks yet again now that I understand the whole process it was easy.

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