Why is commercial skip so inconsistent amongst different channels?

[Ahwman]

I’m curious as to why commercial skip can be so spot on on certain channels such as Motor Trend and almost worthless on the History channel? Why does it range so significantly between channels?

[Morris_Altman]

Commercial skipping is quite complicated. The software looks for differences whenever there is a seen change. Some of the things that are looked for:

• Change in video format
• Change in what is on the screen, for example logos

When changes are detected, there is a timer and the change must last for that much time. If it doesn't, then it's not considered a commercial.

Channels uses two different algorithms to detect commercials. They use one for most channels and have a special one they developed for some of the TVE networks. While TVE video and/or audio quality may not be as good as the broadcast channels (cable included), the commercial skipping on these channels has been more reliable for me and I chose to record from those TVE channels.

The broadcast industry makes there living on commercials so they want to do everything they can to make there advertisers believe that there investment in commercial time has good value. They have invested in studding the commercial skipping software and doing things to trick it. For example, not changing video formats during an advertisement, putting up a logo during a add, etc. You can always skip forward and back to avoid advertisements.

[Rice]

Motor Trend uses smart detection.

BETA: Smart Commercial Detection for TVE & Pluto

With v2021.12.22.0148 we are testing a new smarter commercial detector, which works on some streaming channels. Instead of using comskip to scan video, this new detector uses a more traditional approach similar to how Pi-hole works. We can detect patterns on some channels where the advertising content comes from a different place. I have tested this with some Discovery channels on TVE, and some of the channels on Pluto. Share your own experiences below. Log output for traditional comskip: 2…

[Ahwman]

Is this automatically enabled in the beta, or must I manually enable it?

Thank you

[Edwin_Perez]

On Certain TVE Channels smart detection is worst than regular detection.

[chDVRuser]

@tmm1

this new detector uses a more traditional approach similar to how Pi-hole works. We can detect patterns on some channels where the advertising content comes from a different place.

Smart detection is used when it detects it can be used.
Only for some TVE and Custome M3U sources.
There is no list of channels it's used on.
There is only a hidden internal blacklist of channels not to use it on.

The way you can tell if it's being used on a recording is to look at the DVR log

@tmm1

Log output for traditional comskip:

2021/12/12 19:03:00.199076 [MTS] Statistics for "TV/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco S02E01 The Signature Cocktail 2021-12-12-1829.mpg": skipped=0 unhandled_packets=0 discontinuity_detected=69 transport_errors=0 invalid_pts=0 invalid_dts=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=2016.845378
2021/12/12 19:03:00.550097 [DVR] Processing file-12716: TV/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco S02E01 The Signature Cocktail 2021-12-12-1829.mpg
2021/12/12 19:03:01.129762 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 12716 (TV/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco/Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco S02E01 The Signature Cocktail 2021-12-12-1829.mpg)

Log output for smart detector:

2021/12/21 17:33:00.104223 [MTS] Statistics for "TV/Man v. Food/Man v. Food S05E09 2017-09-04 Des Moines IA 2021-12-21-1659.mpg": skipped=0 unhandled_packets=0 discontinuity_detected=35 transport_errors=0 invalid_pts=0 invalid_dts=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=2014.881478
2021/12/21 17:33:00.105488 [ADS] Detected 4 commercials in file-12788 TV/Man v. Food/Man v. Food S05E09 2017-09-04 Des Moines IA 2021-12-21-1659.mpg