[mythtv-users] Commercial Skip

[Robin Smith]

While the commercial detection is very good (perhaps my favourite
feature), I have noticed that since the upgrade to .17 (and using the
All method), it tends to skip over the last 5 or 6 minutes of many
shows I watch. Big candidates for this include Carson Daly, and The
Daily Show. Both of these shows go for a final 2 minute commercial
break, then come back for a final 30 - 90 second goodye, then the
credits roll and there's commercials again.

In almost every recording of Daily Show, it skips right over the last
5 or 6 mins of the recording, right to the end of the show, and
sometimes hangs up MythTV requiring a kill and restart of Myth :(
It seems to be, if commercial skip skips to the end of the recording,
freezing is highly likely (on my system).  Add to this the inability
to skip back before a commercial (since it does the auto-leap forward
repeatedly if you try to jump back over a flagged break) and I pretty
much have to stop playing the show, start it from the start, turn off
the auto-skip then jump to the end of the show to see the final bit.
Sometimes with a complete Myth restart in there.

I am not complaining, just adding to the info in this thread. I
continue to be blown away by MythTV and wish I had the chops to be
able to contribute in some way, but I am no developer. Much respect is
due to everyone who contributes to this project.

Robin

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 11:39:04 -0400, stephen <mythmail at nb.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Chris Pinkham wrote:
> >>>How about a configurable feature for Commercial flagging that will not
> >>>save any 'supposed' commercials over xx minutes. I have been having good
> >>>luck with commercial flagging lately but there is an occasional
> >>>commercial that is flagged and is over 5 or 6 minutes and is bogus. I
> >>>think most of my commercials are only a few minutes long so ignoring
> >>>ones longer than that would cut out some bad commercial flagging.
> >>
> >>Along similar lines, I've had a "commercial break" that was 0:00 long.
> >>It ended up getting itself into a rather tight loop of skip 0:00
> >>(actually went backwards a bit), play, see 0:00 break, skip, repeat.  So
> >>another nice add would be a minimum commercial break length.
> >
> >
> > The ALL commercial detection method should prevent commercial breaks less
> > than 60 seconds (1 minute) and more than 485 seconds (1 minute 5 seonds) long.
> >
> > The other detection methods may still have cases where this can occur,
> > I haven't spent as much time on them lately.  I made a note to check them
> > sometime, but if you're not using the ALL method, you should try it out
> > since that is where the majority of detection effort is being put now.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I've been using the "All" method since I upgraded to .17, and I still
> occasionally see short false positives (9 or 11 seconds).  I think the
> idea of a user setting for min/max commercial break length would be kind
> of handy.
> 
> Also, I see from the setup menu that it uses blank frame, scene change,
> and logo detection (and combinations) to find the breaks.  Are any other
> methods used (and just not listed)?  Specifically, I was thinking of
> volume level -- a lot of channels will ratchet up the volume during a
> commercial break.  If it is possible to get an average volume level for
> the program, detecting big jumps/drops in volume could come in handy
> (along with the other methods currently being used).  Of course, this
> may already be included ...
> 
> That being said, the commercial detection in MythTV is very good ... one
> of the [many] reasons I don't like watching regular TV any more!
> 
> thanks,
> Stephen
> 
> 
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