[mythtv-users] Removing Commercials

mythtv at corwyn.net mythtv at corwyn.net
Tue Aug 12 04:20:50 UTC 2008


I think I finally have this working. Here are all the things I had to change:

First, if you read the wiki for transcode, it says:
--honorcutlist only seems to work (0.19-fixes [9938]) with the "-c 
-s" switch combo, NOT with a specified input (-i) file, even if that 
file is in the mythconverg database.

So I figured out what CHANID and STARTTIME mean, and replaced all 
(what the heck) the references within the wiki script  (below) with 
--chanid and --starttime instead of the file name

That means I needed to change the script/job to :

removecommercials "%DIR%" "%FILE%" "%CHANID%" "%STARTTIME%"

and then add
CHANID=$3
STARTTIME=`echo $4 | sed -e 
's/\([0-9]\{4\}\)\([0-9]\{2\}\)\([0-9]\{2\}\)\([0-9]\{2\}\)\([0-9]\{2\}\)/\1-\2-\3-\4-\5/'`
to the script.
(not sure about the STARTTIME env variable, as I have yet to test it 
within the context of env vars.)


And then update each line that was mythcommflag or mythtranscode from 
the filename to the appropriate
  --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME
instead


With all that straightened out, I also needed to add --mpeg2 so that 
it's transcoded losslessly, so, as an example, we have:

mythtranscode --honorcutlist --showprogress --chanid $CHANID 
--starttime $STARTTIME --mpeg2


I also was doing a lot of this one line at a time, and leaving files 
all over the place, so just to be clean, I added -f  (force) to the 
mv commands just in case I'd left something in the way.

And, of course, the changes I made previously to specify the userid / 
password to the mySQL database in case you've assigned a password to 
the mySQL database

I don't have any shows at the moment left that I've watched and am 
thus willing to subject to this all as one aggregate solution. Once I 
do (and presuming no one sees madness in my methods) I'll update the wiki

Hope that makes this less painful for someone!

Rick
(see, mostly like the Wiki, who says it has poor usability! *duck*)


At 08:37 PM 8/10/2008, Rick Steeves wrote:

>Ok, I'm getting a lot closer. First, I (following one suggestion) 
>made the job remoevcommercials "%DIR%" "%FILE%"   (adding the quotes 
>around dir and file)
>
>Next, following another suggestion I watched the 
>/var/log/mythbackend.log, and I was getting database permission 
>errors because I had a root password in mysql. I modified the script 
>at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Script_-_RemoveCommercials
>from:
>
>
>
>cat << EOF | mysql mythconverg
>to
>
>
>
>cat << EOF | mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv mythconverg
>
>to not get errors when updating the database by using the mythtv 
>account and password.
>
>But now I've got something REALLY weird. I'm running a PVR 350, and 
>normally I view the video through the TV - Out using a local front 
>end to drive things and things work fine, and I listen to the shows 
>on a nearby TV using the PVR 350s composite video/sound. HOWEVER, 
>once the removecommercials job runs on a show, it no longer feeds 
>out to the TV - instead it plays on the computer monitor and audio 
>is out the local sound.
>
>Shows I haven't run that job against still feed out the composite of 
>the PVR 350 to the TV.
>
>If I play the show from my remote front end (which doesn't support 
>commercial flagging and thus why I want to remove commercials in the 
>first place)  (from my media mvp front end)  all I get is a blank 
>screen. No audio - no video.
>
>I can't help but think the two effects are related.   Transcoding? 
>Can someone help? I haven't made any changes to much of any of the 
>default myth settings.
>
>thanks
>
>rick
>(on the bright side, the video IS missing the commercials, and went 
>from 2.2GB to 1.4 GB, which is about right)
>
>At 03:58 PM 8/7/2008, Rick Steeves wrote:
>
>>They're definitely flagged - if I watch them from the front end the 
>>commercials get skipped.
>>
>>Rick
>>
>>
>>On 8/7/08, C.T. Paterson 
>><<mailto:i.adore.my.64 at gmail.com>i.adore.my.64 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>2008/8/7 Rick Steeves <<mailto:mythtv at corwyn.net>mythtv at corwyn.net>:
>> > I'm currently using the Hauptpage Media MVP to view my Myth shows. It
>> > doesn't seem to include any type of commercial skip. What i want 
>> is for the
>> > commercials to me automatically removed, and am willing to risk the
>> > commercial skip chopping out parts of my shows.
>> >
>> > I followed the instructions from the mythtv wiki for transcoding/removing
>> > commercials 
>> <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Removing_Commercials>http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Removing_Commercials 
>> under
>> > "Automatically removing commercials" but the end result appears the same.
>> > (worht noting that the wiki references the user manual, which just
>> > references back to the wiki)
>> >
>> > I have tried both having the Job "Removing Commercials" as part of the
>> > recording, or running that job on the show after the recording. I don't
>> > appear to get the ".old" files referenced in the instructions.
>> >
>> > Any pointers on where to debug further?
>>The wiki merely mentions mythtv flagging commercials in the first
>>sentence, and then proceeds as though they have been flagged to talk
>>about removal.  Thing is, I'm not sure myth necessarily flags the
>>commercials by default.  Have you ensured that commercial flagging is
>>configured on your recording profile?
>>Cheers.
>>--
>>"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
>>-- Thomas Paine
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