[mythtv-users] any way to load cutlist while still flagging?

[Chris Pinkham]

* On Sat Feb 23, 2008 at 10:27:37AM -0500, Ronald Frazier wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Chris Pinkham <cpinkham at bc2va.org> wrote:
> >  This feature has nothing to do with the cutlist or auto-skip.
> 
> Chris, I think this statement is incorrect. I'll explain in a minute

I stand by my original statement.  Whether the realtime flagging
information is sent to the player has nothing to do with whether
you are using Commercial Auto-Skip or the cutlist.  If you are
using a cutlist, you are explicitly telling Myth _not_ to use that
commercial flagging information that the flagger is sending, so
you're usage pattern is what's breaking the realtime flagging.
Commercial Auto-Skip also is unrelated to whether the flagger is
sending the realtime flagging information to the player.  Auto-Skip
works the same with or without the realtime flagging and realtime
flagging works the same with or without the Auto-Skip.

You're much better off forgetting about the cutlist and turning off
Auto-Skip as Mike suggested.

> With a cutlist, if you jump to anywhere within the middle of the cut,
> it automatically skips you to the end of the cut. With automatic
> commercial skip, it only does the skip right when you get to the start
> of the commercial. Furthermore, it seem the automatic commercial skip
> only works if there is no cutlist loaded.

Auto-skip should jump in this case as long as the flagger thinks that
you are in a commercial, and even when you are in an undetected
commercial and receive a COMMFLAG_UPDATE that now indicates you are
in a commercial.  If you are near realtime watching the recording, and
the commercial hasn't been detected yet, then auto-skip won't skip
until the player receives the COMMFLAG_UPDATE from the flagger.

> So what was I doing wrong? Both of the above. First, when I sat down
> to watch, the first thing I did was load a cutlist for whatever
> commercials had been flagged so far. That right there prevented any
> further commercials from being skipped without me reloading the
> cutlist.

Loading the cutlist is a manual feature and tells Myth to ignore any
commercial flagging marks.  You don't want to use the cutlist.

> cutlists work. Often times when a program is about to go to
> commercial, it will give you a 5 second preview of what you'll see
> after the commercial break. I absolutely hate those, so what I usually
> do is hit the skip ahead key to jump into the middle of the

There is special code in the player to handle cases like this.  If you
hit the commercial skip key within 20 seconds of the start of a
commercial break, the player will skip to the end of the commercial
break instead of to the beginning of the break.  This code was added
specifically for what you're describing.  I added it so that you
don't have to hit SKIP twice to get to the end of the commercial break.

> commercial, and then the cutlist will automatically take me to where
> ever the commercial break ends. Problem is, automatic commercial skip
> doesn't seem to work that way, so I was subverting it.

I'd forget auto-skip, set it to Off or Notify.  When Mike mentioned
that the author didn't even use Auto-Skip, I'm the guy he was talking
about.  I have some shows that have 100% perfect skip all the time,
but not enough where I'm comfortable turning on Auto-Skip.  I don't
trust the flagging code that much.

--
Chris