Script - RemoveCommercials

Warning: This behavior is not supported within the mythcommflag/mythtranscode programs themselves as the commercial detector is not considered sufficiently accurate to permanently remove sections of video without a manual confirmation.

The follow script can be setup as a User Job to automatically flag and remove commercials from a recording. This script code was updated November 3rd, 2014 to work with MythTV 0.27.

remove_commercials.sh

#!/bin/sh

##### Commercial Remover Script for MythTV, updated November 3rd, 2014
###
##       Version Changes to mythutil and mythcommflag tools under MythTV 0.25
##        necessitate different commands within the script. (Under MythTV < 0.25 you could
##        just point mythcommflag at the recordings in the file system and get the job done, now
##        under MythTV 0.25 you have to use mythutil to generate the cutlist and mythcommflag to
##        flag commercials, AND point both at recordings based on %CHANID% and %STARTTIME%.  Under
##        MythTV 0.25 mythtranscode can also be pointed at %CHANID% and %STARTTIME% but since it
##        currently supports the older infile /outfile method as well (and I prefer how this
##        script creates old/new files, it is the method used.
##
##      Since this script requires the User Job to pass additional arguments under MythTV 0.25,
##       use following User Job syntax for userjobs under all versions:
##
##        'removecommercials.sh %DIR% %FILE% %CHANID% %STARTTIMEUTC%'
##
##      Credits: Zwhite, Ricks03, Waxrat @ www.mythtv.org/wiki
##      Fix for MythTV-027 Xxsj
###
#####
VIDEODIR=$1 #MythTV-024 %DIR%
FILENAME=$2 #MythTV-024 %FILE%
CHANID=$3
STARTTIME=$4
# Sanity checking, to make sure everything is in order.
if [ -z "$VIDEODIR" -o -z "$FILENAME" -o -z "$CHANID" -o -z "$STARTTIME" ]; then
        echo "Usage: $0 <VideoDirectory> <FileName> <CHANID> <STARTTIME>"
        exit 5
fi
if [ ! -f "$VIDEODIR/$FILENAME" ]; then
        echo "File does not exist: $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME"
        exit 6
fi
# The meat of the script. Flag commercials, copy the flagged commercials to
# the cutlist, and transcode the video to remove the commercials from the
# file.


echo "Flagging Commercials..."
##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version <= 0.24
#mythcommflag -f $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME

##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version >= 0.25
mythcommflag --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME
ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -gt 126 ]; then
        echo "Commercial flagging failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        exit $ERROR
fi


echo "Generating cutlist..."
##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version <= 0.24
#mythcommflag --gencutlist -f $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME

##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version >= 0.25
mythutil --gencutlist --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME
ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Copying cutlist failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        exit $ERROR
fi


echo "Transcoding..."
mythtranscode --honorcutlist --showprogress --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME -o $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME.tmp
ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Transcoding failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        exit $ERROR
fi
mv $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME.old
mv $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME.tmp $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME


echo "Rebuilding..."
##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version <= 0.24
#mythcommflag -f $VIDEODIR/${FILENAME} --rebuild

##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version >= 0.25
mythcommflag --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME --rebuild
ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Rebuilding seek list failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        exit $ERROR
fi


echo "Clearing cutlist..."
##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version <= 0.24
#mythcommflag --clearcutlist -f $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME

##### - UNCOMMENT FOLLOWING LINE IF RUNNING MythTV Version >= 0.25
mythutil --clearcutlist --chanid $CHANID --starttime $STARTTIME
ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -eq 0 ]; then
        # Fix the database entry for the file
##### - Note: MAY need to add mysql mythconverg DB credentials '--user=<blah> --password=<blah>'
##       to the 'mysql mythconverg' command below.)
        # Fix the database entry for the file
        cat << EOF | mysql mythconverg
UPDATE
        recorded
SET
        cutlist = 0,
        filesize = $(ls -l $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME | awk '{print $5}')
WHERE
        basename = '$FILENAME';
EOF
        exit 0
else
        echo "Clearing cutlist failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        rm -f $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME.tmp
        exit $ERROR
fi

See the discussion tab for tips on using the mpeg2 lossless transcoding.

If you use this script and have commercial auto-skip set then during playback you will notice that MythTV skips over parts of your program. This is because the information about where commercials are located is still available. Adding this query after the UPDATE and before the EOF will remove the commercial points and allow things to run smoothly.

DELETE FROM 
       `recordedmarkup`
WHERE 
       CONCAT( chanid, starttime ) IN (
               SELECT 
                       CONCAT( chanid, starttime )
               FROM 
                       recorded
               WHERE 
                       basename = '$FILENAME'
      );

Please note that this script will save the original file as ${FILENAME}.old. You should periodically remove these files to save space. If you want to remove them automatically, you could use the following command:

find /var/video -name \*.old -ctime 2 -exec rm {} \;

Place this command into a script in /etc/cron.daily or into crontab. This will remove all backup files that are older than 2 days.