INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

To discuss the tuning of comskip and for posting your ini files
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Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

I just tried the US OTA file. It was working great, but I noticed that for Jeopardy, it cut off the whole opening and the first few minutes.
Here are the diffs. These are the lines which are from the default ini file. The # means it is not in the default at all.

detect_method=47
validate_scenechange=0
min_commercialbreak=25
min_commercial_size=10
min_show_segment_length=250
#max_silence=100 ;
#use_existing_logo_file=1
#min_black_frames_for_break=1
#delay_logo_search=0
logo_filter=0
delete_show_after_last_commercial=0
padding=0
#hardware_decode=0 ; Set to 1 to enable hardware accelerated video decoding, only available in donator version
#thread_count=4 ; Set to utilize Quad Core
live_tv=0
WhiteKnight
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 7:30 pm

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by WhiteKnight »

I've been trying to duplicate your results and I can't. Depending on the type of show, the only two settings I religiously change are max_commercial_size and min_show_segment_length.
I forget the settings at 140 and 250 respectively anymore. If a show doesn't have good results with a quick glance at the play duration section, wherever it shows the commercials identified, then I change the settings to 125 and 126 respectively. If it's sports then I change the min_commercial_size to 21 also...
When I recorded Jeopardy, my settings were:
max_commercialbreak=600
min_commercialbreak=25
max_commercial_size=140
min_commercial_size=4
min_show_segment_length=250

It recorded Jeopardy correctly missing only 1 commercial at the end of the 2nd commercial break... If you tell me that you tried messing with these settings and they didn't work, I'll keep recording Jeopardy to find the culprit... I have my own love hate relationship with old tv show reruns, what's one more?
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

I haven't watched in a few weeks, so I've been unaware of ongoings. But I see at least 2 episodes that are cut short. 10/7/2016 and 10/14/2016. Scanning through episode times, I do see that episode times seem to be short.

Jeopardy! - 2016.10.03 - 20:18
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.04 - 16:54
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.05 - 18:51
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.06 - 22:00
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.07 - 15:29
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.10 - 21:30
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.11 - 21:18
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.12 - 18:53
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.13 - 18:50
Jeopardy! - 2016.10.14 - 12:13

I've been using the following comskip
; See comskip.txt in the distribution zip file for many settable parameters, read manual.html, tuning.html and debugwindow.html for how to tune and debug comskip
detect_method=107 ; 1=black frame, 2=logo, 4=scene change, 8=fuzzy logic, 16=closed captions, 32=aspect ration, 64=silence, 128=cutscenes, 255=all
validate_silence=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues if selected above.
validate_uniform=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues (like pure white frames) if blackframe is selected above.
validate_scenechange=1 ; Default, set to 0 to force using this clues if selected above.
verbose=0 ; Show a lot of extra info, level 5 is also OK, set to 0 to disable
max_brightness=60 ; Frame not black if any pixels checked are greater than this (scale 0 to 255)
test_brightness=40 ; Frame not pure black if any pixels checked are greater than this, will check average brightness (scale 0 to 255)
max_avg_brightness=25 ; Maximum average brightness for a dim frame to be considered black (scale 0 to 255) 0 means autosetting
max_commercialbreak=600 ; Maximum length in seconds to consider a segment a commercial break
min_commercialbreak=4 ; Minimum length in seconds to consider a segment a commercial break
max_commercial_size=125 ; Maximum time in seconds for a single commercial or multiple commercials if no breaks in between
min_commercial_size=4 ; Mimimum time in seconds for a single commercial
min_show_segment_length=126 ; Any segment longer than this will be scored towards show.
non_uniformity=500 ; Set to 0 to disable cutpoints based on uniform frames
max_volume=500 ; Any frame with sound volume larger than this will not be regarded as black frame
max_silence=100 ;
min_silence=12 ; Any deep silence longer than this amount of frames is a possible cutpoint
ticker_tape=0 ; Amount of pixels from bottom to ignore in all processing
logo_at_bottom=0 ; Set to 1 to search only for logo at the lower half of the video, do not combine with subtitle setting
use_existing_logo_file=1 ; Use logo file already created at beginning of show, default 0
punish=0 ; Compare to average for sum of 1=brightness, 2=uniform 4=volume, 8=silence, 16=schange, set to 0 to disable
punish_threshold=1.3 ; Multiply when amount is above average * punish_threshold
punish_modifier=2 ; When above average * threshold multiply score by this value
intelligent_brightness=0 ; Set to 1 to use a USA specific algorithm to tune some of the settings, not adviced outside the USA
logo_percentile=0.92 ; If more then this amount of logo is found then logo detection will be disabled
logo_threshold=0.75 ; Digital signals can be higher
min_black_frames_for_break=1 ;
punish_no_logo=1 ; Default, set to 0 to avoid show segments without logo to be scored towards commercial
aggressive_logo_rejection=0
connect_blocks_with_logo=1 ; Set to 1 if you want successive blocks with logo on the transition to be regarded as connected, set to 0 to disable
delay_logo_search=0 ;
logo_filter=4 ; Set the size of the filter to apply to bad logo detection, 4 seems to be a good value.
edge_step=2 ; New, default 1
cut_on_ar_change=1 ; Set to 1 if you want to cut also on aspect ratio changes when logo is present, set to 2 to force cuts on aspect ratio changes. set to 0 to disable
delete_show_after_last_commercial=1 ; Set to 1 if you want to delete the last block if its a show and after a commercial
delete_show_before_first_commercial=0 ; New, default 0
delete_show_before_or_after_current=0 ; Set to 1 if you want to delete the previous and the next show in the recording, this can lead to the deletion of trailers of next show
delete_block_after_commercial=0 ; Set to max size of block in seconds to be discarded, set to 0 to disable
remove_before=0 ; Amount of seconds of show to be removed before ALL commercials
remove_after=0 ; Amount of seconds of show to be removed after ALL commercials
shrink_logo=5 ; Reduce the duration of the logo with this amount of seconds
after_logo=0 ; Set to number of seconds after logo disappears comskip should start to search for silence to insert an additional cutpoint
padding=1.5
ms_audio_delay=5
volume_slip=40
skip_b_frames=0 ; Set to 1 to force Comskip to skip frames for higher processing speed.
hardware_decode=0 ; Set to 1 to enable hardware accelerated video decoding, only available in donator version
thread_count=4 ; Set to utilize Quad Core
max_repair_size=200 ; Will repair maximum 200 missing MPEG frames in the timeline, set to 0 to disable repairing for players that don't use PTS.
disable_heuristics=4 ; Bit pattern for disabling heuristics, adding 1 disables heristics 1, adding 2 disables heristics 2, adding 4 disables heristics 3, 255 disables all heuristics
delete_logo_file=1 ; Set to 1 if you want comskip to tidy up after finishing
output_framearray=0 ; Create a big excel file for detailed analysis, set to 0 to disable
output_data=0 ; Create a dump of the user data channel, used for CC and XDS (such as V-Chip info). Can be use together with output_framearray to remote debug CC decoding
output_videoredo=0 ; The old videoredo format
output_videoredo3=0 ; The new videoredo v3 format.
output_womble=0
output_mls=0 ; Set to 1 if you want MPeg Video Wizard bookmark file output
output_cuttermaran=0
output_mpeg2schnitt=0
output_mpgtx=0
output_dvrcut=0
output_zoomplayer_chapter=0
output_zoomplayer_cutlist=0
output_edl=1
output_dvrmstb=0 ; Set to 1 if you're running DVRMS-Toolbox
output_edlx=0
output_vcf=0
output_bsplayer=0
output_btv=0 ; Set to 1 if you want Beyond TV chapter cutlist output
output_projectx=0 ; Set to 1 if you want ProjectX cutlist output (Xcl)
output_avisynth=0
output_vdr=0 ; Set to 1 if you want XBMC to skipping commercials
output_demux=0 ; Set to 1 if you want comskip to demux the mpeg file while scanning
sage_framenumber_bug=0
sage_minute_bug=0
live_tv=1 ; Set to 1 if you use parallelprocessing and need the output while recording
live_tv_retries=4 ; Change to 16 when using live_tv in BTV, used for mpeg PS and TS
dvrms_live_tv_retries=300 ; Only used for dvr_ms
standoff=0 ; Change to 8000000 when using live_tv in BTV
cuttermaran_options="cut=\"true\" unattended=\"true\" muxResult=\"false\" snapToCutPoints=\"true\" closeApp=\"true\""
mpeg2schnitt_options="mpeg2schnitt.exe /S /E /R25 /Z %2 %1"
avisynth_options="LoadPlugin(\"MPEG2Dec3.dll\") \nMPEG2Source(\"%s\")\n"
dvrcut_options="dvrcut \"%s.dvr-ms\" \"%s_clean.dvr-ms\" "
windowtitle="Comskip - %s"
always_keep_first_seconds=200
always_keep_last_seconds=60
I just added the always_keep_first_seconds=200 for Modern Family which was cutting off the beginning scene. I have log files for all the episodes, and only raw for 10/11-10/14. They're 2GB+ TS files. I can dropbox them for you if you want, or provide you with detected commercial times.
pcon2009
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:30 pm

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by pcon2009 »

Not sure if this will help or not, but I had tried a few episodes of Jeopardy early on in my testing and I was having some issues with comskip NOT cutting out the commercial break which contained the fullscreen logo for a few seconds (see this post: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1755)

Eric helped me address this by changing the "punish" setting to 1 which turns on a punish modifier for brightness and it seemed to help. While this doesn't necessarily fix the initial problem for Sufreak, it may fix the missed commercials for WhiteKnight above, which should then mean we have a working INI for this show...
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

I'll try that setting. I don't fully get what it does, but I'll try.

Is there a list of show specific ini files out there?
pcon2009
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:30 pm

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by pcon2009 »

Sufreak wrote:I'll try that setting. I don't fully get what it does, but I'll try.
To be honest, I am not totally sure about what it does either, other than the fact that it turns on an additional setting to modify the score. As I understand it (and I could be right on and I could be totally wrong) I believe what it does is take blocks which are unusually bright (or dark) above (or below) the average brightness and "punish" them towards commercial, that is modify the score based on the punish modifier. So, look at these settings:

punish=1 (bitmask set for brightness only)
punish_threshold=2 (100% above or below average brightness, so "twice as bright/dark")
punish_modifier=2 (multiplies score by 2)

So if there is a block with a score of 1.0, that would be show because it is below the global_threshold. However, now that we have punish set to 1, it will look at the block and if that block is too bright or dark (+/- 100%, threshold) compared to the average for the recording, the score is multiplied (by 2, modifier) so it would now be scored at 2.0, and now cut because it is commercial (above global threshold).

The punish setting is a lot like the detection_method in that it is set as a bitmask, and there are other properties that can be analyzed and scored also (such as volume); they are all scored based on how much above or below the average for the recording.

I just know that early on, Eric looked at one of my files for Jeopardy based on "How to ask for help" in the Support section of the forum, and suggested I try this. It worked at the time, and as far as I can tell, hasn't caused any problems with other recordings, so I have kept it in my ini.

If you try these settings, and still have problems, I would suggest posting in the support section, reading the "How to ask for help" and sending Eric some files to look at - he has been very helpful to me
Sufreak wrote:Is there a list of show specific ini files out there?
As far as I know, the only decent listing of INIs are on this forum, but you can try looking around the web. Just make sure you don't lose your current one, I recommend not deleting it or moving it but just renaming it to something like "MY DEFAULT - comskip.ini" and leaving it right in the Comskip folder. That way, you can just rename it back to "comskip.ini" later on to restore it.
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

No dice on the Punish. Had a similiar issue with Simpsons from last night. I think the default ini worked on simpsons. Still checking
WhiteKnight
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 7:30 pm

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by WhiteKnight »

Change these settings on your INI file and see if they work. The delete_show_after_last_commercial=0 should be the same as your always_keep_last_seconds=60.

max_commercial_size=140
min_show_segment_length=250
punish=1
punish_modifier=4
logo_threshold=0.80
logo_filter=0
delete_show_after_last_commercial=0
padding=0.50
global_threshold=1.79 ; I'm still testing with this setting so it needs to be included I'm just not sure if it helps or not

These are my default settings anymore. Tested on Jeopardy 33x25, Timeless 1x2, Walker 9x1, Designated Survivor 1x4 and was perfect. Missed 1 commercial in the 3rd commercial break on MacGyver 1x4. Missed 1 commercial in the 1st commercial break on AFV. Football games are still perfect, unless you don't like halftime and would rather have it skipped...
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

WhiteKnight wrote:Change these settings on your INI file and see if they work. The delete_show_after_last_commercial=0 should be the same as your always_keep_last_seconds=60.
So if I want to keep the last 60 seconds, as there are post commercial clips sometimes, what do I set delete_show_...
WhiteKnight
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 7:30 pm

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by WhiteKnight »

You can keep both settings delete_show_after_last_commercial=0 and always_keep_last_seconds=60. They won't work against each other, I'm just fairly confident that you should set delete_show=0. But these two settings are secondary compared to catching and removing commercials.
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

Simpsons seems to be fixed. I'll confirm that and Jeopardy as soon as I can. (takes time to get to the daily shows)
GamerKingFaiz
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2022 6:06 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by GamerKingFaiz »

Sufreak wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:58 pm Simpsons seems to be fixed. I'll confirm that and Jeopardy as soon as I can. (takes time to get to the daily shows)
Huge thread necro, I know, but I'm wondering if you ever got around to testing Jeopardy in the past 6 years 😅

Do you have a working ini file you could share? 🙏🏼
Sufreak
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:17 am

Re: INI file for US OTA cut off jeopardy start

Post by Sufreak »

GamerKingFaiz wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 6:09 am [quote=Sufreak post_id=8225 time=<a href="tel:1476791890">1476791890</a> user_id=12182]
Simpsons seems to be fixed. I'll confirm that and Jeopardy as soon as I can. (takes time to get to the daily shows)
Huge thread necro, I know, but I'm wondering if you ever got around to testing Jeopardy in the past 6 years 😅

Do you have a working ini file you could share? 🙏🏼
[/quote]

Sadly no.
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