Comskip not working when using DVRMS Toolbox

[marvin-miller]

Some great posts here!

DRM can be a pain. With XP and Media Center I never had an issue with it. I just moved over to HD with a STB on Windows 7 and I was sure it was going to be a concern so I went a different route. I run component out cables off the STB into a Hauppage Colosus - that effectively kills off DRM entirely. I'm up in Canada though and I realize that in the US you have cablecard etc so it's a bit different.

I hate doing Media Center installs and revamping commercial detection etc. I've done this too many times. For the record, my old XP Media Center ran for years with zero issues and always nailed 80% of the commericials. It also had a perfect user interface. Unfortunately at some point Microsoft released an update or there was a compatability issue that put an end to it

[btracy]

I set up DTB to skip processing on the DRM protected channels. Using the Processing Condition Editor, create a new condition and put in a description you like such as "skip DRM channels", etc. and select the "Create an empty Commercials File" profile from the dropdown. Add rules and use "WM/MediaStationCallSign" Contains "HBO" or whatever the station call sign is. Change the "And" modifier dropdown below the Add, Edit, Remove buttons to "Or" and continue adding rules in the same format.
Make sure the new condition is before the "Every file" condition and then DTB will not call Comskip for those recordings and will save processing time and avoid the erroneous commercial markings. Having it create an empty commercials file prevents Media Center from complaining about a missing commercials file. Works great for my dual Ceton cards.

Thanks for the tips. I started to try to find some settings that would do something like this last weekend but I gave up after about 2 minutes deciding I would put it off until this weekend. I am sure you saved me a few hours of trial and error!

[marvin-miller]

@btracy - any chance you can post up or email me one of your profiles?

I just wiped out and re-installed my O/S and I'm in the process of setting up the toolbox and comskip but it's not processing the file. It moves through my profile quite nicely and then just seems to exit (the process quits - no signs no warnings no messages)

Edit: NM, It helps if you have the context set to the input file and not to the dvrmsfile

[btracy]

@btracy - any chance you can post up or email me one of your profiles?

I just wiped out and re-installed my O/S and I'm in the process of setting up the toolbox and comskip but it's not processing the file. It moves through my profile quite nicely and then just seems to exit (the process quits - no signs no warnings no messages)

Edit: NM, It helps if you have the context set to the input file and not to the dvrmsfile

Ah yes I did something similar recently when I was modifying my mkv to wtv conversion job.

[marvin-miller]

Ah yes I did something similar recently when I was modifying my mkv to wtv conversion job.

I managed to get a nice profile set up that went from .wtv to .mkv but I couldn't stand the lack of metadata. I use Microsoft's Media Center and I like having all the extra info

Now I've got a Hauppauge Colossus and it records H264 using the .wtv container so I get real-time hardware compression during the recording. I'm hoping that will put an end to transcoding as a step in my profiles

The problem I'm having now though is figuring out a way to work with the files. ComSkip will read the .wtv file with no issues but DVRMS-Toolbox seems to have issues when it comes to doing the splice and fixing the slider

Ahh, the world of HTPC - I swore I'd never do this again but this will be the last time, honest!

[btracy]

I use MediaCenter as well but with an infiniTV card. Unfortunately, my cable provider doesn't have every channel in HD that I watch shows from and I refuse to use an analog card anymore hence the need for .mkv to .wtv conversion (which is only about 3 shows at this point). The conversion I do has full metadata and when you throw it in the Recorded TV folder you can't tell the difference from a regularly recorded show except for the fact that the channel number shows 0. The profile to use is "Convert MKV TV Show to WTV" (although if you use this you need an update that resolves a metadata lookup issue from thetvdb.com). I keep movies in .wtv though and use YAMMM to get the metadata for those.

For your DVRMS issue, are you using the DTBAddin? All that should be necessary once you have DVRMS outputting the .xml files properly is to have the DTBAddin installed and the skips should be automatic (assuming your xml files are going to the Commercial Path in the DTBAddin settings). Here are my profile settings which have a few modifications but it should work right out of the box:







I love my MCE these days. I can't think of a single issue I have left to resolve except to modify DVRMS to not run Comskip on DRM protected channels. Other than that, I can record in HD, play BluRay movies using bitstream for audio out and play wtv movies with full passthrough for everything from Dolby Digital to DTS-HD. I don't think I could ever go back but if you asked me back in the XP Media Center days my response would have been a bit different.

[marvin-miller]

Man, there's some nice posts in this thread! Way to go btracy

My goals are a little bit different - I usually record entire series and then use the toolbox to archive them off. So, my method of use is like this;

Move the file to C:\Temp for processing
Scan the file for commercials
Cut the commercials out of the file
Splice the file back together
Convert the spliced file to .wmv
Rename the file according to broadcast time and episode name
Move the file to the correct directory for that series
Delete the source file
Delete the cutdvrms file
etc.

So that way I end up with a folder called, let's say, Star Trek and inside that folder are each of the episodes listed like this;

1967-04-23 - Spock's Brain (or something like that - hahaha)

What that gives me is each episode, in order of release date, commercial-free and typically crunched down to about 350 megs per episode.

So I tend to archive everything off in a similar fashion. I have processing conditions for each series and in a case where I'm not recording the series (ie, I see something I think I might like and hit the record button) then it just defaults to chopping the commercials out then moving the file back to the Recorded TV directory sans commericals (no conversion to another format).

At least, that's how I've been using the toolbox over the years. In some cases I even use specific .wmv conversion profiles for certain shows etc. It's all very granular (that's what I like about the toolbox) but the thing is, once you have a template profile built (like my series template) then it's literally a 2 minute job to creating a new profile for a new series.

Ultimately, for me, it's about removing commercials, reducing the file size and then converting to .wmv. Typically a raw hour long show (SD) is usually about 3.5 gigs and when the processing and conversion is done they usually end up at 350 megs with no appreciable loss of quality (SD).

I'm new to HD as of only a few days now, but the card I have is recording in realtime in x264 so my hour long HD shows seem to weigh in the same at about 3.5 gigs per hour. I suspect if they weren't X264 they'd probably be larger.

If you'd like my series profile I'd be happy to send it to you if you find it intriguing. There's only two settings in it that require changes and that's choosing the commercial detection product (drop down box) and choosing the directory a person wants the file to end up in. Other then that it's more/less plug'n play

On the other hand, maybe not everyone archives off entire series like do

[btracy]

Yeah my HD shows are around the 7 gig range and I am interested in your profile. My wife is a lot farther behind on shows than I am and converting them to something smaller may be a good idea but I am also interested in cutting a .wtv file of commercials and putting it back in the Recorded TV folder. This is something I messed with a few years ago but didn't have good results (mostly from detection issues) but I should look at doing it again as I often watch a show from a shared folder (so no DTBAddin) so having no commercials would be nicer.

I will PM you my e-mail address.

[marvin-miller]

You got it!

Even if you don't convert the file and just chop out the commercials you'll still save a considerable amount of space. I too watch my recorded shows off my NetBook sometimes through Windows Media Player (I just share the directories on the network and tell Medis Player to look there for it's 'libraries' That's where the metadata really comes in handy.

It took me a while to work up this profile but I've been using it for years, most recently it was changed to work with the new .wtv files so it first changes the .wtv to .dvrms (which usually means faster commercial scanning).

This is WAY simpler then it sounds - I just figured I'd post up the options. It will run right out of the box...

* You'll want a C:\Temp directory (if you don't already have one) as that's where all the work takes place
* In the Find Commericials in File action you can specify which commercial detection you want to use for this profile (ComSkip, Show Analyzer 1.x / Show Analyzer .0.9.7)
* In the Convert DVR-MS to WMV using DVR2WMV action you can specify which .wmv profile to use if you want to tailor the compression settings (default is fine)
* Move File Specified in Context - set that to wherever you want the completed file to go.
* The last lines delete all the source files after processing is complete.

Here it is;

http://www.askmarvin.ca/files/StarTrekVoyager.dpc

just place that file in C:\Program Files (x86)\DVRMSToolbox\Profiles and when you start up DVRMSToolBox Settings you should see it listed as;

Default Series Profile - Convert to WMV

If you don't want to convert (transcode) the file - just remove those lines and then change the final destination to your Recorded TV folder.
If you find that after conversion to .wmv there's interlace lines - Andy promised he'll fix that in the next toolbox release

This really is a profile that you can pretty much base any other commonly needed profiles off of just by deleting/changing a few lines