LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Here you can ask your questions on how to use Comskip for the detection of commercials. Also questions on how to remove commercials are welcome
mogulman
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:58 pm

LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by mogulman »

I have 2 questions...
I am using the latest donator version. In the readme, there are some standoff settings listed for live_tv. I can see them in the comskip.txt file also. I am using WMC/WTV files. Do I need to put these new standoff settings in my INI and set them up for WTV? or does comskip recognize that I am doing live tv with WTV and use the settings that are shown in the compskip.txt for WTV, even though I haven't set anything?

Also.. I noticed that I was having some choppy video playback at the top of the hour, when Comskip was analyzing 2 live shows and I was watching a 3rd. I'm using an i3-3225 3.30 ghz dual core with hyperthreading. I don't have threading set. I'm assuming it is using 2. Would it be worthwhile for me to add the playnice settings from say 1800-2300, 10. Or is there a better settings I should try?
mogulman
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by mogulman »

btw.. for the 2nd question.. I don't think the skipping is happening during the live tv processing. Maybe at the end of the hour, Comskip is analyzing the shows that have ended and is using more CPU or IO at this point, and that is causing my playback to hang? If I wait until 10 minutes past the hour, I notice that Comskip CPU utilization goes down. Then I can watch shows without skipping.

Also, it only seems to happen if 2 shows are being recorded and both end at the end of the hour.
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

You better enable play_nice as comskip probably gets started a few minutes after the recording starts and then will run at full speed untill it has catched up with the ongoing recording, also after comskip has found a logo it will restart to process the recording, again at full speed.
Be aware it could not only be the CPU that is causing a problem but with modern CPU's comskip is easily able to fully load a disk while reading
mogulman
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by mogulman »

What about the live wtv standoff settings? Should I add those to my ini, or does comskip use some default settings for wtv that are good enough?
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

no longer needed
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

I can't get live tv to work with wtv files. I have dirmon2 set to start comskip (donation version) when a wtv file exists without a txt file of the same name. Comskip starts up OK, then runs for a couple of minutes, then stops. The log file doesn't have any clues as to why it stopped, that I can see. I tried increasing standoff_time and dvrms_live_tv_retries, but that didn't help. Here's the log file:

Code: Select all

################################################################
Generated using donator Comskip 0.81.070
Time at start of run:
Thu Mar 12 20:07:47 2015
################################################################
Mpeg:	D:\Recorded TV\Dateline NBC_WRCDT_2015_03_12_20_07_24.wtv
Exe	comskip.exe
Logo:	D:\Recorded TV\Dateline NBC_WRCDT_2015_03_12_20_07_24.logo.txt
Ini:	C:\Comskip\comskip.ini

Detection Methods to be used:
	1) Black Frame
	2) Logo - Give up after 2000 seconds
	3) Resolution Change
	4) Aspect Ratio


ComSkip throttles back from -0001 to -0001.
The time is now 2007 so it's full speed ahead!

Settings
--------
[Main Settings]
;the sum of the values for which kind of frames comskip will consider as possible cutpoints: 1=uniform (black or any other color) frame, 2=logo, 4=scene change, 8=resolution change, 16=closed captions, 32=aspect ration, 64=silence, 255=all.
detect_method=43
;Set to 10 to show a lot of extra info, level 5 is also OK, set to 0 to disable
verbose=10
;Frame not black if any of the pixels of the frame has a brightness greater than this (scale 0 to 255)
max_brightness=60
maxbright=1
;Frame not pure black if a small number of the pixels of the frame has a brightness greater than this. To decide if the frame is truly black, comskip will also check average brightness (scale 0 to 255)
test_brightness=40
;
max_avg_brightness=25
;
max_commercialbreak=600
;
min_commercialbreak=25
;
max_commercial_size=125
;
min_commercial_size=4
;
min_show_segment_length=250
;
max_volume=500
;
max_silence=100
;
non_uniformity=500
[Detailed Settings]
min_silence=12
noise_level=5
brightness_jump=200
fps=25
validate_silence=1
validate_uniform=1
validate_scenechange=1
global_threshold=1.05
disable_heuristics=4
[CPU Load Reduction]
thread_count=2
play_nice_start=-1
play_nice_end=-1
play_nice_sleep=2
[Input Correction]
max_repair_size=200
ms_audio_delay=5
volume_slip=40
variable_bitrate=1
lowres=0
[Aspect Ratio]
ar_delta=0.08
cut_on_ar_change=1
[Global Removes]
padding=0
remove_before=0
remove_after=0
added_recording=14
delete_show_after_last_commercial=0
delete_show_before_first_commercial=0
delete_show_before_or_after_current=0
delete_block_after_commercial=0
min_commercial_break_at_start_or_end=39
always_keep_first_seconds=0
always_keep_last_seconds=0
[USA Specific]
intelligent_brightness=0
black_percentile=0.0076
uniform_percentile=0.003
score_percentile=0.71
[Main Scoring]
length_strict_modifier=3
length_nonstrict_modifier=1.5
combined_length_strict_modifier=2
combined_length_nonstrict_modifier=1.25
ar_wrong_modifier=2
excessive_length_modifier=0.01
dark_block_modifier=0.3
min_schange_modifier=0.5
max_schange_modifier=2
logo_present_modifier=0.01
punish_no_logo=1
[Detailed Scoring]
punish=0
reward=0
punish_threshold=1.3
punish_modifier=2
reward_modifier=0.5
[Logo Finding]
border=10
give_up_logo_search=2000
delay_logo_search=0
logo_max_percentage_of_screen=0.12
ticker_tape=0
ticker_tape_percentage=0
ignore_side=0
subtitles=0
logo_at_bottom=0
logo_threshold=0.75
logo_percentage_threshold=0.25
logo_filter=0
aggressive_logo_rejection=0
edge_level_threshold=5
edge_radius=2
edge_weight=10
edge_step=1
num_logo_buffers=50
use_existing_logo_file=1
two_pass_logo=1
[Logo Interpretation]
connect_blocks_with_logo=1
logo_percentile=0.92
logo_fraction=0.4
shrink_logo=5
shrink_logo_tail=0
before_logo=0
after_logo=0
where_logo=0
min_black_frames_for_break=1
[Closed Captioning]
ccCheck=0
cc_commercial_type_modifier=4
cc_wrong_type_modifier=2
cc_correct_type_modifier=0.75
[Live TV]
live_tv=1
live_tv_retries=4
require_div5=0
div5_tolerance=-1
incommercial_frames=1000
[Output Control]
output_default=1
output_chapters=0
output_plist_cutlist=0
output_zoomplayer_cutlist=0
output_zoomplayer_chapter=0
output_vcf=0
output_vdr=0
output_projectx=0
output_avisynth=0
output_videoredo=0
output_videoredo3=0
videoredo_offset=2
output_btv=0
output_edl=0
edl_offset=0
edl_skip_field=0
output_edlp=0
output_bsplayer=0
output_edlx=0
output_cuttermaran=0
output_mpeg2schnitt=0
output_womble=0
output_mls=0
output_mpgtx=0
output_dvrmstb=0
output_dvrcut=0
output_ipodchap=0
output_framearray=0
output_debugwindow=0
output_tuning=0
output_training=0
output_false=0
output_aspect=0
output_demux=0
output_data=0
output_srt=0
output_smi=0
output_timing=0
output_incommercial=0
delete_logo_file=0
cutscene_frame=0
cutscene_dumpfile=""
cutscene_threshold=10
cutscenefile1=""
cutscenefile2=""
cutscenefile3=""
cutscenefile4=""
cutscenefile5=""
cutscenefile6=""
cutscenefile7=""
cutscenefile8=""
windowtitle="Comskip - %s"
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\" "
[Sage Workarounds]
sage_framenumber_bug=0
sage_minute_bug=0
enable_mencoder_pts=0


Initial pts = 1.568233
Frame Rate set to 29.970 f/s
Ticks per frame = 2
DFps[2]<> 59.940 f/s
Format changed to [1920 : 1080]
Frame: 1	Ratio: 1.87	MinY: 234 MaxY: 902 MinX: 290 MaxX: 1534
Audio PTS jumped -48 frames at frame 4
Frame     63 - Black frame with brightness of 16,uniform of 0 and volume of -2104008501
Resizing scene change array to accomodate 2000 frames.
Frame     64 - Black frame with brightness of 16,uniform of 0 and volume of -1
Frame: 65	Ratio: 1.78	MinY: 1	MaxY: 1080	MinX: 1	MaxX: 1920

Retry=0 at frame=336, time=   12.78 seconds
Audio PTS jumped -22 frames at frame 336
Audio PTS jumped -24 frames at frame 336
Building list of all frames with a brightness less than 25.


Retry=0 at frame=464, time=   17.05 seconds
Audio PTS jumped -21 frames at frame 464
Audio PTS jumped -21 frames at frame 464
Frame    512 - Black frame with brightness of 16,uniform of 0 and volume of 86

Retry=0 at frame=723, time=   25.69 seconds
Audio PTS jumped -23 frames at frame 723
Audio PTS jumped -22 frames at frame 723
Audio PTS jumped -25 frames at frame 723

*** lines deleted to shorten post ***

Looking For Logo in frames 2465 to 3886.
Not enough edge count - 0
Frame   3893 - Black frame with brightness of 17,uniform of 233 and volume of 558
Frame   3904 - Black frame with brightness of 17,uniform of 232 and volume of 536

Looking For Logo in frames 2494 to 3915.
Not enough edge count - 0

Looking For Logo in frames 2523 to 3944.
Not enough edge count - 0

Retry=0 at frame=3944, time=  133.17 seconds
Last edited by csbaud on Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

Can comskip process the file after the recording is finished?
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

erik wrote:Can comskip process the file after the recording is finished?
Yes.
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

So should we assume that live tv doesn't work for wtv files?
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

I does not seem to work for you, could be very broadcast specific.
Does it fail on all shows on all chanels?
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

erik wrote:I does not seem to work for you, could be very broadcast specific.
Does it fail on all shows on all chanels?
Yes, it fails on all shows on all channels.

I see that WMC allocates a huge block on disk as soon as it starts a recording, and that block only changes every few minutes as the recording proceeds. The definitive evidence that a recording has finished seems to be when the "Length" attribute is not empty. The Length attribute is not the size of the file, it is the time duration of the recording. Until the recording is finished, that time is not present.

*** EDIT ***

Actually, according to MSDN, the attribute is called "Duration" not "Length", even though it shows up as "Length" in Windows Explorer. Here's the documentation.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx

*** EDIT 2 ***

Actually Powershell also thinks the attribute is called "Length":

Code: Select all

PS D:\recorded tv> get-itemproperty "American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv"  | Format-list -Property * -Force


PSPath            : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::D:\recorded tv\American
                    Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv
PSParentPath      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::D:\recorded tv
PSChildName       : American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv
PSDrive           : D
PSProvider        : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem
VersionInfo       : File:             D:\recorded tv\American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv
                    InternalName:
                    OriginalFilename:
                    FileVersion:
                    FileDescription:
                    Product:
                    ProductVersion:
                    Debug:            False
                    Patched:          False
                    PreRelease:       False
                    PrivateBuild:     False
                    SpecialBuild:     False
                    Language:

BaseName          : American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00
Mode              : -a---
Name              : American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv
Length            : 9022472192
DirectoryName     : D:\recorded tv
Directory         : D:\recorded tv
IsReadOnly        : False
Exists            : True
FullName          : D:\recorded tv\American Masters_WMPTDT_2015_02_20_20_58_00.wtv
Extension         : .wtv
CreationTime      : 2/20/15 8:58:04 PM
CreationTimeUtc   : 2/21/15 1:58:04 AM
LastAccessTime    : 2/20/15 8:58:04 PM
LastAccessTimeUtc : 2/21/15 1:58:04 AM
LastWriteTime     : 2/21/15 5:55:05 PM
LastWriteTimeUtc  : 2/21/15 10:55:05 PM
Attributes        : Archive
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

Can you test after adding/setting to your comskip.ini file

two_pass_logo=1


and if that does not make a difference, can you change a setting that causes comskip to start processing 10 minutes AFTER the recording has started?
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

two_pass_logo=1 worked!

Thanks very much for your help.
csbaud
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:18 am

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by csbaud »

Actually, I also had to set Dirmon2 to wait 120 seconds after the target file stops growing. Seems to be OK now.
erik
Site Admin
Posts: 3368
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:49 pm

Re: LiveTV Standoff settings and playnice

Post by erik »

120 seconds is sometimes too low
It will depend on how quickly comskip will find the logo
To be sure you better increase to at least 5 minutes
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