How-To use Comskip to cut out commercials via MediaPortal

[mdsflyer]

Hi there, have you pointed the plugin configuration at the folder containing your comskip.exe? I believe there is a test button to check if it is working on that page, what results does that give (use a small file to save time). I have mine run whilst the recording is taking place and have edited the comskip.ini file to "play nice" as Erik says, i.e. it is less of a drain on the CPU

Cheers
m

[zion22]

Originally Posted by johnrw

How is your write-up going? It looks like it has the right solution. I worked for ASEA as it was then called in Västerås. Now of course part of ABB.

Sorry, got caught up in something for a few days.

I use OnFile (obviously ), but it shouldn't be a problem to use the ComSkip launcher to do everything for you.
However Mencoder use helluva lot of CPU to encode the Xvid's and that might be a problem with MP's ability to function. Might be a switch for mencoder, but I havn't researched that.

Paths:
In this example Comskip is unzipped into "C:\Comskip", Mencoder in "C:\mencoder\" and we want our resulting Xvid files in "C:\vcr\". This can ofcourse be changed.

Mp configuration:
* Point the Comskip launcher to a .Bat file (see bottom of post), located where you want

ComSkip configuration:
* Open Comskip.ini
* Change "output_edl" to 1
Tuning etc of comskip is something you might wanna do, but I refer to Comskip site for that

Mencoder:
Lots of stuff to play around with here.
* -xvidencopts pass=1:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 (Here we are forcing 16/9 format and want the result file to be ~950000Kb)
* -lameopts abr:br=128 (MP3 audio @ 128kbit)
* -o "C:\vcr\%~n1_clean.avi" (Hardcoded output path of the Xvid file. Filename will be same as original but with clean appended.)
* pass=2 (Do 2 pass encoding. Recommended, but it's taking longer.)

CleanAndEncode.bat

@echo off
C:\comskip\comskip.exe %1
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe "%1" -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=1:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o NUL
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe "%1" -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=2:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o "C:\vcr\%~n1_clean.avi"

If you are really brave you can have the .bat file deleting the original recording. Not that I'd recommend that.

[and-81]

of course, you could do this:

START /LOW C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe ...

use that in the batch file to lower the process priority ... might be an option.

Also, keep in mind that ComSkip wont finish until the recording does, so a high cpu load After the recording has finished would only be a problem in back-to-back recording situations.

Hope that helps,

[Bleazle]

Originally Posted by mdsflyer

Hi there, have you pointed the plugin configuration at the folder containing your comskip.exe? I believe there is a test button to check if it is working on that page, what results does that give (use a small file to save time). I have mine run whilst the recording is taking place and have edited the comskip.ini file to "play nice" as Erik says, i.e. it is less of a drain on the CPU

Cheers
m

Thanks for the reply - I think I've done something basic wrong here. The plugin is pointed at comskip.exe and test works great (with "Play nice") on existing recordings.

comskip,exe is in c:/program files/comskip & TV records to G:/TV Recordings - so how does comskip know it should be monitoring this folder for new recordings?

Cheers

Dave

[Paranoid Delusion]

so how does comskip know it should be monitoring this folder for new recordings?

At a guess from TVE3 recording settings (which you are using) as mine is E\RecordedTV.

inside each recordings folder you should get 2 text files produced as well as the xml file.

[johnrw]

Excuse my lack of knowledge but where do you download Mencoder from in its correct form to be used for this commercials removal function?

[zion22]

Mencoder is in the Mplayer package. http://www.mplayerhq.hu

Not really sure the one in there is actually supporting .dvr-ms file, since it's been around for a while. I actually tried to find the very latest SVN build of it, but failed unless I'd compile it myself.

There is however a ...uhm... reworked version of Mencoder that supports it here: http://babgvant.com/forums/thread/1941.aspx

[Bleazle]

Update: comskip is working automatically - the only change I made was to make sure the plugin was enabled in MP setup AND TVServer (had tried it enabled in one or the other previously, but not both at the same time) Seems strange to me but what the hell, at least it's working now

[Mho]

Hello
only some shorts remarks

@echo off
C:\comskip\comskip.exe %1
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe "%1" -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=1:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o NUL
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe "%1" -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=2:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o "C:\vcr\%~n1_clean.avi"

There is a little mistake
it should be

@echo off
C:\comskip\comskip.exe %1
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe %1 -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=1:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o NUL
C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe %1 -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -xvidencopts pass=2:aspect=16/9:bitrate=-950000 -o "C:\vcr\%~n1_clean.avi"

Otherwise mencoder would do nothing.

Originally Posted by and-81

START /LOW C:\mencoder\mencoder.exe ...

use that in the batch file to lower the process priority ... might be an option.

This doesn't work for both mencoder calls, because START starts a new task. So both of them would work parallel.
It's only possible to use this with the second call.



Mho

[and-81]

Originally Posted by Mho

This doesn't work for both mencoder calls, because START starts a new task. So both of them would work parallel.
It's only possible to use this with the second call.

Add /WAIT to the command to have it wait for mencoder to finish before moving on to the next command.

Cheers,