Comskip or Show Analyzer?

[lucasbuck]

Can someone point me to a current, simple guide to setting up comskip from scratch? Everything I keep reading seems to be an older version. One thing I wasn't sure about was if I needed SA or comskip. I thought most folks were using comskip, but I noticed Recorded TVHD said something about SA. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[STC]

If you want to use Comskip, you will need to use the donator version as it can scan .wtv files.
SA didn't work well for me, but does for others so you may want to try it first.

Once you know which direction you want to head, shout back, and we should be able to help setup.

[lucasbuck]

Will do, still reading. Does anyone know if comskip is compatible with recorded tvhd? I just see SA mentioned on the page.

[STC]

Hmm, I think you're mixing things up. Recorded tv hd is simply an interface used to watch your recorded tv. Comskip or SA time stamp any show with the commercial breaks. The way you play them has nothing to do with the detection process. That's where babgvants dvrmstb steps in. DTB (as it is more commonly known) is the magic interface that actually skips the content.

[lucasbuck]

I was just reading on the recorded tv hd page under integration:

"Commercial Skip Viewer (included in Recorded TV HD) uses the commercial skip point files that ShowAnalyzer outputs to show where the commercial breaks take place. If you use ShowAnalyzer and DVRMSToolbox Commercial Skip Viewer will work properly."

I just thought there might be something specifically built in that took advantage of it. Thanks for the clarification though.

[STC]

Ah yeah, that's a cool bit of TVHD code that actually presents red slivers in the time slice bar to show you where the commercials are. It's a little buggy though and causes a few weird hiccups within MC itself, so I turn it off. It works with either SA or Compskip, as they both create the same xml file time skipping information.

[lucasbuck]

Okay, I have a few days off from work, so I went ahead and grabbed the donator comskip. If someone can point me to an idiots guide (simple and up to date), I would really appreciate it.

[mcewinter]

One thing that's advantageous with SA is that it works on the fly meaning it will scan and skip commercials on a show that is currently recording. SA can also be tweaked. Nothing against comskip but I don't use it so I have nothing to report.

[bmblank]

The developer of comskip is currently working on live commercial scanning. For a free program (besides donating) and the developer working on the side, I assume, it is an amazing program. Not just anybody could put something like that together. Kudos to both comskip and SA.

[barnabas1969]

I use SA and it works great. I'll post a couple of links below. I looked at Comskip, but the setup looks a lot more cumbersome.

Here's how to setup Show Analyzer and DVRMSToolbox

Here's how to tweak Show Analyzer to 100% accuracy.

[mcewinter]

The above link for setting up SA and DTB is a great guide, in fact you hardly have to read it, the pictures say it all. The only thing you may want to adjust is how many "workers" you may want. This setting is very dependant on your system specs e.g. CPU and cores and memory.

[lucasbuck]

Thanks, I'll try SA first and see how it goes. I'll report back!

[lucasbuck]

Seems to have gone okay. Since I've been trying to keep things off the SDD I installed SA on the SSD (seemed to do that automatically), and Toolsbox and the Addin on my E: drive which is where it stores recorded TV anyways. Is that okay, or should I have thrown them all on c: (the SSD)?

[barnabas1969]

It's fine to install your programs on the SSD. That's where they should be. Show Analyzer won't write to your SSD anyway. It writes very small files into the same directory where your recorded TV files are located.

[lucasbuck]

I went ahead and reinstalled on C:. I noticed that on streaming stuff through tubecore it asks if I want to scan it for commercials. Should I just have it look for wtv only? It had mpg and such also as default. I also wonder if that would work on streamed stuff with playlater.

By the way, great guide, thanks for pointing it out.

[barnabas1969]

In the DVRMSToolBox settings dialog, you can configure file extensions and directories to watch. It's on the "MC Add-in" tab.

[bmblank]

You can also have it automatically scan and tell it to not all you that at the beginning of every show. It should be in the same tab, but I'm at work so I can't say exactly where.

[STC]

I renamed the thread as it has evolved into both options.

[wassupTC]

Seems to have gone okay.

I would add a caveat to your previous statement, "for now." I'm sure I'll get some blowback, but I had some success with SA, but lots of problems--not just with the program, but it caused system stability issues. For those who have it working perfectly and aren't having problems, you're probably a lot smarter and more savvy than me and that's OK.

I haven't used ComSkip, but I intend to try it out very soon. Operational issues and features aside, the biggest difference between the two programs is that ComSkip is in active development. Good luck ever getting anything out of Jere from SA--only crickets chirping.

As you can tell, I've had a bad experience. That may not be the case for you.

TC

[barnabas1969]

Seems to have gone okay.

I would add a caveat to your previous statement, "for now." I'm sure I'll get some blowback, but I had some success with SA, but lots of problems--not just with the program, but it caused system stability issues. For those who have it working perfectly and aren't having problems, you're probably a lot smarter and more savvy than me and that's OK.

I haven't used ComSkip, but I intend to try it out very soon. Operational issues and features aside, the biggest difference between the two programs is that ComSkip is in active development. Good luck ever getting anything out of Jere from SA--only crickets chirping.

As you can tell, I've had a bad experience. That may not be the case for you.

TC

I agree about the lack of support for SA. However, I've had it installed for a year and it just works. It didn't take any rocket science to get it working either. I looked at ComSkip, but the setup was far more complex than the setup for SA.