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[widman]

I've seen a lot of discussion about Comskip and trying to get it to run on new recordings without intervention.  In my current setup I am using Comskip and Comskip Monitor.  I thought I would share my experience and hopefully help others who are trying to get Comskip working.

Comskip Monitor runs as a service in Windows and watches your recording folder.  When a new show is recorded, it launches Comskip and marks the commercial breaks.

You can find Comskip Monitor here:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=138

You can find the Comskip here:

http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/

In my setup I extracted Comskip to c:\comskip and I extracted Comskip Monitor to c:\comskip monitor.

Once you have Comskip Monitor extracted, you need to run the "Setup" batch file to initialize Comskip Monitor.  This is supposed to point Comskip Monitor to your instance of Comskip, the Comskip ini file and the directory to watch for new recordings.  I couldn't get the setup to work properly and ended up editing the "csm.properties" file using Notepad.  My current "csm.properties" file looks like this:

#csm.properties
#Tue Oct 20 07:43:38 EDT 2015
time.between.checks=10
comskip.config=c\:/comskip/comskip.ini
process.file.extensions=.ts
execute.during.record=no
slow.hours=
related.file.extensions=
comskip.parameters=
exclude.hours=
file.directories=D\:/Video/JRiver/TV Recording
cleanup.file.extensions=.txt,.log,.edl
comskip.location=c\:/comskip/comskip.exe

Once I started the Comskip Monitor service it began to analyze all of the existing recordings in my directory and generated EDL files.  I have run one new recording which Comskip analyzed and marked commercials.  I still need to tweak the Comskip ini file to improve commercial detection, but overall it seems to be working.

Notes on my setup:  I am running Windows 7 and don't know if this will work on Windows 8 or Windows 10.  Also, I am recording TS files which Comskip will analyze.  I don't think this will work for JTV files.

It would be great if this could be implemented natively in JRiver MC.  I'm not sure how long I can count on Comskip Monitor working and the original developer hasn't updated the service for nearly 10 years.  Ideally JRiver MC would call Comskip at the end of a recording and analyze the new file.

As others have asked, it would be helpful if the commercial breaks could be shown on the timeline.

If you use Comskip, consider donating to the developer at: http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/

[muzicman0]

I would really like to use comskip, but everytime I sit down to figure out the .ini file, it is just too daunting...I will be interested if you get good results.

At one time I created an application that would run comskip automatically and it worked, but it was years ago, and I no longer have the code.  I would guess that the app you are using will work fine on Win 10 or Win 8, but of course without testing, we can't know for sure!

[widman]

There is a forum on the Comskip website where people have posted working .ini files.  I have found that with a few tweaks, the .ini file included in the Comskip zip package works pretty well for me analyzing USA OTA programs.  There is a Comskip INI Editor now included in the zip package which shows the configuration options in a more readable form.

I can post a copy of my .ini file once I am satisfied with its performance.

I'm hopeful that Comskip Monitor will continue to work on newer versions of Windows, but it would be simpler if a similar function could be implemented natively in MC.

[imeric]

If I may say the default .ini file is not doing bad at all.  I too donated to Erik for comskip and the few issues I had were addressed and responded to very quickly!

Now what is missing in MC21 is to show us where the commercials are being skipped on the progress bar!!

[imeric]

Notes on my setup:  I am running Windows 7 and don't know if this will work on Windows 8 or Windows 10.  Also, I am recording TS files which Comskip will analyze.  I don't think this will work for JTV files.

As others have asked, it would be helpful if the commercial breaks could be shown on the timeline.

I confirm Dirmon works on Windows 10.  However I needed to regive Admin permissions to the folder that I put in Program Files after the windows 10 upgrades.  I needed to do this on a few  "older" third party programs.  I believe it's due to the fact I put them in Program Files (x86) and I don't think windows likes it ...You may also want to put exceptions on the folder with your AntiVirus as well....Sometimes comskip popped up as a false positive....

Thanks for bringing up the timeline.  This is very important for me to switch from Sage to MC for TV viewing since comskip will never be 100% perfect no matter how hard you tweak your .ini files (IMHO as I did quite a bit of tweaking).  But don't get me wrong it does work great!!! I gladly donated to Erik for such a great program!  It can also generate subtitles files automatically (.srt) and those can be read by JRiver.

The default .ini file actually works fairly well.  To get .srt (subtitles) you need to put output_srt=1 in the .ini file of comskip