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Skip Commercials in dvr recording


Kyrunner

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Any idea what the timeline is for this?

I'm subscribing monthly to Emby and Plex and in general, like Emby better. It really is nice, you have all done a great job on it! However, the commercial marking and commercial skip that I can do on Plex using my HDHomeRun is a killer feature and something I will really use. I've tried it the past couple weeks now, and last night canceled my local channels through Dish so I'm going full speed ahead with Antenna TV and streaming. By the way, I love how the live TV icons show up on the main screen of my Shield TV. As far as I know, Plex doesn't do this. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
richard.steele

Consider this another vote for this, this time from a SageTV user.

Is there something in the API that a plugin developer could use to enable this capability?

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Yes, but likely a far easier method would be to use the the post-processing functionality (DVR Menu) and call a script that does your commercial cutting and/or media conversion.
This way you can customize it to do anything you want it to!

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3 hours ago, cayars said:

Yes, but likely a far easier method would be to use the the post-processing functionality (DVR Menu) and call a script that does your commercial cutting and/or media conversion.
This way you can customize it to do anything you want it to!

Automated process = lost program material.

Far easier, but LESS accurate.  No matter how much fine tuning I do to comskip, there are still misses so an automated process, frequently leads to deletion of program material along with the commercials.  I cannot stress enough that a play back system that parses edl files and automatically skips ahead is needed.  Even though it is imperfect, and I know I'll need to manually skip back or ahead afterwards, it still beats me having to manually skip forward 30 times (made up number) and estimate, usually incorrectly, the end of the commercial break.  Comskip comes pretty close but even it still needs minor manual intervention at the beginning or end of commercial breaks.  Just saying that it makes the process a whole lot easier while I'm watching TV. 

In my (strictly narrow minded) opinion, Emby really should get serious about adding this functionality. 

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I agree, some channels like Hallmark are easy and accurate to cut while other channels can be tough.  But like you said until the clients understand and can use EDL files that's the best you can do for now.

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richard.steele

SageTV doesn't actually cut the commercials. Instead, commercial skipping generates a cutlist that it can interpret to allow you to skip between. Does Emby of a similar capability?

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MBSki
6 minutes ago, richard.steele said:

SageTV doesn't actually cut the commercials. Instead, commercial skipping generates a cutlist that it can interpret to allow you to skip between. Does Emby of a similar capability?

No, not yet, but hopefully they'll add it at some point. I believe it's in their plans, but no ETA.

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BillOatman
17 hours ago, richard.steele said:

SageTV doesn't actually cut the commercials. Instead, commercial skipping generates a cutlist that it can interpret to allow you to skip between. Does Emby of a similar capability?

That would be the smart way as ComSkip etc. is not perfect.

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The main thing keeping me from switching to Emby from Channels DVR is their commercial skip feature. Have you seen how it works? While playing back a recording, when commercials start, a "Skip Commercial" button appears on the screen. It's very accurate. You can also have it skip automatically, but I think having the button is better.

Edited by hish747
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BillOatman

The IntroSkip project by @chef  and @Cheesegeezer  detects show intro's and adds a chapter so it can be skipped (someday, hopefully, via a button onscreen).  The chapter code from that project could almost certainly be repurposed to create chapters from the .edl file generated by Comskip.  

In fact I have some code from a project I have that added chapters right to the MKV file from Comskip to determine chapter points.

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I still think it would be better to write this out to an edl file and have the clients use that if possible.  I don't know however if all the different platforms have the ability to do this or not.
If that's not possible then certainly the chapter method could be used but I'd like to have chapters, intro skip as well as commercial skip.

Nothing like wanting it all. LOL

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BillOatman
20 hours ago, cayars said:

I still think it would be better to write this out to an edl file and have the clients use that if possible.  I don't know however if all the different platforms have the ability to do this or not.
If that's not possible then certainly the chapter method could be used but I'd like to have chapters, intro skip as well as commercial skip.

Nothing like wanting it all. LOL

Yeah agreed, but I believe that has been an ask for a long time.  Could a server side plugin do that?  EDL or even auto skip commercial chapters? I was thinking maybe the remote control API but it doesn't look like it can advance chapters or even FF/RW according to the Wiki.  Are those available now? If it could advance a certain period of time a edl plugin I would think would be possible.

Remote Control

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I think it would be easier to use an external program on devices that support that with edl support.

This really just needs to be built into the players, otherwise it's always going to be a problematic mess.

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  • 3 weeks later...
BillOatman
On 11/24/2021 at 3:02 PM, cayars said:

I think it would be easier to use an external program on devices that support that with edl support.

This really just needs to be built into the players, otherwise it's always going to be a problematic mess.

I wrote a plugin that I've been using for a bit and it works great so far. Not released anywhere just yet, but let me know if you want to try it.  You'll need to be able to generate a EDL file for the recordings.  I use comskip donators version. I provide an example of how to do that on windows in the documentation.

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I'm willing to give it a try.  I assume it is server based.  Does it work with any specific clients for playback?

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BillOatman
20 minutes ago, richt said:

I'm willing to give it a try.  I assume it is server based.  Does it work with any specific clients for playback?

Yes its a server plugin  All clients should work.   I'll send you the pdf doc and if you can run it I'll send it.

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I'd love to take a look as well.
This has been something I've meant to "get around to" for a long time, just never have. LOL

How exactly do you get the clients to skip commercials or does this just adjust the chapter marks and you use those in the client?

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richard.steele

I'd like to try as well: the lack of any commercial skipping is the only thing really holding me back from fully transitioning from SageTV.

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BillOatman
10 hours ago, cayars said:

How exactly do you get the clients to skip commercials or does this just adjust the chapter marks and you use those in the client?

The server sends a seek command. to the end mark defined in the EDL file. Ended up being pretty simple actually.  I'll get it up in github at some point.

I recorded our local NFL teams game this past weekend and when my remote kids started watching it they both texted because it was showing commercials.  I had the plugin disabled for testing and forgot to turn it back on ;)

Edited by BillOatman
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5 hours ago, richard.steele said:

the lack of any commercial skipping is the only thing really holding me back from fully transitioning from SageTV.

I made the move from SageTV even without commercial skipping.  The ability to use a Roku and other ubiquitous boxes at the TV was a big deciding factor and increased my wife's acceptance dramatically.  Will be nice to get back to the automated skip and fine tune the way I did when using SageTV.

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2 hours ago, BillOatman said:

The server sends a seek command. to the end mark defined in the EDL file. Ended up being pretty simple actually.  I'll get it up in github at some point.

I recorded our local NFL teams game this past weekend and when my remote kids started watching it they both texted because it was showing commercials.  I had the plugin disabled for testing and forgot to turn it back on ;)

Oh, that is slick.  I need to get caught back up in that thread.  You guys have made some really nice progress.

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BillOatman
48 minutes ago, cayars said:

Oh, that is slick.  I need to get caught back up in that thread.  You guys have made some really nice progress.

This is different than intro skip, but it uses the seek command as well :)

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