Removing Commercials from Recordings

[gjviii 48]

i'm currently recording a few series using the LiveTV feature of Emby.  I like to keep a few of these episodes, so i am removing the commercials by using MS Movie Maker.   Once i do this, i am seeing i am loosing the quality of the recordings.  i am wondering what others are using to remove commercials and keep the same video quality that they are being recorded at.  

Thanks for any steps or directions given

 

[Guest asrequested]

You're probably recompressing. I use Cyberlink for my editing. But when you edit yours, take a look at the compression settings. Are you changing the container?

Edited October 7, 2016 by Doofus

[AgileHumor 123]

You should check out MCE Buddy application to do this for you automatically.

 

Recorded TV Folder > MCE Buddy > Emby Auto Organize Folder

 

http://www.mcebuddy2x.com/

 

PS - There are options to keep the container (TS MPEG2) if your using WMC.

[gjviii 48]

i must be.  i think moviemaker is 'dumbing' down the process too much. There are only options like for 'hi-def' 'android phone' 'iphone' 'zune'.   i'll take a look at cyberlink

[gjviii 48]

You should check out MCE Buddy application to do this for you automatically.

 

Recorded TV Folder > MCE Buddy > Emby Auto Organize Folder

 

http://www.mcebuddy2x.com/

 

PS - There are options to keep the container (TS MPEG2) if your using WMC.

I actually tried this in the past. i didnt have great luck with it as it missed a lot and actually cut out part of the show numerous times.  it has been some time, so i'll give it another shot as well

[Guest asrequested]

i must be. i think moviemaker is 'dumbing' down the process too much. There are only options like for 'hi-def' 'android phone' 'iphone' 'zune'. i'll take a look at cyberlink

You can also try this.

 

http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-ReMaker.aspx

[jasonmcroy 315]

I you want any paid software and you want to do it by hand, VideoRedo is what I use in those scenarios. It only remuxes the cut parts and leaves everything else unchanged unless you select to change it to a different container. They also have a free trial offer.

 

http://www.videoredo.com

 

 

There is also a free solution I used a year ago that is pretty good. It's called Avidemux.

 

A link for it at Source Forge: http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

Edited October 7, 2016 by jasonmcroy

[jordy 284]

+1 for VideoRedo/VAP and Comskip

Nearly fully automatic commercial removal. No recompression. Frame accurate. Just have to manually check the commercial cuts before saving = 1-2mins per episode...

[Guest asrequested]

Nice! I've never tried that. I don't really do an commercial removing, but I always like to have new toys

[jordy 284]

I've been doing it that way for a few years now. Comskip requires some set up but once you have that done - easy as! The VideoRedo add-on, VAP, automates the Comskip process when the recording has finished. Depending on your system it can take anywhere between 10 and about 40 mins to finish detecting and marking commercials. Then about 1-2ins to confirm the cuts, name and save it and you are ready to add it to Emby (I even have that automated) for watching.

 

Sent from my HUAWEI MT7-L09 using Tapatalk

[Spaceboy 2491]

Mcebuddy was rubbish imo. If you want it doing properly you have to do it by hand. Videoredo

[brett_1968 1]

I use avidemux "http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/"as I do it by hand for the few recording I keep.

[AgileHumor 123]

MCEBuddy works really well in my experience for automated commercial removal.  It's only as good as ComSkip.

 

I'm sure if you have the time to do it manually, there are a lot better options then MCE Buddy.

 

PS - I use MCE Buddy on daily shows that don't get good coverage on Sonarr (like Conan, The Late Show with Jimmy Falon, Ellen, etc).  IMO, It's not good for the environment for everyone to run comskip and re-encode video when there are already edited.    If I could generate the content legally (through a grey area of commercial removing), I don't see why I can't get a version already encoded if I pay for the content already (in my cable bill).  Sonarr is the environmentalist friend

Edited October 14, 2016 by AgileHumor

[Spaceboy 2491]

Advert breaks in the UK are standard 4 mins long. It's incredibly easy to use skip to pass by them without using something like mcebuddy where you risk part of your program being cut.

 

I used to use babgvants dvrmstoolbox which marked commercials rather than cutting them. This was a much more satisfactory solution as you could choose to ignore the marks.

 

The other issue I had with mcebuddy was the converted videos looked absolutely awful. I stand by my mcebuddy is rubbish statement

[kmarq13 5]

Advert breaks in the UK are standard 4 mins long. It's incredibly easy to use skip to pass by them without using something like mcebuddy where you risk part of your program being cut.

 

I used to use babgvants dvrmstoolbox which marked commercials rather than cutting them. This was a much more satisfactory solution as you could choose to ignore the marks.

 

The other issue I had with mcebuddy was the converted videos looked absolutely awful. I stand by my mcebuddy is rubbish statement

MCEBuddy just uses ffmpeg to do conversion, it all comes down to what settings you were using. You can also set it to leave it in the source format with no compression. 

 

I have MCEBuddy exporting an edl file and leaving the video untouched. This way Kodi will bypass the commercials but if Commskip messed up I can just rewind as the video is still all there. 

 

Dvrmstoolbox used to use either commskip or showanalyzer, the same as MCEBuddy. So if you saw any major differences between the two it would be entirely down to the settings that were being used.

[epayson85 72]

Advert breaks in the UK are standard 4 mins long. It's incredibly easy to use skip to pass by them without using something like mcebuddy where you risk part of your program being cut.

 

I used to use babgvants dvrmstoolbox which marked commercials rather than cutting them. This was a much more satisfactory solution as you could choose to ignore the marks.

 

The other issue I had with mcebuddy was the converted videos looked absolutely awful. I stand by my mcebuddy is rubbish statement

 

Dvrmstoolbox is the best solution! Nothing to fiddle with or do manually.  Comskip works 80 to 90% of the time and in the odd instances it doesn't you can just turn the skip off.  I don't bother with conversions because all my recordings are temporary.  There are scene sources out there for anything I want to keep and those guys are a million times better than any of us at getting great quality with minimum file size.  

 

You can also get the same results as DVRMStoolbox via kodi on android.  It will auto skip commercials if you have the edl files and you can always go back if it skips incorrectly.  Works perfectly for me.  Plus it direct plays my wtv files which emby still cant do consistently yet.

[Vicpa 550]

Hi

 

There are lots of good solutions out there. I have found you just need to get a comfort level with the comercial cuts. For some comskip is fine, others prefer to do it manually.

 

I am a big fan of mcebuddy, have used it for years. Uses, comskip, handbrake or ffmpeg as needed. Lots of options for quality, containers etc. If you use  a HDHomerun they have really nice support for that recording format. I convert to mp4, ac3 cut comercials. One hr HD show fully automated takes aroung 25 minutes with hardware acceleration.

 

my two cents.  

[jasonmcroy 315]

When I have used MCEBuddy to "cut" commercials I just set it up to create chapter markers instead of cutting them in case it's off. For me there are certain channels it works for perfectly and other channels not so much. 

 

However, I have found that using Kodi or the Emby Addon skipping through commercials is pretty easy so I don't bother to cut commercials since I watch and delete most shows that I watch. For the ones I keep I use VideoRedo.

[Chuggy 3]

Has anyone used MCE Buddy custom renaming to separate movies and TV Shows into different folders? In my setup mcebuddy is not finding any MetaData. I'm using EmBy DVR and a HDHomerun.

[Chuggy 3]

More specifically is there a way to embed meta data into the recorded file? I figured out how to download meta data and store in the same folder, but when MCEBuddy finds, converts, and moves it now leaves the folder behind with the images and Meta Data file. If the meta data was embedded this would not be an issue. 

[Guest asrequested]

More specifically is there a way to embed meta data into the recorded file? I figured out how to download meta data and store in the same folder, but when MCEBuddy finds, converts, and moves it now leaves the folder behind with the images and Meta Data file. If the meta data was embedded this would not be an issue. 

 

If it's only the metadata location that you're worried about, you can specify where it is in the server.

 

[bardmaster 17]

Hi, seeing if I can revive this topic.  I've been using MCEBuddy 2.3 with NextPVR for a long time, recording from an HDHomeRun Prime tuner, and it works wonderfully.  I recently discovered Emby/MB3 now has integrated Live TV and the ability to act as a PVR, and like its slick interface and smooth playback.  Plus Emby has a new Roku beta channel that looks great, and Roku is what I use to serve media to all my TVs.

 

When I've tried to port my MCEBuddy experience over to Emby, however, I've had mixed results.  With the NextPVR recording MCEBuddy was able to pull season, episode, and name as follows, based upon the algorithm "%showname%\%showname%-S%season%##E%episode%##-%episodename%"

 

    The Big Bang Theory\The Big Bang Theory-S10E22-The Cognition Regeneration.mp4

 

The exact same settings return the following from the Emby recording:

 

    The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration\The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration-SE-.mp4

 

Since the Emby recording was named "The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration.ts" it's clear MCEBuddy was unable to find any metadata - and the log files confirm this.  I'm confused as to why, since the NPVR file is named "The Big Bang Theory_20170427_20002031.ts" which is even less info.  

 

Besides being messy, this tends to confuse the Emby viewer, which doesn't recognize the video as The Big Bang Theory in any form or fashion.  I don't know enough about these containers to understand what is contained therein, but it seems clear that NextPVR has metadata embedded in its TS recording that MCEBuddy is able to extract.  There is a settings option in Emby called "Download internet metadata for programs listed in the guide" but @@Luke indicated this only works on movies (i.e. IMDB not TVDB).

 

In short, I haven't found a good way to integrate MCEBuddy with Emby yet.

 

Any thoughts out there?

[kanipek 224]

Hi, seeing if I can revive this topic.  I've been using MCEBuddy 2.3 with NextPVR for a long time, recording from an HDHomeRun Prime tuner, and it works wonderfully.  I recently discovered Emby/MB3 now has integrated Live TV and the ability to act as a PVR, and like its slick interface and smooth playback.  Plus Emby has a new Roku beta channel that looks great, and Roku is what I use to serve media to all my TVs.

 

When I've tried to port my MCEBuddy experience over to Emby, however, I've had mixed results.  With the NextPVR recording MCEBuddy was able to pull season, episode, and name as follows, based upon the algorithm "%showname%\%showname%-S%season%##E%episode%##-%episodename%"

 

    The Big Bang Theory\The Big Bang Theory-S10E22-The Cognition Regeneration.mp4

 

The exact same settings return the following from the Emby recording:

 

    The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration\The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration-SE-.mp4

 

Since the Emby recording was named "The Big Bang Theory 2017-04-27 - The Cognition Regeneration.ts" it's clear MCEBuddy was unable to find any metadata - and the log files confirm this.  I'm confused as to why, since the NPVR file is named "The Big Bang Theory_20170427_20002031.ts" which is even less info.  

 

Besides being messy, this tends to confuse the Emby viewer, which doesn't recognize the video as The Big Bang Theory in any form or fashion.  I don't know enough about these containers to understand what is contained therein, but it seems clear that NextPVR has metadata embedded in its TS recording that MCEBuddy is able to extract.  There is a settings option in Emby called "Download internet metadata for programs listed in the guide" but @@Luke indicated this only works on movies (i.e. IMDB not TVDB).

 

In short, I haven't found a good way to integrate MCEBuddy with Emby yet.

 

Any thoughts out there?

I have seen this on occasion when - for whatever reason the - the Schedules Direct data is unavailable or generic. So you get an identifiable recording, You know what program/move you recorded just not which episode. This is a rare occurrence for me.

 

Are you saying that all recordings you make are like this? For me the out of the box setup gave me recordings named: Series  S##E##  episodename.ts (I don't even think that format is changeable). I use The Renamer to switch to series.S##E##.episodename - Kodi likes this better.

 

You can take that filname -The Big Bang Theory_20170427_20002031.ts and use the TVDB to figure out the Season/episode number and episode name and then manually edit the name.

 

Not sure what you mean by - "port my MCEBuddy experience over to Emby"

 

I am happy to help if you can clarify a few things I am sure we can get you up and running.

Edited May 1, 2017 by kanipek

[bardmaster 17]

Update on my last post: I received clarity from @@Luke about the metadata - my lack of seasons & episodes in Emby recordings appears related to my use of XMLTV (using Zap2It) vs. Schedules Direct.  Issue identified, I'm working on a script to query TVDB, and actually not really germane to this topic so my apologies & let's consider it closed.

 

Back to this topic:  I have successfully implemented a postprocessing script that strips out commercials!  My steps are as follows, on output of raw TS:

 

1. Run comskip.exe (my ini is attached, working very well for me but your results may vary!)
2. Run ffmpeg.exe to break out the chapters - the trick is to take the results of the comskip EDL file (which marks start-stop times for the commercial segments) and create chapter files based upon the time from the end of the last line to the beginning of the next line.
3. Run ffmpeg.exe to concatenate the chapters together.
4. Run ffmpeg.exe to transcode to the compressed format of your liking (i.e. MP4 or MKV for Emby).

Below are the program calls from my script.  Of course these are custom-developed for my script and preferences, so just provided here for examples.

 

#1 comskip.exe %param1

 

#2 (for each EDL line, skipping the first) ffmpeg,`-i "%rootdir%\%srcfile%" -ss %lastend% -t %duration% -c copy -y "%rootdir%\chapter%chno%.ts"`

 

#3 ffmpeg,`-f concat -safe 0 -i "%rootdir%\%chapters%" -c copy -y "%rootdir%\%newfile%"`

 

#4 ffmpeg,`-threads 4 -i "%rootdir%\%newfile%" -f mp4 -vcodec libx264 -b:v 1500k -s 720x400 -acodec aac -b:a 192k -y "%rootdir%\%outputfile%"`

 

This works fine with the freeware versions of both.  I did end up getting the donator version of comskip, but ffmpeg freeware screams along.  The task completes in about 30 minutes for each hour of video on my i7-3770 machine.

 

comskip_ini_SFComcast.txt

[farside847 39]

Just found this thread in a search.

 

How well is this solution still working for you?

 

I wonder, if you put together a "how-to" if more people might be able to take advantage of this feature. I would definitely check it out, but I am not skilled enough to put it together from this thread.

 

Thanks!