[mythtv-users] How well does commercial detection work?

[Chris Pinkham]

> I agree, the strict option does help a lot. It's hard to be objective 
> about it but it seems just about as good as it was when the ALL option 
> was first introduced. I'm wondering if my picture is confusing it. My 
> cable box produces light and dark lines that scroll up the picture 
> constantly. Very subtle, but it might confuse the commercial scanner.
> 
> Curtis

Yes, wavy lines or static can play havoc with the detection.  If you
have a noisy signal, the "blank" frames won't seem blank since they
may have very dark pixels and a some very light pixels so the code
won't pick them up.  I tried to work around this one time by assuming
the frame was blank if only X% was light while the rest was dark,
but that caused false positives as well like for instance a nighttime
scene of people driving in a car where most of the frame is dark but
there are a few light spots.  It's definitely an art but getting
better over time I believe.

-- 

Chris