[mythtv-users] Commercial Flagging, what are the best settings?

chris at cpr.homelinux.net chris at cpr.homelinux.net
Tue Dec 13 19:14:37 EST 2005


On Tue, Dec 13, 2005 at 05:41:06PM +0000, Kim Wall wrote:
> This seems to be extremely regional.  I believe the current algorithms 
> produce good results in the US, but here in the UK they're almost 
> useless for most channels (I only consistently get usable results on 
> Channel5 afternoon movies).

It's not so much regional as channel-specific.  I'm in Canada and find 
that commercial skipping works perfectly for about 50% of the shows, 
imperfectly for about 40% of the shows, and is completely useless for 
the remaining 10%.  Many of the stations are taking active steps to 
frustrate commercial skippers by omitting the usual blank frames 
between commercials and by delaying the return of the station watermark 
for a full 30 seconds after the commercials are over.  Some are also 
starting to run non-standard commercial lengths so that the flaggers 
that look for scene cuts at 30 second intervals don't work.  It's an 
arms race....  The only good news is that they haven't found a way to 
embed pop-ups in the video stream. :-P

-- 
Joke template: Three guys walk into a bar. One of them is a wee bit
stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability.


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list