[mythtv] Re: cvs and commercial flagging/skipping?

Mark Chou mcpcs at ivwnet.com
Mon May 26 11:42:05 EDT 2003


Chris (Pinkham),

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my query.  And since I only get 
digests for this list, it is a real chore to reply and quote messages in 
line, so instead I've copied your response below.

First, I just want to make sure that our terminology is consistent:
cutlist: the set of numbers in mythconverg.recorded.cutlist;
commercial break list: the set of (4) and (5) in mythconverg.recordedmarkup;
blank frames list: the set of (3) in mythconverg.recordedmarkup;

Now a little bit about my usage model, which is probably not too unlike 
others using mythtv.  I use mythtv to record shows, and to avoid having 
to watch commercials on the pre-recorded shows.  Since the commercial 
detection routine isn't 100% foolproof, prior to watching a pre-recorded 
show, I "fine-tune" the cutlist.  In myth 0.8 the cutlist (red segments) 
would automatically show up in edit mode if "Z" was pressed in watch 
mode.  In current cvs, from your description, I'm assuming this behavior 
has changed, and pressing "z" in edit mode pastes the commercial break 
list into the cutlist.

The issue is that the "copy commercial break list into commercial break 
list" in current cvs doesn't seem to work reliably in a networked mythtv 
situation. In my mythconverge db I do have the values that you spoke of 
(3,4,5) in mythconverg.recordedmarkup, but pressing "z" doesn't 
translate this set into mythconverg.recorded.cutlist (which is 
previously NULL).

Now, what should the "correct" values in mythconverg.settings be for 
"AutoCommercialFlag" and "CommercialSkipMethod"?  I'm assuming it should 
be (and no other entries for the same values):
value			data		hostname
AutoCommercialFlag	1		NULL
CommercialSkipMethod	?(0,1)		NULL

Thanks,
Mark
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 > OK, I now have a better description of this "feature" after I figured
 > this out:
 >
 > I have two networked mythtv boxes.  If the pre-recorded file resides on
 > the *remote* machine from the watch/edit console, pressing "Z" on the
 > (watch/edit) box has no effect.

The commercial code doesn't care where the file is stored, it only looks at
the recordedmarkup table to see if you have blank frames or commercials 
already
flagged and if not it will attempt to detect blank frames whenever you
press 'Z' during playing.

 > And if I recall correctly in mythtv 0.8 the commercials became marked
 > ("red") if "Z" was pressed in watch or edit mode.  In the current cvs
 > commercials would only be marked if you're in edit mode.  Personally I
 > don't really see why commercials shouldn't become *automatically* marked
 > (in edit mode) if "automatically flag" is checked.

Whenever you enter edit mode, you are editing the cutlist.  The cutlist
can be different from the commercial skip list since cutlists are
automatically skipped whether you have "Automatic Commercial Skip" turned
on or off.  The cutlist is always skipped, so I didn't want to automatically
copy the commercial list into the cutlist.  That is what the 'Z' (copy to
cutlist) and 'C' (clear cutlist) keys are for.

If you are trying to watch a program and you have Automatic Commercial 
Flagging
turned on and commercial skipping is not working then maybe blank frame
detection does not work for you.  Check the contents of the recordedmarkup
table for records for the particular shows you are talking about.  There
should be lots of '3' type rows (blank frames), and an equal number of type
'4' and '5' rows (commercial break start and end frames).  You might have
commercial flagging turned on for one backend and not the other.  I recently
converted the Automatic Commercial Flagging and Commercial Skip Method
settings to globals so you don't have to set them on every backend.  This
could be a problem in that you have a backend not set to automatically flag.
You can try deleting all rows that have to do with commercial flagging and
the skip method and then re-running setup (from current cvs) to reset
those options.  Then see if shows are getting flagged properly on both
backends.

delete from settings where value = "AutoCommercialFlag"
         and hostname is not null;
delete from settings where value = "CommercialSkipMethod"
         and hostname is not null;

 >
 > Mark Chou wrote:
 > > I downloaded and ran cvs code from 5/22.  Now whenever I play a
 > > pre-recorded file, the commercials are not marked out in edit mode
 > > (there are no red segments), despite having "Automatically Flag
 > > Commercials" checked and pressing "Z" (in play mode.)
 > >
 > > Am I doing something wrong??  I've also run mythcommflag, and that
 > > doesn't seem to update the db with the cutlist...
 > >
 > > It's a drag not having commercial automatically flagged.  How do I go
 > > about making sure I've at least configured all this correctly?
 > >
 >
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > mythtv-dev mailing list
 > mythtv-dev at snowman.net
 > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev
 >


-- 

Chris



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