[mythtv-users] export recordings w/commercials removed?

[Matt Garman]

I'm currently running a combined FE+BE on an Arch Linux box:

$ mythbackend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version   : 0.24
MythTV Branch    : exported
Network Protocol : 63
Library API      : 0.24.20101028-1
QT Version       : 4.7.1
Options compiled in:
 linux release using_alsa using_oss using_backend
 using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_dvb using_firewire
 using_frontend using_hdhomerun using_hdpvr using_iptv using_ivtv
 using_joystick_menu using_lirc using_mheg using_opengl_video
 using_opengl_vsync using_qtdbus using_qtwebkit using_v4l using_x11
 using_xrandr using_xv using_xvmc using_xvmc_vld using_xvmcw
 using_bindings_perl using_bindings_python using_mythtranscode
 using_opengl using_vdpau using_ffmpeg_threads using_live using_mheg


My capture device is a HDHomeRun.

I've had a lot of random problems with this setup.  My plan is to
rebuild the system, and use CentOS 6 (rather than Arch) as my base.
I was never able to figure out where all my probems were coming
from, so I'd like my new install to be as "clean" as possible.  But,
I don't want to lose the following:

    (1) Recordings - I want them to be "system neutral", sans
        commericals.  That is, I just want the video files, with the
        commercials removed, that I'll manage via MythVideo in the
        new system.

    (2) Recorded shows table - I don't want to re-record anything
        that's already been recorded

    (3) My MythVideo metadata - I have a decent personal video
        collection, and I don't want to have to download cover
        art, etc when I move to the new system.

Right now I'm focusing on (1).  I'm not sure what the simplest
approach for this is; there's a lot of inconsistent info on the web,
and very little of that info is versioned (i.e. what Myth version do
these instructions apply to?)

The MythTV docs suggest either mytharchive (I don't want to burn to
optical media, so I don't think that's what I want), or
mythtranscode.  But do I really need to transcode?  My videos aren't
in .nuv format; they are already in mpeg.  So I really just need to
have the commericals removed.

Looks like the first step is to create a cutlist for the
commercials.  I trust the job mythcommflag did (i.e. don't want to
manually make cut lists).  Most things I read online suggest using
mythcommflag --gencutlist.  I can't figure out how to do that:

$ mythcommflag --gencutlist
2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Using runtime prefix = /usr
2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Using configuration directory = /home/mythtv/.mythtv
2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Unable to read configuration file mysql.txt
2011-07-17 12:49:23.685 Empty LocalHostName.
2011-07-17 12:49:23.690 New DB connection, total: 1
2011-07-17 12:49:23.703 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
2011-07-17 12:49:23.714 No program data exists for channel 0 at

I then tried with --skipdb and explicitly setting a filename:

$ mythcommflag --gencutlist --skipdb -f 1501_20110716200000.mpg
2011-07-17 12:51:24.892 Using runtime prefix = /usr
2011-07-17 12:51:24.892 Using configuration directory = /home/mythtv/.mythtv
2011-07-17 12:51:24.892 No program data exists for channel 0 at

No success.  Can I run mythcommflag from the CLI?  Or do I have to
setup a job within Myth itself to do it?

It there some other easier/more automated way to do what I want?

Thanks,
Matt