[mythtv-users] Commercial Flagging after Transcode

[Mark]

...snip...
> 
> Thanks for the response.  So, it sounds like my problem is that I'm creating
> files that aren't fully compatible with myth.   I suppose I have some more
> research to do on this...
> 
> If I understand you correctly, the videos have to be in an "MPEG transport
> stream" and not in the mpeg4 container that I'm using.
> 
> Is there a reason myth doesn't move over to mpeg4, or something else?
> 
> Thanks!

Media files have two parts, the codec used to code the data and the container it is packed in. Might be worth checking out Wikipedia for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_container_formats

MythTV can edit pretty much any standard television broadcast that it has recorded from over satellite (DVB-S, DVB-S2 I think), cable (DVB-C) or free-air / OTA (DVB-T, DVB-T2) excluding content that is encrypted for content protection. It can also play pretty much any media file (more or less the same compatibility list as ffmpeg) again excluding anything encrypted. The issue I think you are referencing above is that you are trying to edit (not just play but edit) a non-broadcast media file codec / container combination which I doubt that MythTV will ever be developed to do. It is just not what MythTV was developed to do so you would need to find another more purpose built program to assist.

My recommendation would be to transcode as the last step, not the first step particularly if you are using Kodi or a Roku (which I think was what your original transcode script was written for). With a bit of tweaking your transcode script can most likely output to a format that MythTV can edit (ie generate a recordedseek table for the file and create a commskiplist / cutlist) but neither Kodi nor Roku (as I understand it) will be able to take advantage of any of that so it will be essentially a waste of effort.

If you were going to play back via mythfrontend and just wanted smaller files to save on disk space it would be far more common to remove the non-program elements at the same time rather than transcoding and redoing the recordedseek / commskiplist / cutlist although I do admit that this approach does take the extra step / effort of checking the commskiplist / cutlist boundaries as in my experience mythcommflag is less than 100% accurate and you may be unhappy if the last 5min of your favourite program is truncated.