[mythtv-users] Anyone record Comet network OTA?

[George Bingham]

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 4:14 AM, John Pilkington <J.Pilk at tesco.net> wrote:

> On 13/12/17 02:48, George Bingham wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>>     I am dealing with some weirdness that I bet others may have seen and
>> figured out before....
>>
>>     One of the multiplexes here in Kansas City shows the "Comet" network
>> - and it is mostly old sci-fi movies and some shows. One of them is
>> Stargate Atlantis which I enjoy.
>>
>>      When I first started getting that network in my area, it showed
>> Stargate SG1, which I also enjoy and so I set them to record, and found
>> that the commercial detection didn't work very well and that when I would
>> go into edit mode it would be difficult to find good cut points because
>> there were a lot of "blank" frames in the recordings. And when I would find
>> a good cut point and then watch the edited version, the cuts would be off,
>> like 30 seconds into the commercial, and then resume 30 seconds after the
>> ending cut point.
>>
>>       So I gave up running commercial detection on that channel by
>> calling it "commercial free" in the channel editor and would just skip
>> through the commercials as I watched. That was weird ttoo, because I'd hit
>> the forward key when the commercial started, and then go back ~30 or 40
>> seconds before the beginning of the commercial....
>>
>>       Anyway, I finally figured out that if I "fix the seek table" on a
>> recording, that I could manually run a commercial edit and it would work
>> fine. That solved much of my problems with that channel. But then I decided
>> it would be nice to try to save an episode or two and that's where I am
>> having problems again.
>>
>>      I can make a flawless recording, and then do the initial lossless
>> transcode to get the commercials edited out, but after that there is a lot
>> of pixelation in the resulting file that wasn't there in the original.
>>
>>      I think what might be causing the problem is that possibly because
>> they've taken a 4:3 original show, reformatted it to fill a 16:9 hd screen
>> - without distorting the image, and also maybe because the show has been
>> formatted for streaming (the network is also streamed by their website and
>> things like roku boxes) there are some "blank" frames in there that mess up
>> even a lossless transcode.
>>
>>      Has anyone else run into this and figured out a way to get a decent
>> transcoded video? Since the pixellation is introduced in the "lossless"
>> mythtranscode step that honors the cutlist, any filters for ffmpeg won't
>> work - I don't think.
>>
>>      I routinely transcode and save other shows from other networks and I
>> have not run into this before, both HD content and SD. This network is new
>> and maybe they do things differently.
>>
>>      I am just using the default lossless mythtranscode command to get
>> rid of commercials and I am seeing the problems. Are there other options
>> for transcoding from a mythtv recording that honors the cutlist that I can
>> try?
>>
>>      If anyone is curious about seeing what I am running into - I can
>> supply copies of the recordings before and after the transcode to remove
>> commercials if that would help.
>>
>> Thanks for any insight or experience that you can share with me.
>>
>>
> TTBOMK lossless mythtranscode is intended for mpeg2video, so I assume that
> is what your recordings are supposed to be.  Have you tried running
> mythtranscode -m *without* a cutlist first? After making a copy.
>
> That might clean it up a bit.  It should change the file type from .ts to
> .mpg too, and rebuild the seektable for future manual editing.
> Alternatively a Project-X based tool might work, but involve more
> setting-up.
>
> John P
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Thanks John,

    I will try that on a new recording from that channel tonight. If I
rename the original, transcode it, and then write the output file to the
original recording name, then I can be working from that transcoded file
within the Recording screen using the Myth interface and use the regular
job system for detecting commercials and editing the comskip list the
regular way?

    That is what I will try and will let you know the results.

George
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