Commercial skipping for DVDs

[anonymous]

The attached patch modifies mythburn.py to incorporate chapter marks at the end of a set of commercials, rather than evenly spaced throughout the recording. The viewer can easily hit the next chapter button in order to skip the commercials.

[robsbox@…]

patch to mythburn.py for commercial skipping

[Mr_Grieves]

No longer works as of at least 13885.

May we get a working version of this committed to trunk?

[paulh]

You need to make this optional before I apply it. I'd prefer it if the default was for everything to work as it is now and there be an option to change the behavior.

I'm also not sure about using the commercial end points as the markers simply because the commflagging doesn't work very well here in the UK and gets it wrong more times than it get it right. It would be better to use the cut list end points so the user can place then where they want.

How well does this actually work? All the themes supplied with MythArchive? that have a chapter menu have 8 chapters what happens if there are more or less than 8 commercial end points defined?

[robsbox@…]

Wow, let me see if I can address all of the issues/questions.

I will check my patch against the latest, then reapply and test, then resubmit a patch to this ticket. Might take me a while, but who knows whether it will yet again get obsoleted in the meantime by revisions, since I do not have the power to check it in.

[Rob steps on soapbox]

I have no knowledge of the UI, nor how to change it so that this is "optional." But why should it be optional? The current system generates chapter marks evenly spaced at 5% intervals throughout the content. If the viewer hits the next track button, the content will skip to the next 5% spot in the recording, which may or may not be where she wants to go, and most likely wont be at the end of a commercial break.

With my patch, a user viewing the recording will come upon content that she does not wish to view. By hitting the next track button, the viewer will advance in the content to the next chapter point. Hopefully, the chapter point will have been properly detected by the commercial detection system, but if not, nothing gained and nothing lost -- the viewer can easily revert to a random-accessed position in the recording.

So, why does this need to be optional?

Furthermore, I take no credit for how well or poor commflagging functions. My view is that this automation should be made as user-friendly and hands-off as possible -- something that the Linux developer community in general seems to ignore. This is why I am totally against basing this on the so-called "cut-points" in the recording -- because one must watch the recording and manually set these points, which is neither hands-off automated, nor does it make sense. Who wants to record content that they already watched? Somebody does, but if they are marking cut points, then they can discard the commercials entirely with the existing functionality already present in mytharchive, which is why this suggestion does not make sense.

[Rob steps off soapbox]

I've watched a DVD that I burned using mytharchive and this patch, the program having four 30 minute televison programs that I recorded with the commercial automarking feature enabled. I was able to hit the next track button when the commercial break started, and since commflagging did a fantastic job, I skipped all the commercial content (including adds for Tivo, I might add :). So, it works well.

I'm not sure what you mean Paul by the themes having 8 chapters, but maybe that has something to do with burning movies, which is not something that I do. As I recall, the existing code slices up the next chapter points at 5% increments. If we use mytharchive to burn something other than television programs, then maybe I can see your point regarding making this optional. But as I said, I'm really sorry and can't do it because I don't have the skills or the time to acquire them.

Please let me know what you'dlike me to do (within my capabilities) and I'll be happy to help out. In the meantime, I'll generate another patch to satisfy Mr._Grieves, and maybe you should take a peek at my patch and provide me with suggestions for improvement :)

[paulh]

Replying to robsbox@optonline.net:

I will check my patch against the latest, then reapply and test, then resubmit a patch to this ticket. Might take me a while, but who knows whether it will yet again get obsoleted in the meantime by revisions, since I do not have the power to check it in.

[Rob steps on soapbox]

I have no knowledge of the UI, nor how to change it so that this is "optional." But why should it be optional? The current system generates chapter marks evenly spaced at 5% intervals throughout the content. If the viewer hits the next track button, the content will skip to the next 5% spot in the recording, which may or may not be where she wants to go, and most likely wont be at the end of a commercial break.

The fixed time chapter points 5 minutes apart was added at the request of another user so I'd like to leave that as is. All you need to do is put a flag at the top of the script something like

addCutlistChapters = False

and only do your new stuff if that flag is set to True.

If the logic is there it would be easy to add a setting to the UI if there is enough interest in doing that otherwise you would just have to change the flag to True.

Furthermore, I take no credit for how well or poor commflagging functions. My view is that this automation should be made as user-friendly and hands-off as possible -- something that the Linux developer community in general seems to ignore. This is why I am totally against basing this on the so-called "cut-points" in the recording -- because one must watch the recording and manually set these points, which is neither hands-off automated, nor does it make sense. Who wants to record content that they already watched? Somebody does, but if they are marking cut points, then they can discard the commercials entirely with the existing functionality already present in mytharchive, which is why this suggestion does not make sense.

You don't have to watch a recording to add the cut list. You can open the edit screen and press 'Z' to load the commflagger cut marks into the editor or you can use

mythcommflag --gencutlist  

to do it from the command line.

I wont accept a patch that uses the commflag cut list it just isn't reliable enough.

I'm not sure what you mean Paul by the themes having 8 chapters, but maybe that has something to do with burning movies, which is not something that I do. As I recall, the existing code slices up the next chapter points at 5% increments. If we use mytharchive to burn something other than television programs, then maybe I can see your point regarding making this optional. But as I said, I'm really sorry and can't do it because I don't have the skills or the time to acquire them.

Some of the DVD themes create a chapter menu that allows you to jump to set positions within a title. They can be user defined positions or evenly spaced throughout a title. All the themes that have these chapter menus have only 8 chapter points. It looks like you are replacing these 8 chapter points with the new ones based on the cut points which is going to create problems if there are more or less than 8 cut marks. Maybe it would be best to only add these new chapter points for themes that don't already have a chapter menu and use the fixed chapter points.

Please let me know what you'dlike me to do (within my capabilities) and I'll be happy to help out. In the meantime, I'll generate another patch to satisfy Mr._Grieves, and maybe you should take a peek at my patch and provide me with suggestions for improvement :)

I don't wont to spend much time on this because I know it is something that I'm never going to use myself but if you supply a patch that works with current svn and doesn't break anything I will apply it no problem.

[paulh]

(In [14310]) Adds the ability to skip commercials in DVDs created with MythArchive? of MythTV recordings.

It does this by adding chapter points at cut end points that have been set for a recording.

It only does this for DVD themes that don't have a chapter menu and you have told MythArchive? to not remove the commercials from the file.

To enable this feature you have to change addCutlistChapters = False to True at the top of the mythburn.py script.

Closes #3655.

[robsbox@…]

Thanks much Paul! I really appreciate it since I still haven't found the time to get back into this.