Auto-detect and delete commercials in digitally-recorded TV?

[fourthquark]

Is there a tool that will auto-detect and delete (or at least mark for deletion) commercials in digitally-recorded (MPEG2) TV programs?

My VCR has a "Commercial Advance" feature where it goes through the recording and "marks out" commercials. If it can be done in the analog world, surely it can be done in the digital world?

[fourthquark]

Sorry for the bump folks, but it has been 10 days and I am hoping someone with an answer will see this before it sinks again.

[Don2050]

I hope their is one too......if you find one let me know.

[thayne]

I have never heard of such an app.

[NightWing]

Hum... Use a 35 watt wet cell matrixdata processor computer. IE human mind since I use the following concept:

Record the whole thing.
Bring it into Tmpeg.
Use the "Source Range" function to "mark" the actual program segment.
Add each of these to the batch file.
Click Run and set the "off when done" check.

The key is to watch for things like the channel bug dissapear, audio drops to nothing and or the screen goes black.

With the later version of Tmpeg has the abbility to "delete" a marked section. But Still manual.

Or bring it into Studio 8 with its seen detector even though the program crashes easy.

Usualy I think the VCR ones check for no audio and or goto black for x time.

[presto]

Nightwing,
He asked if there is a program to do it automatically. Is there anything in his post that would cause you to think he didn't know how to edit commercials out of an mpg?

Fourthquark,
I have found a program called spotcleaner that works on divx files and something called Myth that seems to be a TV viewer rather than something you just run video through. Just search Google for those terms and you will find them easily. I know they are not what you want but might be close. I'm going to keep looking because I'm very interested in this too. I seem to remember a program called Kathy but I can't find it again.

(added later) Found it. It's called Karin and it is a beta. I think it would only work on avi's but I can't figure out how to run it anyway.

[fourthquark]

NightWing,

Thanks for your post but, as presto stated, I,m interested in an automatic tool.

I did some experimenting using VideoWave 5's automatic scene detection with my mpeg file, hoping it would detect comercials as scene changes. No luck. If I set the auto scene detect sensitivity too high, I get way way too many scenes. And if I lower the auto scene detect sensitivity, then it keeps the (falsely detected) scene changes, and loses the scene changes where the commercials begin. There appears to be no happy medium. So, in the video that I tried, the "scene changes" in the TV program appear to be "stronger" than the scene changes that occur at comercial breaks (at least to VideoWave). Maybe someone else could try another scene detection program and report back?

I did a little more research and found something abotu this in the Cyberlink FAQs (Cyberlink makes PowerVCR software). Here is a cut from their FAQ:

Product: [] FAQ ID: 148 Update Time: 2002/7/29 01:03

Q :Can commercials be skipped automatically when PowerVCR II is recording television programs?
A :
The advertising cannot be skipped directly when using PowerVCR II
during recording. Certain analog tape recorders/players can receive
different analog television signals and distinguish the advertising
from the program. However, PowerVCR II directly reads the digital
signals from the video capture card and therefore it cannot skip
advertising during the recording process. Hint: Commercials can be
quickly and easily removed from recorded programs by using the Video
Trimmer feature.

This doesn't address my question directly (I asked about a tool to do it after-the-fact), but it implies that auto-detection of comemrcials is one thing that is easier to do in the analog world than in the digital world.

Any code warriors out there up for this challenge? Could be a nice little market niche.

[andkiich]

Nightwing,

I appreciate the humor, even if no one else got it.

[handyguy]

I know they do it for analog but I haven't found any that do it with digital. Even analog commercial advance is only about 70% accurate.

[presto]

When I'm trimming commercials out of TV shows there is almost always a series of black frames before and after the commercial. I cut out commercials in the authoring stage with Tmpgenc DVD. It would make if much quicker if it would just find these black frames and then let me decide what to cut.

[lordsmurf]

It takes me less than 1 minute to edit out commercials in Womble MPEG-VCR and the saving of the new file takes about 2-4 minutes at most.

The analog feature never worked on my VCRs and I see no reason why a digital one would either. Computers are great, but can't do everything for you.

[presto]

Computers are great, but can't do everything for you.

Agreed, but, again, who in this thread said that they were incapable or unwilling to edit out commercials?

Using Tmpgenc DVD Author I would estimate that I could take the commercials out of a one hour episode in a minute or two. But it is tedious. I have to slide to the approximate spot and then go frame by frame (actually GOP by GOP) to find the place I want to cut. Usually the slider doesn't get me close enough so I have to tap tap tap tap tap... the mouse button.

Maybe Womble make this easier. I'd be suprised because Tmpgenc is by far the easiest I've found. But it doesn't matter how easy it is with Womble. Wouldn't it be nice to have the program mark the probable spots and have you just ok them or adjust them a little? Don't you take advantage of all kinds of features on your computer that make things a little faster. Features you could live without?

The analog feature never worked on my VCRs and I see no reason why a digital one would either. Computers are great, but can't do everything for you.

The commercial blocker on my VCR (Sanyo) works very well. In digital it is much simpler to find probable commercial breaks. In all of the shows that I have recorded there are several black silent frames. A feature to find black silent frames would be easy to implement and very valuable.

[NightWing]

I defently know he was asking for an auto way to cut. I would also like one myself but there are some realities that are hard to get past.

A vcr has the freedom to work from a uncompresses source { yes even comming from your Sat box } that play one frame after another. Also it has the true picture signal to play with. Which by filtering can get a decent detect for drop. Its not quite the same as fade to black. Close but not really the same.

While MPEG is both compressed per frame and series of frames. IE it very tough to slice at a specific frame. Usualy the editor/cutter etc will go to the nearest true frame which can be +- x frames away for that exact frame you picked. Also mpeg has some problems with a true black levels.

It could be possible to scan through frames but you would need to recompress it to get acturate frames to cut on. You also are missing key info like the orginal signal information etc. The best right now would be to detect for a certain amount of black and mark it but would also pick up transision in movies and shows. I am not sure if you pop it back as an analog signal and go through a homemade detector to find those frames. Hum... Wonder if you could add that to a Analog capture card and have it read out in time/frames...

Again a software detector is already missing key info to do it correctly. You could go also after the bug and if it disapears say thats the start end mark. But is very hard to do. There is stuff constly moving around it and under it. It also not pixel stable. If somewhat possible you would need to calibrate it every time. Also some times the bug take a while to pop on or like spike tv changes every one in a while.

Its one of those thing that would be nice but implimtation would take more effort than clipping by hand.

PS: What I really want is a fax machine that if it does not know the caller, no number listed or bogus name, would terminates the fax!

PSS: The keyboard arrows work also on single frame movement in tmpge. Much faster than a mouse for single frame movement.

[Roderz]

Not really helpfull but

Technology being what it is, it should not be impossible to do what you ask (depending where you live)

I used to work for a VERY large and well known company that made VCR’s (quality control sup) and the VCR’s that were made for Germany had just such a function if I remember correctly (I could be wrong – it was back in 1987)

The system was called VPS (I think) but it could detect when a program was running late and adjust recording times automatically as well (if I remember rightly) as detect the adverts in the transmissions and thus cut them out as well, but all this relied upon the broadcaster embedding signals into the transmission.

We all know that technology COULD do it but most of the networks make money form advertising so they won’t.

[vhelp]

Evening guys

Yeah, @ fourthquark...

cutting out "commercials" automatically would be a great time saver, but
you also have to remember why they have "commercials" in the first place
..to empy out your wallets, hehe..

Anyways.. I think there was a thread elsewhere's here, on this subject on
commercial removal and why the mass do not want it incorporated into
VCRs and other thing-a-ma-jig's out their because then people would just
stream past them, never seeing the commercials (darn) and that would be
a waist of monies for the broadcasters who rent their space (so to speak,
I'm no authoritative on this issue)

But, I'm w/ you all on this.. cut the bull-sheez :P
-vhelp

[lordsmurf]

The commercial auto-skip feature on a Sonic Blue PVR unit landed them in court. Just remembered that.

Yes. I'd also like a device that disconnects a fax if you do not know the number. Or at least one that stores the fax in memory (that will stay alive even after power fail, by way of removable media like CompactFlash) and show you numbers and allow you to select ones to be printed! Some of this already exists, but not all together, not that I've seen. Better yet, let you take the fax and directly open in an image program or other kind of viewing software on PC, using the removable media.

[NightWing]

Hang on to your fillings. Just caugh some info on a new MB size called Nano-ITX footprint is about the size of a jewel case.

Take that and some SW would make a nice fax system.

Back on subject. Yep Real TV payed a hefty price for having that and also the abbility to send a recorder show. I like the scan scheme used on a Tivo. Not fully but the skip back 8 seconds at full FF works well.

[fourthquark]

Well, I'm really surprised to hear that commercial advance seems to be such a big no-no, to the point of litigation.

I have at home a Panasonic VCR that I bought 3 years ago, and it has a feature called Commercial Advance built into it. It works as follows: at the end of a recording, the onscreen menu gives you the choice of applying or skipping the Commercial Advance feature. If you choose to apply Commercial Advance, the machine rewinds the tape to the start of the recording and goes through the tape, analyzing the content marking out commercial. The process takes five to ten minutes. When I later play back the recording, I don't see any of the commercials.

I think its a model PV4660 or PV4661 or something like that. I'll look when I get home.