Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

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Automatically skip commercials using Windows Media Center

Cool Tech Reviews — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 16:43:18 GMT

Chris Lanier provides a tutorial on setting up the Media Center editions of Windows XP and Vista for automatic commercial skipping using DVRMSToolbox: Everyone should know about DVRMSToolbox that lets you do just about anything with your Recorded TV ..

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re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

chrisl — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:08:55 GMT

All you need to do in DVRMSToolbox is install it, reboot, and make sure ComSkip is the preferred analyzer. The rest of it happens within Media Center in a standard 10 foot UI prompt.

If you need help, I'd be glad to help you get it going. :)

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

Jaxim — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 15:02:15 GMT

I downloaded and installed DVRMSToolbox to convert record TV files into regular video files, but I found the application's GUI very lacking. The interface was not intuitive and there were no help files, so I uninstalled it. I'll wait until this or another program like it are more ready for prime time are more polished. As it is right now, it needs serious help from a graphic/UI designer.

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

Aaron — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:34:42 GMT

Thanks guys. I think I found a project to tackle this weekend :)

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

chrisl — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:34:14 GMT

I've had a great experience with ComSkip. I wouldn't forget about having a remote near-by, but with me ComSkip almost always hits ~2 seconds about the commercial break starts, some comes back to the show ~0.5 seconds before the show starts. It's perfect, you might hear the start of the commercial, but then it picks right up at the show.

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

Dave Zatz — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:12:27 GMT

"Out of 100 commercial breaks (for example), roughly how many does it correctly identify beginning and end"

More than you're getting now? ;)

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

andy vt — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:11:58 GMT

Commercial detection is handled by by ComSkip (free) or ShowAnalyzer ($10); both are very reliable OOTB, SA is faster and it supports "Live" detection (it can scan files as they are recorded) if commercials aren't detected properly you can "tune" either one, ShowAnalyzer comes with a slick GUI tool that makes this process much easier.

90% of the time commercial detection is perfect. I've only had to "tune" to deal with shows like soccer, where the commercial breaks are 15 min long.

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

Aaron — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:44:49 GMT

So, I've often thought about setting this up but never really gotten around to it. Reading this has me thinking about it again.

Question: How reliable have you found this? Out of 100 commercial breaks (for example), roughly how many does it correctly identify beginning and end, and how often will it make a mistake (including missing the commercial)?

I'm just curious, thanks.

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

adrian davies — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:51:27 GMT

once again, shame i dont work in the uk with digital tv

re: Automatic Commercial Skip in Media Center!

Ross — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:12:31 GMT

Hi Chris, so this is something that sounds very cool. And I already manually skip over commericials anyway. But every time I do, there's a wee voice at the back of my head telling me that it's the commericials that subsidise my cable bill. By skipping them ( according to the wee voice) I'm effectively cheating the system.

But then this other wee voice says that I hate being subjected to really bad commercials. The same wee voice also says that if everyone starts skipping commercials, then maybe it will force the networks and advertising companies to come up with a system that actually respects the viewer and gives them some kind of control over the advertising they watch - presumably coupled to how much it subsidises their cable bill.

I suppose I was just wondering what your thoughts on this were. Do you - or anyone else reading for that matter - ever feel guilty skipping commercials? :)