Q: EyeTV with Commercial Skipping HD DVR Server

I use EyeTV HD and Turbo.264 HD to record and transcode h.264 shows for playback on a Mac, Apple TV, iPad, iPhone. I also use a self-modified version of etvcomskip to detect and mark commercials, which are then automatically skipped at playback. This makes tv viewing a lot more pleasurable and efficient, and is especially helpful controlling advertiser access to children. In case this is useful to others, I've outlined the steps here:

1. Eric Kaashoek's website Comskip and download his HD-capable Comskip software. "Commercial" commercial-skipping companies (ReplayTV, TiVo, Dish, etc.) are quickly sued out of existence or into submission, even if they simply provide a basic "30-second skip" feature. Comskip is open source beerware that you can download, install, and use yourself, and you can't sue anyone for publishing source code. And rather than providing a simple 30-second skip feature, it detects, marks, and provides that capability for automatic commercial skipping.
2. Comskip a Windows executable, so you'll need WINE (WINdows Emulator) on OS X to run it. First, download and install Xcode (free from the Apple App store), then download and install and install Macports, then in Terminal, run "sudo port selfupdate; sudo port install wine-devel". Finally, make sure that /Applications/Utilities/X11.app is added to your list of applications to run at login (WINE uses X11 to display Windows windows). Yes, this is windows emulation, but on a half-decent box you'll see that commercial skipping runs at around twice real-time for h.264 HD recordings.
3. Download and install etvcomskip (and PyeTV if you want EyeTV to work with Front Row). The 2010 version of etvcomskip doesn't work with Comskip's latest HD capabilities, and the latest Comskip mpeg libraries do not allow live tv processing, so install these files to get everything working. Once you done this, you'll have a commercial-skipping HD DVR box on your Mac that can stream to Apple TV, iOS, or export to iTunes.

Comskip software

This lives in the directory /Library/Application Support/ETVcomskip.

Edit the file ./comskip/comskip.ini to use these HD-tuned settings, tailored for US cable:

volume_slip=150

Edit the file ./MarkCommercials.app/Contents/Resources/MarkCommercials.py to use WINE to run comskip.exe nicely. Grep for these changes:

EyeTV.launch()

msg = 'Error: unable to communicate with %s\n' % options.app

#cmd = '"/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/Wine.app/Contents/Resources/bin/wine" "/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.exe" --ini="/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.ini" "%s"' % MpgFile

# MacPorts 64-bit wine

#cmd = '"/Applications/Wine.app/Contents/Resources/bin/wine" "/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.exe" --ini="/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.ini" "%s"' % MpgFile

cmd = '"/opt/local/bin/wine" "/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.exe" --ini="/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/comskip/comskip.ini" "%s"' % MpgFile

# nice the wine command

cmd = "/usr/bin/nice -n 14 " + cmd

EyeTV software

EyeTV uses the triggered AppleScripts RecordingStarted and RecordingDone in the directory /Library/Application\ Support/EyeTV/Scripts/TriggeredScripts. Open these using the AppleScript Editor and use these scripts instead. You will probably have to Save As... on your desktop, then copy the updated script back into the correct directory to avoid permissions issues.

RecordingStarted.scpt

on RecordingStarted(recordingID)

    delay 10

    -- comskip81 uses ffmpeg and does not support live tv; put this in RecordingDone.scpt

    --    set cmd to "export DISPLAY=:0.0; /usr/bin/nice -n 5 '/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/MarkCommercials.app/Contents/MacOS/MarkCommercials' --log " & recordingID & " &> /dev/null &"

    -- display dialog cmd

    -- set cmd to "env > /tmp/etv_test.log &"

    -- do shell script cmd

    --disable this if you do not want a logfile written

    write_to_file((short date string of (current date) & " " & time string of (current date)) & "Recording Started run for ID: " & recordingID & (ASCII character 13), (path to "logs" as string) & "EyeTV scripts.log", true)

end RecordingStarted

on write_to_file(this_data, target_file, append_data)

    --from http://www.apple.com/applescript/sbrt/sbrt-09.html

    try

        set the target_file to the target_file as string

        set the open_target_file to open for access file target_file with write permission

        if append_data is false then set eof of the open_target_file to 0

        write this_data to the open_target_file starting at eof

        close access the open_target_file

        return true

    on error

        try

            close access file target_file

        end try

        return false

    end try

end write_to_file

RecordingDone.scpt

-- Run the python MarkCommercials script for the given recording

-- this must be run with the RecordingStarted script

-- it will check if there were multiple PIDs for the recording and runs MarkCommercials for each pid

-- requires updated MarkCommercials which allows specifying the pid

-- by Ben Blake, September 2009

-- modified for latest Comskip, which cannot be run until after recording is finished; waits for Turbo.264 HD to stop running as well

-- S.T.Smith

global LogMsg

on RecordingDone(recordingID)

    set ProcessName to "Elgato H.264 Decoder"

    set DelayTime to 60

    set MaxDelays to 4 * 60 -- four hours

    -- delay until the process slows down or stops running

    repeat MaxDelays times

        delay DelayTime -- delay at least once to give it a chance to start

        set pcpu to CPUPercentage(ProcessName)

        if pcpu is equal to "" or pcpu < 2.0 then exit repeat -- break out of delay loop if it's not running

    end repeat

    delay 10

    -- comskip81 uses ffmpeg and does not support live tv; take this from RecordingStarted.scpt

    set cmd to "export DISPLAY=:0.0; /usr/bin/nice -n 5 '/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/MarkCommercials.app/Contents/MacOS/MarkCommercials' --log " & recordingID & " &> /dev/null &"

    -- display dialog cmd

    -- set cmd to "env > /tmp/etv_test.log &"

    do shell script cmd

    set LogMsg to ""

    CheckMultiplePIDs(recordingID)

    --disable this if you do not want a logfile written

    if (count of LogMsg) > 0 then

        write_to_file((short date string of (current date) & " " & time string of (current date)) & LogMsg & (ASCII character 13), (path to "logs" as string) & "EyeTV scripts.log", true)

    end if

end RecordingDone

-- testing code: this will not be called when triggered from EyeTV, but only when the script is run as a stand-alone script

on run

    tell application "EyeTV.app"

        set rec to «class Unqu» of item 1 of every «class cRec»

        my RecordingDone(rec)

    end tell

end run

-- compute the percentage CPU used by ProcessName

on CPUPercentage(ProcessName)

    set ProcessPS to do shell script ("ps -axwwc | grep '" & ProcessName & "' | grep -v grep || true")

    if ProcessPS is not equal to "" then

        set ProcessID to word 1 of ProcessPS

        set ProcessPS to do shell script ("ps -xwwco pid,ppid,%cpu -p " & ProcessID & " | tail -1")

        set ProcessCPU to word 3 of ProcessPS

        return ProcessCPU as number

    else

        return ""

    end if

end CPUPercentage

on CheckMultiplePIDs(recordingID)

    --check if there are multiple Video PIDs in the file

    tell application "EyeTV.app"

        set input_text to my read_from_file((path to "logs" as string) & "ETVComskip" & ":" & recordingID & "_comskip.log")

        if (count of (input_text as string)) > 0 then

            set logdata to every paragraph of input_text

            set logdata_lastrow to (item ((count of logdata) - 1) of logdata) as string

            if (items 1 thru 19 of logdata_lastrow) as string = "Video PID not found" then

                --multiple Video PIDs, rerun MarkCommercials until successful

                set recrdingIDInteger to recordingID as integer

                set rec to «class cRec» id recrdingIDInteger

                set LogMsg to "RecordingDone found multiple PIDs for recording ID: " & recordingID & ", Channel " & («class Chnm» of rec) & " - " & («class Titl» of rec)

                set PIDs to (items 44 thru ((count of logdata_lastrow) - 2) of logdata_lastrow) as string

                set delims to AppleScript's text item delimiters

                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "

                set PID_List to {}

                set PID_List to every word of PIDs

                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delims

                repeat with pid in PID_List

                    my launchComSkip(recordingID, pid)

                    repeat while (my mcIsRunning())

                        delay 5

                    end repeat

                end repeat

            end if

        end if

    end tell

end CheckMultiplePIDs

on read_from_file(target_file)

    --return the contents of the given file

    set fileRef to (open for access (target_file))

    set txt to (read fileRef for (get eof fileRef) as «class utf8»)

    close access fileRef

    return txt

end read_from_file

on write_to_file(this_data, target_file, append_data)

    --from http://www.apple.com/applescript/sbrt/sbrt-09.html

    try

        set the target_file to the target_file as string

        set the open_target_file to open for access file target_file with write permission

        if append_data is false then set eof of the open_target_file to 0

        write this_data to the open_target_file starting at eof

        close access the open_target_file

        return true

    on error

        try

            close access file target_file

        end try

        return false

    end try

end write_to_file

on launchComSkip(recID, pid)

    if pid = "" then

        set cmd to "export DISPLAY=:0.0; /usr/bin/nice -n 5 '/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/MarkCommercials.app/Contents/MacOS/MarkCommercials' --force --log " & recID & " &> /dev/null &"

    else

        set cmd to "export DISPLAY=:0.0; /usr/bin/nice -n 5 '/Library/Application Support/ETVComskip/MarkCommercials.app/Contents/MacOS/MarkCommercials' --force --log " & recID & " --pid=" & pid & " &> /dev/null &"

    end if

    do shell script cmd

end launchComSkip

on mcIsRunning()

    set processPaths to do shell script "ps -xww | awk -F/ 'NF >2' | awk -F/ '{print $NF}' | awk -F '-' '{print $1}' "

    return (processPaths contains "MarkCommercials")

end mcIsRunning

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