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How MythTV Detects and Flags Commercials

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gotta-love-the-bugs dept.

peterdaly writes "Automatic commercial detection is the "killer app" feature that none of the commercial DVR's dare to include. MythTV's automatic commercial detection does a great job of properly separating commercials from content. Here's how the commercial flagging works."

9 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. Another check by renfrow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Another thing they might try is to look at average loudness. It seems like commercials are pumped up a bit from regular shows.

    Tom.

    1. Re:Another check by fred+fleenblat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Might also be interesting to try to flag entry/exit frames from known commercials (with a checksum or fingerprint sort of thing) into a shared database, then just look up the frames. If your show has 2.5 minutes with matches every 30 seconds, that's a commercial break. People can do a P2P vote with their FF button to contribute. Just a thought.

  2. What will happen... by Channard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    .. is that you'll get people making cleverer or less obvious infomercials.

  3. This was going to be a joke, but... by Control+Group · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...upon thinking about it, I don't know that it's all that far-fetched. Designing a system that can segregate commercials from television with a high degree of accuracy is probably comparable to information compression in the level of information/context comprehension required by the device. I begin to seriously wonder if there might be advances in AI that come out of work like this.

    I say this because, ultimately, the difference between commercials and "content" is entirely made up of the information they present. As advertisers and broadcaster get better at removing the "flag" type of marker (blank frames, scene cuts, predictable timing) from commercials, there will be incentive to develop more intelligent ad-blocking mechanisms. Obviously, we're not at that point yet, as the methods described as employed by MythTV are fairly naive flag detection mechanisms - but with growing incentive, the odds of working towards a truly intelligent ad-removal scheme increase.

    I think it would be hilarious if the biggest mind-mushing technology of all time (television) turned out, indirectly, to contribute to the rise of alternate, machine, intelligence.

    --

    Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
  4. Re:From the summary... by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I already pay for a lot of the commercial-free TV I watch: it's called Netflix.
    Lost, 4400, Firefly... I've gotten these on DVD from Netflix, and enjoyed watching them all commercial-free, for the flat-rate price I pay to Netflix for monthly membership.

    If I didn't have to wait so long for these shows to come out on DVD, then this would be even better.

    The TV show makers need to abandon this silly idea of having to broadcast their shows on a weekly basis, and wait for the season to be over before releasing them on DVD. Let's just skip broadcast altogether and go straight to DVD.

  5. Re:From the summary... by SCHecklerX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We pay for cable tv. So why are there still commercials at all? Same goes for tv-type advertisements that have been showing up in digital movie theaters the past several years.

  6. Re:From the summary... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Indeed, the promise of satellite/cable channels was that because you were paying for the subscription to see them, you wouldn't have to see commercials. Then, they got greedy and added commercials anyway.

    If all my favorite shows were available on iTunes Store, I'd drop my DirecTV subscription entirely. I have to pay more for DirecTV (cable would cost even more....) for that content than I would to buy it via iTunes season passes. And if I just buy the DVDs used a year later, I'd pay half that. Cable TV is false economy unless you're a stay-at-home parent. For almost everyone else, direct purchasing costs less and you don't have to put up with the commercials.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  7. There should be an "Open" Commericial Identifier by mbone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think that there should be an open commercial ID (maybe a frame with certain properties, like a specific color or shade of grey - it should be very easy to pick out.

    If there was one, we (AmericaFree.TV) would use it, and I suspect other Internet television broadcasters would too. Why ? Because in the long run commercials (as opposed to product placements, sponsored events, etc.) will only work if people want to receive them, and because people will just fast forward through them anyway.

  8. fanless MythTV box? by GodWasAnAlien · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Myself along with many others are looking to buy a set-top media box that:

    - is open: can run MythTV,Linux,Vlc,mplayer,... and no reverse engineering is required to use basic hardware (and hopefully mpeg decoders).
    - has DVI output
    - has S/PDIF out
    - is fanless

    Basically an open DVD player with DVI out. A DVD player costs $50, but an "open" DVD player costs $1500? $300-$500 would be ok.

    Or basically, a fanless mac mini, fanless MiniPC,...