Slashdot Mirror
Plex's DVR Can Now Automatically Remove Commercials For You (digitaltrends.com)
Plex has updated its DVR, adding a new feature to automatically remove commercials. According to Digital Trends, "The feature was added in an update the Plex team pushed out over the weekend. You'll need to manually enable the feature by heading into your Plex DVR settings and finding the option, labeled 'Remove Commercials.'" From the report: You may not want to turn the feature on immediately without looking into reports from other users. The description in the settings warns that while the feature will attempt to automatically locate and remove commercials, this could potentially take a long time and cause high CPU usage. If you're running your Plex server on a powerful computer, this may not be an issue, but if you're running it on an old laptop, you might want to hold off. This new feature also changes your DVR recordings permanently, removing commercials from the files themselves. This shouldn't be a problem as long as the feature works as intended, but if it detects wrong portions of the file as commercials, you could end up missing out on part of your favorite shows.
Commercials actually aren't that much higher volume than the rest of the show, it's that traditionally they've made heavy use of compression (in the audio sense, not the data sense) to make them seem louder. This basically shrinks the difference between the quietest sound and the loudest sound so that it's much more uniform. It's the same trick that was used by record companies during the "Loudness Wars" that ruined so many albums released on CD since the late 90s.
Anyhow, this is fairly easy to detect with analog electronics, and is likely how my parent's VCR did the same thing a long time ago. After recording an episode, it would scan back through the tape, and mark the commercials, then auto-fastforward through them. It worked pretty reliably.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Actually they were until the FCC passed a rule in 2011 (effective in 2012) to require commercials to be at the same average volume as the programs around them.
I remember many nights where I would be watching TV getting a baby asleep only to have an ad come on that was blaring at a higher volume and would wake the kid up.