Add Skip Thoughts

[TimC]

As an old "Skippa" owner I have a few questions about the add skipping function.

How do you tell if a file has been processed?

In the Skippa there was a way to see when a file had been processed and also a way to see which file was being processed.

The Skippa also had and automatic add skip function which I fairly quickly set to manual as the skip often happened before you were aware of an add being there and sometimes returned to the program with no awareness of the add break at all.
You would think that not being aware of adds at all would be desirable, but I always found it disconcerting.
To explain, when programs are put together, the producers love to put in some sort of action just before the planned add breaks and often return from an add break in a different scene and catch up on the suspenseful scene a little later, i.e. build on the suspense. When the skip happens a little early, you don't know if you have missed that last second action or not.  I always found I was constantly manually skipping back to see if I had missed something important.
As there doesn't seem to be a manual setting, my preference would be to see a second or two of the start of the add break, and return showing a second or two from the end of the add break. That way you are aware of what is happening, and you don't miss anything critical. Even better have settings available to allow the timing to be set by the user. I can live with 4 seconds of adds. There also needs to be a way to suspend the add skipping temporarily so you can navigate to the bit of program that was missed, otherwise, if you skip back to the bit that was missed, the add skip will just jump past it again.

In addition, I found that occasionally the processing indicated the beginning of an add break and the end of the next add break as one long add break i.e. the section of program between the two add breaks is also skipped. No criticism of the processing here. It is easy to see that the criteria for identifying the beginning and end of add breaks can easily be masked by a reception glitch. I expect that is just a fact of life that the processing can't really be perfect.
 
In fact, I am a little surprised that the stations haven't come up with a way to mask the indications the processing uses to spot add breaks, although I expect that they are more concerned about the competition they are getting from the streaming services to worry too much about us.  I do know I have dearly missed my two Skippas.

Can a manual add skipping setting be added?

I can see that the standard remote doesn't have the extra buttons that the Skippa remote has for manually skipping adds, but the up down buttons might be able to be re-purposed for manual skipping. i.e. if you are playing a recording that was processed for add skipping and Add Skipping was set to manual the 10 minute jump functions could be replaced with the Manual add skip functions. If not, the 10 minute jump function could be retained.  The context menu button could be used to toggle auto skipping on or off.

I am interested to know how others feel about the Add skipping function too.

Happy skipping
   

[IanL-S]

The left and right buttons can be used to manually skip; the more times you press the larger the skip. You can customize the skip.

I do not know of an easy way to manually add a break; you may need to edit the text file that contains the information. You could try using bookmark instead, but that is rather messy.

I would not be surprised if there was a setting to pre/post pad the break - the underlying engine has a high degree of customization.

[MD]

Hi Tim,

I appreciate your comments as to the usefulness of the Skippa's ad skipping functionality. The "new IceTV's" problem is that we simply don't have the funds to put the resources to work to develop the IceBox to that level. The millions lost by the investors in the old Skippa project are simply unrecoverable so we have to go one step at a time.

Hopefully we can iteratively improve our AutoSkip if any spare funds from our current sales and subscriptions allow it.

[TimC]

The left and right buttons can be used to manually skip; the more times you press the larger the skip. You can customize the skip.

Yes, but you need those buttons, whereas the ten minute buttons are only needed occasionally and you can get a ten minute skip using the left/right buttons.

[TimC]

Yes, but you need those buttons, whereas the ten minute buttons are only needed occasionally and you can get a ten minute skip using the left/right buttons.

I can appreciate that.  I remember it all well.  If I was a conspiracy theorist I would have said that it was all the work of the "Advertisers Cabal" trying to bring you down. I was so pleased to see IceTV survive it all.

Iterative progress is fine, I am just looking to stir up some thought about those iterative changes.

As a Skippa user I know the things that worked fron a viewer's perspective.

 

[IanL-S]

My understanding is that reconfiguring the skip buttons is on the to be done list - "remove" 10 minutes and adjust the rest.

[TimC]

Sounds Great! The manual add skipping is not all that high on my list.

I am more interested to see if there is consensus on my desire to see a little bit of add with the skips.
 
In terms of priority, I would much rather see an ultra-soft reset that doesn't wipe out my addons. It took most of yesterday to get them back.

Next would-be stand-alone channel scanning that was more effective at capturing the correct channels numbers.

[Ian_AW]

I take it that with digital media, the IceBox monitors for "flashing discs" you see in old movies that alert the projectionist to first get ready to switch projectors and then to switch them so that you get a relatively smooth transition from one reel to another.

That being the case, with digital media, a whole lot more information is also contained in these markers. I would guess that there should be data marking the start and end of the recording.

It would be great if a bookmark could be placed at the actual start and end of the recording. Also, it would be nice to have a key sequence to jump forward to the next bookmark and jump backwards to the previous bookmark.

[vader1111]

I take it that with digital media, the IceBox monitors for "flashing discs" you see in old movies that alert the projectionist to first get ready to switch projectors and then to switch them so that you get a relatively smooth transition from one real to another.

That being the case, with digital media, a whole lot more information is also contained in these markers. I would guess that there should be data marking the start and end of the recording.

It would be great if a bookmark could be placed at the actual start and end of the recording. Also, it would be nice to have a key sequence to jump forward to the next bookmark and jump backwards to the previous bookmark.

The beta testers have already requested bookmarks at the scheduled start & stop times.  I'm sure Daniel has it on his "to do" list, I'm just not sure how easy it is to do.

The up/down arrows jump to the next chapter, if one exists.  If the recording has no chapters, then they jump forwards/backwards by 10 minutes.  So the functionality for that part of your request already exists in Kodi.

[Ian_AW]

The up/down arrows jump to the next chapter, if one exists.  If the recording has no chapters, then they jump forwards/backwards by 10 minutes.  So the functionality for that part of your request already exists in Kodi.

Unfortunately the Up and Down arrows do not achieve this.

As soon as the program actually starts there is data embedded in the stream that contains information that says the program has actually started. At the end of the program, again the data stream contains information that says the program has actually ended.

It is much the same for ad breaks. The producer identifies key points where it is a point where the program can be paused for a break. This can be for a station ID or internal promotion. It is why you never see an ad break right in the middle of a sentence - at least the modern ones that have been digitised.

Schedulers simply create a playlist that comprise ad segment headers and program headers.

I have no doubt things will eventually end up this way. If you have access to a Beyonwiz T series or later, you can see this. When the program actually starts, the BW places a bookmark in the recording, and when the program actually ends, the BW places a bookmark in the recording. Now when you play the recording, simply press the Next button and second or so later, you are at the actual start of what you want to watch.

Interestingly 10 News First does NOT broadcast this code because it and every other news broadcast starts precisely at the time advertised. So, see, the schedulers can keep to their advertised schedules, but by not keeping to their advertised schedules, they hope to lock in viewers.

[prl]

When the program actually starts, the BW places a bookmark in the recording, and when the program actually ends, the BW places a bookmark in the recording.

That mark is inserted when the EPG now/next data changes, not when the program material changes. It's neither 100% reliable nor 100% accurate from the broadcaster end, though the accuracy and reliability have improved in recent years, so that it's now usually correct. It's supposed to be kept correct so that control of the ability to view programs by their classification can be implemented properly on receivers.

Even if it's not exactly correct, it's still a quick way of getting to a point near the actual program start time in a recording, even when the program doesn't start at its scheduled time.

[vader1111]

The up/down arrows jump to the next chapter, if one exists.  If the recording has no chapters, then they jump forwards/backwards by 10 minutes.  So the functionality for that part of your request already exists in Kodi.

Unfortunately the Up and Down arrows do not achieve this.

As soon as the program actually starts there is data embedded in the stream that contains information that says the program has actually started. At the end of the program, again the data stream contains information that says the program has actually ended.

It is much the same for ad breaks. The producer identifies key points where it is a point where the program can be paused for a break. This can be for a station ID or internal promotion. It is why you never see an ad break right in the middle of a sentence - at least the modern ones that have been digitised.

Schedulers simply create a playlist that comprise ad segment headers and program headers.

I have no doubt things will eventually end up this way. If you have access to a Beyonwiz T series or later, you can see this. When the program actually starts, the BW places a bookmark in the recording, and when the program actually ends, the BW places a bookmark in the recording. Now when you play the recording, simply press the Next button and second or so later, you are at the actual start of what you want to watch.

Interestingly 10 News First does NOT broadcast this code because it and every other news broadcast starts precisely at the time advertised. So, see, the schedulers can keep to their advertised schedules, but by not keeping to their advertised schedules, they hope to lock in viewers.

We're talking about different things here.

The Up/Down arrows do move to the next/previous Chapter mark, but only if such a mark exists.  There are currently no chapter marks inserted into IceBox recordings.