How To Use SchoolHouse

[audiophile]

i wouldbe interested too..

After you scan the file with ads..... what do you do ?

Is it necessary to setup profiles for each channel ? if so how?

[Serra]

After you scan the file with ads, you make changes to the parameters file and see if the changes make it better find the commercials. Basically, Schoolhouse is a tweak test program.

Just change the parameter and then click away from the input block and it will redo the commercial breaks (in a few seconds). (Don't hit rescan, that rescans the whole file and takes a long time)



Once you have a parameters file that works well, you can save it.


The question about specific channels would depend on how the file was recorded and and channel specific parameter file would need to be call when you do your processing, so it would need to be part of that system, not something anyone could answer with the information you provided.

[dcambrid]

It is very disappointing to me to see that there is still absolutely no documentation on this product after two years of people posting into this thread and asking for help. When you click on help in School House there is nothing. I have NEVER paid for a program and then when you click on help there is nothing there. Some people have posted that you just load a file into School House and play with the settings. Which settings? What do you tweak? What is the logic that the program uses to identify a commercial? Where do you start?

People have been requesting help on this thread for 2 years now and I can find absolutely nothing on in the help or in this forum to point me in the correct direction on tweaking this program so that it actually works. I can live with missed commercials, but this thing frequently skips chunks of the actual program, that I cannot live with.

I am going back to Comskip, very disappointed that I paid for this program.

[Serra]

Actually, SchoolHouse is very easy to use. There are enough posts here to explain its use. It is a configuration tester. You test different configuration settings until you find one that you like by loading a show and then changing the settings. (Click off the settings to get it to retest).

Don't use the rescan button.

[dcambrid]

Originally Posted by Serra

Actually, SchoolHouse is very easy to use. There are enough posts here to explain its use. It is a configuration tester. You test different configuration settings until you find one that you like by loading a show and then changing the settings. (Click off the settings to get it to retest).

Don't use the rescan button.

This is quite funny, you keep posting on this thread that it is easy to use, but you give absolute no guidance whatsover, load a file and change the settings, that's very helpful. I would like to know what settings to look at for certain situations, i.e. If it is missing commercials, try changing X setting or Y setting or if it is cutting out chunks of the show, look a Z setting. I would like to understand the logic it uses to determine if it is a commercial. I don't blame you for the lack of documentation, but you just keep saying is it easy, I am sorry, but I don't have the time to sit and play with a piece of software I PAID for to figure out how it works. Plain and simple, if you want to charge money for it, there should be some documentation. I have said before, I don't doubt that it works great, but I just want to know how to use it. I do blame myself for not looking into the software a little more before paying for it. I have switched to Comskip which has an exhaustive tuning guide included with the product.

[Serra]

Ok, let me just give you a bit of a primer on SchoolHouse and see if that helps you. I'm telling you again, it is SO easy to use, I figured it out in like 10 seconds. Perhaps I can help you do the same.

1. SchoolHouse does not do anything except help you come up with parameters that work for specific problems. It doesn't change the way that SA detects commercials. Commercial detection is fixed in SA, it can not be modified. (Please note, as I haven't seen docs either, I'm just guessing, but this is how I understand it)

Here is how to start SchoolHouse, in case there is an issue here with understanding how it works:

1. Open SH
2. Select a video to load.
- This starts the indexing window. This is where SH loads the video. It works best if the video is local, not networked, BTW.
- Once indexing ends, SH will display the show in the window and the current parameters will be used to find the commercials.

At the bottom of SH is the show bar timeline. It will be green and red. Green for show, red for commercials. The black bars on the greeen and red line are points that SA has marked as segments in the current timeline. These marking points are fixed and will always remain in the same places. We can't change the detection routines, just how they are interpeted.


Modifing SH paramters to find commercials.

Determine if the commercials are properly marked. Do this by moving the cursor over the green and red areas of the timeline to see if all of the commercials are red and all of the content is green.

(We will assume that the video you are reviewing has issues. If it doesn't, load a video that DOES have issues. You can't do anything with SH with a video that is properly detected)

The parameters are lsied in the Settings block on the left side of the screen. My default settings are shown, as will yours.

There are several blocks lised in the Settings block. 1, 2, 3a, 3b, 4, 5, and 6.

Each block has a paramters in it. For example, block 1 has 4: LPSC, LPIC, SPCS and SPSS. To find out what these stand for, click on them. This will put the explination in the bottom window. For example, LPSC is Longest Possible Commercial Segment.

I have found that modifing the items in block 1 make the most effective changes to the system.

Here are the block on parameters (and my values):

LPSC (Longest Possible Commercial Segment) 420
LPIC (Longest Possible Indvicual Commercial) 181
SPCS (Shortest Possible Commercial Segment) 10
SPSS (Sorthest Possible Show Segment) 35.5

Test different settings, change the value in the window by clicking on the number. Then click off the number on the timeline. The system will recalculate the new timeline (changing the red and green mix)

Once that you have changed the numbers to get all of the commercials marked as red and all of the content marked as green, save the settings as your default.

Normally, you will not need to change paramers in the other blocks, unless if you have a very specific problem. If you can't get the system to mark the proper commercials using the block 1 parameters, then you may need to change the paramters in the other blocks.

Lets look at how to tweek the block 1 paramters, then that same method can be used to determine which paramters to change in other sections.

Find a commercial block in your video that is not properly marked.

The first thing that you must notice is if the commercial is located between black lines. If the commercial and the content are not seperated by a black line, you will NEVER be able to fix the problem because SA hasn't identified the commercial as non-content. You will notice that no matter what you change in the paramters, none of the black lines ever move.

Assuming your commercial is between black lines, then it is a paramter problem that is the issue. This we can fix in SH. Look at the commercial block that is a problem. It should be marked red, but it isn't, so we need to adjust the paramters so that SH marks it red. First, you simply need to determine which paramter is wrong.

Given we have the parmaters:
LPSC (Longest Possible Commercial Segment) 420
LPIC (Longest Possible Indvicual Commercial) 181
SPCS (Shortest Possible Commercial Segment) 10
SPSS (Sorthest Possible Show Segment) 35.5

We basically know the following. No commercial segment can be longer than 420 seconds. No individual commercial can be longer than 181 seconds. That means that no red block will ever be longer than 420 seconds. No block between black lines that is a commerical can ever be longer than 181 seconds. *Please use your own values here, not mine

Is the incorrectly marked commercial incorrectly marked because of one of these parameter? Is it longer than the LPIC? Is the whole block longer thant the LPSC? If so, adjust them.

If content is being incorrectly identified as a commerical, then look at SPCS and SPSS. Look at the length, determine which value to change.

90% of problems can be fixed by adjusting these four parameters. If the problem isn't one of the four parameters, it will then be an issue of something else. If a commercial is identified as content and it is less that LPIC and in a block smaller than LPSC, then the issue has to do with one of the more complex parameters.

This is where Score comes in. The way that SH determines if something is commerical or conent is via the Score value. The paramters in the 3a modify the score values. You must look at each of the score values and determine if your incorrectly identified block is scoring via that parameter.

Put your cursor on the commerical block and look on the right side of the screen at the "Features" area. It shows score, edge profile average audio level and lenght of the segment. It also inidcates the lenght parameter. "TOO LONG" means it can't be a commercial, btw.

If a commercial block or content block is being identified incorrectly, you can use the score values to change the score and give you a better reading. However, I've NEVER had to do this to get SA to work great.

If you have a problem that is not related to length and you need some specific help on what these 3a parameters do, please ask, I'll explain them to you. I'd guess you don't need to change them to get perfect commerical detection.

If you don't understand something specific, I'll be glad to help. SH is very easy to use. Just give it a few seconds and you will be off and running.

[dcambrid]

Thank you!! That gives me a great start on how to use, it. I appreciate your taking the time to point me in the right direction. That is the most useful post I have found on here.

[Serra]

You are welcome if you or anyone has a specific problem that they can't solve, just post and I'd be glad to see if I can help.

[mmiller]

Hi Serra;

I still don't get it but I have been able to make some progress

OK, I load in a video, wait for it to be analyzed and then I see a green line with red blotches. The red blotches indicate commericals but they are not dead on.

So, I move the sliders so that they 'fit' the commerical blocks dead on. Then what do I do?

[mmiller]

Actually, let's go back to a theory question for a moment.

I've read that different channels set up their commericals differently. Does this mean that if I want near perfect commerical detection I would have to create a profile for each channel?

If so, is there a way to get show analyzer to use the proper profile depending on which channel it's working on?