Successful settings

Thought I'd share my settings. These seems to work very well here in Sweden:

Longest Possible Commercial Segment = 800
Longest Possible Individual Commercial = 200
Shortest Possible Commercial Segment = 44.5
Shortest Possible Show Segment = 35.5
[Score Modifiers]
Length Too Long = 0.1
Length Not Commercial = 1
Length Too Short = 1
Length Non Strict Combined = 1.2
Length Non Strict = 1.5
Length Strict Combined = 1.5
Length Strict = 2
Edge Profile Positive Match = 0.1
Edge Profile Negative Match = 2
Edge Profile Unknown Match = 1
[Options]
Aggressive Segmentation = 1

With the default settings, SA hardly found anything at all. But after tweaking it much according to the suggested UK settings + making sure that it doesn't put too much weight on commercial length being strict, it now catches more or less everything I throw at it - and completely without false positives!

Edit: And to add info on which channels I've tried so far: TV3, ZTV, Kanal 5, TV4+

Edited yet again. New stations added, better detection on shorter segments of show.

These are mine, for use on Canadian stations, although they seem to work well with US ones too, providing they have a distinct logo (edge profile).

Longest Possible Commercial Segment = 301
Longest Possible Individual Commercial = 90.5
Shortest Possible Commercial Segment = 89.5
Shortest Possible Show Segment = 180.5
[Score Modifiers]
Length Too Long = 0.1
Length Not Commercial = 0.7
Length Too Short = 1
Length Non Strict Combined = 1
Length Non Strict = 0.9
Length Strict Combined = 0.9
Length Strict = 2
Edge Profile Positive Match = 0.1
Edge Profile Negative Match = 2
Edge Profile Unknown Match = 0.9
[Options]
Aggressive Segmentation = 0

Edited to include channels:
Showcase (Perfect on widescreen shows)
Space (Near Perfect on all shows)
APTN
WTBS
Teletoon
Spike
History Channel
Showcase
Bravo
A & E
Sportsnet (the one that has Poker on for hours and hours, repeating over and over )


Edited for even better detection on Canadian and US stations, including cartoons on various stations. (Teletoon, Space (Tripping the Rift) and WTBS (US). The Canadian channels abide by the max 12 minutes of commercials per hour of programming on most stations, and 8 minutes on childrens broadcasts.

I'd like to test these profiles out here (US).. if I copy them to a new profile.. do I need to delete the old "Default" profile? How does SA know which profile to run?

Thanks!

[Jere_Jones]

The default profile is always used unless one of the following is true:

1) An profile is specified on the command line with the -ini parameter
2) The show matches a line on the "Automatic Profile Selection" page in SAConfig.

Jere

Hi,

As a suggestion, I think it would add value to list the channels against which people got good results in their native countrys.

I think longer term this sort of sticky will have several sets of settings per country, grouping together sets of channels with similar broadcast settings.

Cheers

Mark

[mikaelgu]

Originally Posted by andlju

Thought I'd share my settings. These seems to work very well here in Sweden:

Longest Possible Commercial Segment = 800
Longest Possible Individual Commercial = 200
Shortest Possible Commercial Segment = 44.5
Shortest Possible Show Segment = 35.5
[Score Modifiers]
Length Too Long = 0.1
Length Not Commercial = 1
Length Too Short = 1
Length Non Strict Combined = 1.2
Length Non Strict = 1.5
Length Strict Combined = 1.5
Length Strict = 2
Edge Profile Positive Match = 0.1
Edge Profile Negative Match = 2
Edge Profile Unknown Match = 1
[Options]
Aggressive Segmentation = 1

With the default settings, SA hardly found anything at all. But after tweaking it much according to the suggested UK settings + making sure that it doesn't put too much weight on commercial length being strict, it now catches more or less everything I throw at it - and completely without false positives!

Edit: And to add info on which channels I've tried so far: TV3, ZTV, Kanal 5, TV4+

Thank you for these, they work great in Finland as well. Tested on MTV3, Nelonen and SubTV.

[chrisc16]

Does anyone have better settings than the default for US channels? While I certainly love the speed of SA, so far I have had much worse detection results than Comskip... both in commercial breaks missed and in overshooting commercials. This has really hurt the WAF.

Anybody else getting really good results in the US? For now, I guess I'll try the Canadian settings above...

-Chris

Originally Posted by chrisc16

Does anyone have better settings than the default for US channels? While I certainly love the speed of SA, so far I have had much worse detection results than Comskip... both in commercial breaks missed and in overshooting commercials. This has really hurt the WAF.

Anybody else getting really good results in the US? For now, I guess I'll try the Canadian settings above...

-Chris

I've had similar results. Some programs seem to work flawlessly, while others are exactly as you had described. I have tried the Canadian settings above and saw no improvement.

I'm having worse than Comskip results too... I believe Canadian and US programming is exactly the same, so...

Canadian and US programming is completely different.
The US allows many more minutes of commercials per hour than Canada, especially on children's networks/stations.
The US also allows a much longer single commercial break, providing it's broken in two, with either a public service announcement, or a newsbreak.
In these cases, the actual commercial break can exceed 10 minutes (3 of commercial, 4 of news, 3 commercial, or 4 commercial, 1 (or 2 min) announcement, 4 or 5 commercial.
On two hour shows, the break at the 1 hour point can contain 12 minutes or more of commercials/news/whatever. 4 minutes from the preceeding hour, a 4 minute news break, 1 minute announcement, and 4 minutes more commercials (give or take 30 seconds in each portion).

Canada allows 12 minutes per hour, of ANY non-show content. Ads, news, info, etc...doesn't matter what it is, it must come in under 12 minutes.
The only exception is for parental warnings, which are not included in the 12 minutes, but must appear on screen for a minimum of 15 (but are usually 20, depending on the warning length, time it takes for the announcer to read, etc.).