Preparation of TV shows for posting here?
November 30th, 2013
I am curious, how are TV shows typically prepared for sharing here? What software (and recommended settings) are used to remove the commercials and compress them? I already know how to get shows from my Tivo into my computer and decrypt them, but then I have bulky MPEG4 files with the commercials, way too big to upload anywhere.
Thanks in advance
Most of the downloads here come from scene groups which follow the scene standards detailed here:
http://scenerules.irc.gs/
and outlined on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)
These standards are developed by topsite owners and affiliates, and are signed by most of the major groups affiliated with ranked topsites which means there is pressure for competing groups to release to the same quality standards.
It doesn’t really matter what transcoding software you use, and people use all sorts of solutions from Handbrake to VLC transcoding. As long as the transcode supports the codecs and quality selectors required, it will do. Removing commercials is more complicated because it required video editing but I’d assume groups might use suites like Adobe Premiere or something (members who use video editors more might have something to say about that) which I believe can export to a number of common formats.
Basically, it is up to you what rules you choose to follow and what software you use but the scene standards are a good place to work from as you’d be uploading releases of comparable quality to those coming from topsites.
I was wondering if the commercials are getting cut automatically, somehow? All the commercial cutting seems so consistent and accurate, and there is so much volume of shares, that I don’t think a person is manually doing each one.
The heuristic analysis to identify when commercials come on (as opposed to a scene cutaway during a show) would be tough. It would be possible to identify and cut them a high percentage of the time but probably not 100%. It might be done automatically and then checked manually. Unsure.
videoredo, virtualdubmod will allow you to remove the commercials.
TheClassic replied: videoredo, virtualdubmod will allow you to remove the commercials.Automatic or manual?
Can some people who are actually preparing TV shows for sharing post how they are doing it? What software is being used? How are they dealing with the commercials? Would like to hear from a variety of people to get an idea of what methods work best and are time efficient.
Can some people who are actually preparing TV shows for sharing post how they are doing it?
I’d guess that almost nobody here actually caps and encodes their own stuff. That majority of uploaders here are just couriers/mirror makers and the few that actually transcode use scene source files which have been pre-edited.
The only group I know of that does their own encodes is msaadn et al. and I don’t know what sort of sources they use.
stlmac08 replied: For football games for another site I used VideoRedo and did it by hand even though it has an auto scan mode. Then you have to use something to then compress the files into something more manageable than a 13GiB mpeg2.TheClassic replied: videoredo, virtualdubmod will allow you to remove the commercials.Automatic or manual?
Can some people who are actually preparing TV shows for sharing post how they are doing it? What software is being used? How are they dealing with the commercials? Would like to hear from a variety of people to get an idea of what methods work best and are time efficient.
I cap my own releases and don’t use Scene for anything.
1] You don’t need to follow scene rules, do it to your own standards providing they are high. Scene isn’t that good and can stretch quality too far IMO.
2] AVISynth is what the scene uses to cut commercials while encoding. They don’t actually cut video but mark commercials which are not encoded while encoding. That way it’s lossless and no re-encoding is necessary. There are Appz and AVISynth plugins to detect commercials such as comskip & msu commercial detector.
Comskip, Mpeg & H.264 video
http://www.kaashoek.com/gbpvr/tuning.htm
MSu Commercial detector Mpeg
http://www.compression.ru/video/tv_commercial_detector/index_en.html
I use VideoRedo TVSuite V3 (Mpeg2) and V4 (Mpeg2 & H.264) because it does a better job of correcting sync problems than anything else I have tried. It’s not perfect, V4 does have some decoding problems with some H.264 video that uses MBAFF but it’s still better than anything else for correcting sync. You only need to look at all the Scene Propers to notice how frequently AV sync is an issue. There was big problems with Doctor Who S06E07 and no scene or P2P release had good AV sync, however mine was fine.
It might be possible to use Comskip with VideoRedo, however I have never tried this because BBC video does not have Ads.
Belderan replied: The heuristic analysis to identify when commercials come on (as opposed to a scene cutaway during a show) would be tough. It would be possible to identify and cut them a high percentage of the time but probably not 100%. It might be done automatically and then checked manually. Unsure.
Read something a while back about software recognizing the water marks from the broadcasting channel, cutting whenever the watermark dissapears (when commercials start).
Wouldn’t really be needed imo though. If you start encoding the same series every time you start to ‘know’ where the commercials will come in. It would only take a second to cut them out.
Warflesj replied: Belderan replied: The heuristic analysis to identify when commercials come on (as opposed to a scene cutaway during a show) would be tough. It would be possible to identify and cut them a high percentage of the time but probably not 100%. It might be done automatically and then checked manually. Unsure.
Read something a while back about software recognizing the water marks from the broadcasting channel, cutting whenever the watermark dissapears (when commercials start).
Wouldn't really be needed imo though. If you start encoding the same series every time you start to 'know' where the commercials will come in. It would only take a second to cut them out.
I think your thinking about TV logos and not watermarks. Watermarks are used to prevent uploading copyrighted material to places like Youtube and I understand that they use phash to do that along with Movie companies etc.
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I forgot to mention that my sources are Digital Satellite and Digital Terrestrial TV so none of my sources are pre-prepared by the scene.