[prupert]

Hi

After getting myself all confused over chapter support (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=4...post453547), I found out a related problem.

EDL /scene marker support in XBMC is not using the stadard EDL format, as far as I can tell.

It seems the EDL files (alongside comskip .txt files) are supported for marking points in a video file. The thing is, if you don't want to automatically skip to a point, but to add a scene marker instead, to allow for manual navigation, you have to use a non-standard form of EDL file.

Traditional EDL files support two actions: 0 and 1 for muting and skip. It seems that XBMC has introduced a third action "2" to support scene marking:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=EDL_%28c...Marker_support

However, this action "2" isn't a recognised format in EDL files.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html

Confirmed by the comskip dev:
http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/viewtopi...4069#p4069

Hence all programs that produce EDL files will not produce this action 2. Obviously an EDL file can be edited manually to create this new action, but wouldn't it be better to use a standard format?

My suggestion would be to use EDL files in the way that they are intended, for automatically skipping and pausing, and then to use another standard file format to add scene markers. Either the .txt, .vdr or .chap file formats (all natively supported by comskip, that is one of the main sources of these EDL files in the first place) could be used.

(In fact comskip has in its config file the option to produce .vdr files specifically for XBMC, but it is not clear if XBMC even uses these .vdr files, there is no mention of it in the Wiki and I haven't got one working yet).

I'd love to hear what the current thinking is on EDL, comskip.txt .vdr .chap and scene marker file support in XBMC.

[dteirney]

I worked on the EDL implementation within XBMC. The file formats that it supported were in place when I started and I simply got things working more robustly, followed by adding in commercial break support to the internal EDL container and dvdplayer (the internal video player), and loading of the commerical break information from MythTV. Much of this work was completed ~6 months ago.

The http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Edit_Decision_List wiki page is now up-to-date and hopefully clearly lists the file formats that are currently supported.

As has already been discussed, scene markers contained within the video container needs support via ffmpeg (although I'm less clear on how that works). Anything read from a separate file is handled by XBMC directly.

If you want to define scene markers then it makes sense to use an application that can create a file that is supported by XBMC. If you want another file format to be supported by XBMC, please raise a trac ticket with a sample file and links to any pertinent standard based information on the internet. I don't have a single Windows machine so can't easily work with some of the commercial skip detection software packages.

A strictly valid .edl file as would be generated by mplayer still works as per the "specification" within XBMC. I suspect that the .edl file format was extended because it is the simplest file format and is very easy to manually adjust. I definitely found it the easiest to create test scenarios with.

If people are using applications to generate .edl files but would prefer the entries to act like commercial breaks rather than hard cuts there are some options for handling that in XBMC, e.g. use a slightly different suffix but same file format, or perhaps an advanced setting to change behavior across the board.

I've been using the current commercial skip behaviour in XBMC for a while now with playback of MythTV recordings and it works well. I'd suggest giving it a try and see how it goes.

As an aside, the commercial breaks that are loaded from MythTV get scene markers added to the start and end of each break. This sort of "feature" would be easy to add to other file formats that have commercial breaks read from as well.

[prupert]

Cheers for the very detailed and helpful explanation, it's exactly what I was looking for.

Sorry for sounding a bit arsey in my post, I was just intrigued to see what had changed.

In hindsight, I agree about changing the EDL format, since it is a very easy format to change, I guess a simple bash script can be used to add the new type 2 action if necessary.

As far as chapters go, I simply moved over to using the MKV container and XBMC handles an MKV chapter marker very well. I use Comskip under Wine to create the .chap file (kinda similiar to an edl file) and them mkvtools to add the chapter markers and it works very well.

I'll read up on the wiki to see the new changes.

Thanks once again for the answer and merry xmas!!

[dteirney]

As far as chapters go, I simply moved over to using the MKV container and XBMC handles an MKV chapter marker very well. I use Comskip under Wine to create the .chap file (kinda similiar to an edl file) and them mkvtools to add the chapter markers and it works very well.

If it's any easier for you it should be relatively straight forward to add support for whatever this .chap file looks like so you don't need to put it into another container. Post a sample here and I should be able to tell what is involved pretty quickly.

[prupert]

Being xmas, I am away from my comskip box, so I can't post anything for a few days, but when I am back (next thursday) I shall post the following:

- the comskip ini that shows all the different types of files it can output (since most apps that produce commercial break analaysis files use a varient of comskip)
- an example for all the different types of the files that comskip produces (.txt, .edl. .chap etc).