Can someone please help w/Auto commercial skipping in WMC?

I've been trying to research this and I can't seem to find the information I need. There is TONs of information for stuff I don't want/need but I can't seem to find concise answers to my simple questions. I don't want to have to convert EVERYTHING I record on a file by file basis creating two copies and blah blah blah. I see a video on youtube that shows the ability to skip commercial segments on live TV as well as one where he's skipping on recorded programs. I think the program used is Comskip on these. So I downloaded the most recent zip for Comskip but when I unzip I see no install file to install it. Does this mean I have the use of this program wrong? I've seen posts about DVRMSToolbox & ShowAnalyzer and other software costing $20-$30 but I've heard Comskip is free so I'm confused. Do I need these other programs to make Comskip work? If not, how do I go about installing? What I want to do seems possible from the two videos I've found but the supporting information I've found is sparse at best.

Can someone please point me in the right direction? I don't want to invest time converting each file before I watch them and have to babysit such processes. I would like something I install on the primary PC so that when I watch shows that are either pre-recorded, currently recording or live and allow me to skip commercials entirely.

Thanks for the help!

I found this stuff at one point and it still doesn't make sense to me. I start reading things and I guess my ADHD kicks in because it doesn't make sense to me. It seems like a lot of that is about converting files AFTER they've recorded and using GBPVR (I don't even know what this is but it refers to it regularly like I should) and some other steps I don't want to do.

I guess what I'm looking for here is an answer from someone who is familiar with this process to this question: Can I simply install some free software and have it auto-skip or single press of a button skip commercials on material that's either pre-recorded, currently recording or live? If so, what software(s) do I need and what are the steps to accomplishing this?

I've searched and read manuals and such and it's only confused me more. I need someone to explain it to me in simple English as it applies to me I guess.

I can FFWD and RWND manually as I've been doing for years but I just installed a Homerun Prime and am using it and WMC as my whole-house HTPC/DVR for the first time and this was one of the features I was looking forward to when I stumbled across someone talking about Comskip and then a video on YouTube.

This guy is using it on live TV. Mind you it's SageTV but i think the theory is the same on WMC.

There is one other video I saw which I can't seem to find where a guy is demo'ing his WMC setup and Comskip is one of the parts he demonstrates which automatically skips through commercials when he presses the skip forward button once.

Another I saw (might even be one of the two previously mentioned as I had a real hard time finding videos & info on actual use) he pressed the 'play' button first to bring up the timeline and then he pressed skip so he could actually see the length of the bock being skipped. To me this is the most error proof since you can visually see the amount of time being skipped. In other words you can visually see the approximate length of time the software thinks is a commercial block and if it's huge (it should be pretty obvious) you can manually skip or something instead of skipping the entire block.

It just seems that some are mentioning it here and there as a good solution so it has to work with some mixture of software programs and settings. There's just SO many options and I'm not even sure which ones are necessary or not. That coupled with the fact that I'm a WMC n00b I don't want to start adding too many variables until I can test at length for stability.

I was really hoping some here would be able to say 'Yes, I do that and you just need this and this and then do this' but I can't seem to find that sort of solution. That's the purpose for creating this thread: First hand user accounts of what works and how to make it work. I don't want to read hours of manuals written by people who understand code better than English or explaining something to someone because it's more confusing than enlightening.

So with this setup you just need to wait until the program is completed, right? In other words, I don't have to manually convert anything or manage any additional files or folders, right? It all happens automatically behind the scenes? If so, and it automatically skips commercials on the files after conversion & there's an error which skips an entire segment does that mean you simply lost that or will it save either the original file or allow you to quickly and easily jump back during playback?

Thanks for the response and I think most of this kills the dream for me. We have Comcrap and they are notorious for improperly flagging programming. I also don't want to spend any money so I think for now I'll just stick with clicking the skip forward/backward buttons to omit commercials. I was hoping for a more automated way of doing things now that I'm using WMC but oh well. I'm really happy with the features we've gained making the swap from leasing Comcrap receivers to HDHR Primes on the network. Can't have it all I guess.


What would this accomplish if I installed all of this and set it up? I'm guessing it may be too much time to invest given the return on investment since we have Comcast.

FYI, I've given up on this idea entirely. I just cope with it or wait and download the entire season which never has commercials. I know this isn't a solution for some but since I'm the OP of this thread I felt the need to give a heads up that I'm abandoning the thread before I unsubscribe. Good luck to everyone and I hope you have better luck than I did.