Note by @fastfinge

Kieran L @klittle667@tweesecake.social

7mo

There's currently an issue with Sky Q's voice guidance feature that appears as if its server side. Which is what happens when you rely on cloud services for your TTS. Every day, a HD homerun + channels DVR looks more and more appealing. Irritatingly our sky contract now runs until Feb 2027 so it's pointless getting someone out to look at our ariel.

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Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

7mo

@klittle667 None of the apps that use the Homerun support audio description in the UK. I actually have an HD Homerun here which is useless because of this. Really anoying as the apps work really well otherwise.

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Kieran L @klittle667@tweesecake.social

7mo

@andrew That's very frustrating. Is there actually any technical reason for this? Or is it just stupidity. I could have sworn @fastfinge said AD worked over there.

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James Scholes @jscholes@dragonscave.space

7mo

@klittle667 In the UK, AD for terrestrial is mixed by the receiver. So even if an app supports multiple audio tracks, you'll be able to choose to listen to the program or the AD but not both.

It works in Canada because they mix their AD at the source. @andrew @fastfinge

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@jscholes @andrew @klittle667 This should be pretty easy to fix with Describe Align: github.com/julbean/describealign

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Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

7mo

@fastfinge @jscholes @klittle667 IIRC the Channels PVR records MP4 files with 2 streams in the file, using an MP4 media player I could switch between the streams. Not sure if this program would be able to separate the streams or whether we would have to somehow get the AD into a separate file. Even then we can't just watch the program after recording it via the Channels apps.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@andrew @jscholes @klittle667 You'd have to write a script to make a copy of the show, flip the track order, then have describe align align the two files.

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Kieran L @klittle667@tweesecake.social

7mo

@fastfinge Thanks for all the info guys. Glad I didn't waste the money on either channels and / or a homerun. Sutch a shame as channels had quite a few features I wanted to take advantage of. Guess I'll either keep paying sky a ridiculous amount of money a month until they get rid of satellite services all together, buy a new TV that can record to a USB HD, or give up the idea of recording all together. @andrew @jscholes

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James Scholes @jscholes@dragonscave.space

7mo

@klittle667 What do you record that is both not available on a streaming service with AD, and would be available without Sky? @fastfinge @andrew

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Kieran L @klittle667@tweesecake.social

7mo

@jscholes Probably not a lot, but I like having things in one place. I find it a pain having to keep switching between apps. I know apple tried to make this a bit better, and I think google did as well, but it's never going to be as perfect as a DVR. Especially if I've recorded films that I'll get around to eventually, which will expire at some point, and also if broadcasters edit out parts of a show, like what happened with have I got news for you the other week. @fastfinge @andrew

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Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

7mo

@klittle667 @jscholes @fastfinge I've gone the catchup route here myself but its not the best experience with all the different apps required and knowing where AD is available or not. The PVR experience made this all so much easier.

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James Scholes @jscholes@dragonscave.space

7mo

@andrew @klittle667 @fastfinge It's hard for me to judge; I don't watch a lot of television and the option of receiver plus DVR isn't open to me anyway. But sitting or skipping through the ads in a recording would irritate me if there isn't a software solution by now that gets rid of them.

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Kieran L @klittle667@tweesecake.social

7mo

@jscholes @andrew @fastfinge Channels does remove the ads, apparently

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@klittle667 @jscholes @andrew It marks the ads as chapters in the metadata, and then has a setting that allows you to auto-skip chapters marked as ads. Because it only gets it right about 95 percent of the time.

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Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io

7mo

@fastfinge @klittle667 @jscholes Which you can stream live shows with audio description without using an aerial.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@andrew @jscholes @klittle667 So looking into this a bit more, it looks like ffmpeg can just do everything you want itself with amix and amerge. ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#amerge

So use ckucoo to intercept Channel's call to commskip so you'll know when the recording is done, and run ffmpeg to modify the output recording to have audio from both audio streams mixed together. github.com/Channels-DVR-Goodies/cuckoo

Sadly I can't actually do this myself as I'm not in the UK, so I couldn't test it. But once someone does, the process could be easily documented.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@jscholes @andrew @klittle667 Also, the idea that he'd have to make huge modifications to the player is nonsense. Channels DVR already includes ffmpeg. It already can do live transcoding of streams. Literally all he has to do is create a thing in the advanced preferences to enable mixing audio description and TV audio together, then let ffmpeg handle it all.

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James Scholes @jscholes@dragonscave.space

7mo

@fastfinge @andrew @klittle667 My claim was that it would be a lot of work to truly mix in the audio description including ducking, the parameters for which are embedded in the TV stream packets. Obviously it would be less work to just play two audio tracks simultaneously, but that's only a partial solution that can result in the audio description being difficult to hear and wouldn't recreate the experience obtained from actual TV reception equipment.

so I stick by what I said and don't think it's nonsense.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

7mo

@jscholes @andrew @klittle667 Wait what? The TV Stream packets themselves include parameters for ducking? Why! I assumed TV receivers got to choose how that would work, either by using some kind of autoducking, or just playing the default track at a constant (slightly lower) volume and the AD track at a higher volume. That's what I was assuming you'd do with ffmpeg; it does allow basic modifications of track volumes.

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