Technical Notes

• Thresholds may require tuning for darker/noisier analog captures.
• --merge-gap prevents fluttering blacks from splitting ad boundaries.
• --reencode ensures exact cuts; stream-copy mode is faster but snaps to keyframes.
• Logs are stable and reusable for rebuilding cuts or running QC.

Recommended Usage

• Cleaning archival TV recordings
• Compiling historical commercial breaks
• Preparing ad-free show masters
• Dataset creation for machine learning
• Automated VHS digitization pipelines

Quality Tips

• Too many false-positive commercials → raise --black-min-dur, raise thresholds, increase --merge-gap
• Missed commercials → lower --black-min-dur, adjust thresholds, widen commercial duration window
• Use --dry-run first
• Use --reencode for final/archival exports
• We default to -c copy for speed, but for surgical accuracy around non‑keyframes, add --reencode.
• Use a slightly higher --merge-gap (e.g., 1.0–2.0s) plus small edge-pad to stabilize borders.
• If analog noise prevents “full black,” raise --pix-th and slightly lower --pic-th.
• We never overwrite; existing outputs trigger suffixes _1, _2, etc.
• Add --dry-run to skip writing media and just produce logs for review.