I had similar functionality documented in my PVR app design for ATI in 2004. I don't know if Sage supports its own chapterization or marking of points on the timeline of its recorded content. Comskip handles detection and output of data noting the location of the commercials. When integrating with Sage the information is passed to something else, but I haven't looked enough into it to get the full picture, so maybe it doesn't need to transcode after all. It would be nice to be able to just cut and concatenate.

Ok, I just did a little digging and it turns out Sage *can* support section markers. Another tool is used along with Comskip to modify Sage's DB with the data. I may give this a shot if the analysis is fairly quick.

EDIT: Ok, I've installed Comskip, a utility (service) called Dirmon2 which monitors the creation of files in specified folders and then the Comskip plugin for SageTV. My whole library of recorded programming is now having commercials marked.

I've tested playback on the pilot episode of Fringe and it's working well. The plugin supports auto-skipping which I haven't tested, but the remapping of the left and right buttons on the remote to jump around the episode are very nice. No more need to skip 2:30 and then a few presses of 10 seconds. Cool.

Thanks for bringing this up and prompting me to give it a shot Mark. It was pretty painless and in retrospect I wouldn't haven't gained anything by waiting until the next update. The plugin integrated fairly well and shouldn't break with any minor updates either.