PlayOnPal

You can support this project here.

You can get the .NET 3.1 version here.

You can get the .NET 5.0 version here.

You can read about updates here.

The background

The reason I called it PlayOnPal is because it's meant to be used with the video file recordings from PlayOn Home.

I created PlayOnPal because Netflix and Disney+ have silent foreign credits after the regular credits. These silent credits caused my two year old daughter to lose interest while waiting for her next Minnie's Bow Toons episode to come on (some of the silent credits were longer than the actual short video).

That was the initial reason for creating it, but then I found that it also came in handy to remove the buffering at the beginning of the file as well. I didn't realize how annoying it was to wait through the Plex loading screen, just to be immediately watching a Netflix or Disney+ loading screen that was totally unnecessary. And finally, it has been great to remove the PlayOn splash screens at the beginning and end of the file. There's just something oddly satisfying about the episode just immediately starting and not going through a splash screen and then another loading screen. It just feels so clean.

Then as I continued to test the app out and use it, I found that it also catches those videos that buffer for a second in times that my internet speed hit a snag. This made it SUPER easy to identify those bad video files and queue them up to record again. I can't even count the number of episodes that we found, after sitting down to watch them, had buffering in them and then it was very likely that the show was no longer available on that streaming service that I recorded it from to begin with. So then I was just stuck with a bad video file forever (or at least until a streaming service picked that show back up).



How to install it

NOTICE:
PlayonPal was built for Windows and uses the FFmpeg library to detect and remove silence in video files recorded using the PlayOn Home software.

In order to use PlayOnPal you must first install the FFmpeg library.

  1. Follow the steps on this page to install FFmpeg on your machine.
    • NOTE: There is a typo on step 14. The path should be 'C:\ffmpeg\bin\'. Make sure you add that slash at the end.
  2. Then download one of the following zip files:
  3. Once it is extracted, simply run the PlayOnPal.exe file.
    • NOTE: You may get a warning about running exe files from unknown parties. Just select 'Run Anyway'.

How to use it

Now, how do you actually use this thing?

It may look intimidating at first, but it's actually quite simple.

  1. This text box will populate the path you have pointed to.
  2. Clicking on this folder icon will open a dialogue box to choose a folder.
  3. After you have a path chosen, you can use this button to quickly pull in any new video files in that target folder.
  4. This will bring up the Settings screen. You should probably visit there first to configure the settings to your liking.
  5. If you find this program useful, then please consider clicking this cup to show some support. It would be greatly appreciated. I have been working on this project in my spare time.
  6. This box will show a list of the videos after you have chosen a folder.
  7. Use this button to remove selected videos from the list.
  8. Use this button to just remove ALL videos from the list.
  9. Once you are satisfied with the videos in the list, click this button to start analyzing.
  10. If you have to re-record a video, it saves the timestamps so you will have to use this button to force the app to re-analyze the file.
  11. Finally, after you have clicked analyze and the files are ready for processing, click this button to begin removing the silence.
  12. You may use these arrows to select the next/previous video file. Hotkeys: ',' for left, and '.' for right.
  13. Even though you can't see it right now, text will appear here giving you updates on what the app is working on when you hit go.
  14. You can't see this one right now either, but if the app ever encounters an error it will display here.
  15. Click this button to simply see the credits to where I got the icons from that I am using in the app.
  16. And last thing here, this simply counts how many files you have had the silence removed.

And now, onto some detailed directions.

Step 1

Before you do anything, click on the settings button to configure the app to your liking.

This will open up the settings modal. Let's explore what's in here. These are the settings that I like to use and work great for my use, but you may feel the need to modify them.

  1. 'Silence Detect Noise Level': Since a video/audio file isn't always exactly silent, there could be some white noise for example, but as far as we care it sounds pretty silent. So this number sets a threshold to detect the silence level. So anything at this level or below will be considered silent.
  2. 'Silence Duration': Use this to set how long of silence you want the app to point out. In this instance anything equal to or greater than one second of silence will be noted. Setting this to one second will detect a few more instances of silence, but I find it useful in helping me find the files that buffer and I should re-record.
  3. 'VLC Location': This app uses VLC to play the timestamps (we'll go over more of this later). If you don't have VLC installed, then you REALLY should. It's a powerful video playing software. The app will try to look for the VLC file in its default locations, but if it can't, you will need to put in the full file path to the vlc.exe file in this textbox.
  4. 'Output Folder': Insert the full path to where you want the finished files to be dropped to. NOTE: if you don't populate this box PlayOnPal will just create a folder named 'PlayOnPal Processes' in the top level of the hard drive you pointed it to.
  5. 'Delete original file when done': Just like it sounds, check this box if you want PlayOnPal to delete the original video file when it finishes removing the silence.
  6. 'Remove PlayOn Splash Screens': Just like this one sounds as well, if you check this box then PlayOnPal will remove the splash screens that PlayOn Home puts in the file. Otherwise, if you really feel the need to keep the splash screens, then don't worry the app will still remove the silence at the beginning and end of the file, it will just take one extra step of concatenating the splash screen back onto the video file. (NOTE: This option has been removed starting v1.1. PlayOnPal will now ONLY remove the splash screens. Read more about that here.)
  7. 'Save': Finally, be sure to save your changes before closing this modal box.

Step 2

Now, click on the folder icon to point PlayOnPal to a folder location.

Navigate to your folder and click 'Select Folder'.

Now notice that a lot just happened.

  1. First, our path textbox now holds the full path to our chosen folder.
  2. Next, the files are populated into our listbox.
  3. We also have a number of icons active now.
  4. And finally our status label has appeared, letting us know how many files we have waiting to be analyzed.

Step 3

Next, just click the analyze button to start the analyze process.

Now notice what's happening now.

  1. The first item in our list is blue, indicating that it is the current process.
  2. There is a new stop icon that just showed up. Click this if you need to stop the processes for any reason
    (NOTE: It will stop after the currently processing file finishes).
  3. And finally our status label has updated, now letting us know which file is being analyzed.

As you let it run its course, you can see the blue processing file moves down the list, but also, as the files get finished analyzing, they change color.
Yellow means that it found more than two instances of silence and this file needs your attention.
Green means that there are two timestamps found and it is ready to remove silence.

As of right now PlayOnPal can only handle two silence timestamps. If you run the process with more than two timestamps, then PlayOnPal will only respect the first and last timestamp. Any other timestamp in between will be ignored. This can come in handy if you have analyzed a lot of files and they have a number of timestamps, but you feel confident that the timestamps in the middle are ok. You can just focus on the outer two timestamps, making sure that they will remove the silence that you want removed.

When the app is done analyzing the files, it will look like this.

Step 4

Next, click on one of the finished files and you'll see a new box appear with some timestamps in them.

This shows the timestamp of when the silence first starts in the video to where the silence ends, and then finally at the end, shows how long it was silent for.

Remember that point before about VLC? This is where it comes in handy.

Now, just double click one of the timestamps and see what happens.

Did you miss it? Don't worry, you can double click on one again. It will now open up VLC and play one second before the silent timestamp, and then a half second after the timestamp. This way it makes it super easy to tell if this was something fine like a commercial break, or something that means you need to re-record the video like some buffering.

In my example here, timestamp 1 was the beginning splash screen with a bit of a loading screen. Then timestamps 2 & 3 were silences after the HBO promo content. So, it was safe for me to remove both timestamps 1 & 2.

Remove the timestamps by highlighting them and clicking the red 'X' icon. (or you can use the hotkey '/' to remove them)

What does this do?
Well, this will make it so PlayOnPal will chop off the first 31.02 seconds and the last 6.44 seconds of the file.

Be sure to hit that blue save icon before moving onto the next file (or you can use the hotkey 'm' to save the timestamps)
NOTE: If you removed the wrong timestamp by accident, don't worry you don't have to force it to reanalyze the file. You can click the blue circle arrow icon to the top right to restore the original timestamps.

Once it's saved you can either click on the next file in the left box, or click on the right green arrow, or use the hotkey '.' to move to the next file.

Now notice how the file we just modified is green. Indicating that there are only two timestamps and is good to go, and our newly selected file's timestamps are pulled up (If your file is still yellow then you better go back and remove the timestamps again but this time make sure you save it before moving on).

Step 5

Repeat step 4 on each file until every file name is green like so (if you find a file that had some buffering, be sure to select the bad video file from the box on the left then click the red 'x' icon under the box to remove that selected file and PlayOnPal won't process that file. Then be sure to go back to PlayOn Home to re-record that video. You'll notice that episode 2 had some buffering, so I removed it and set it up to re-record)

Now click on the 'Remove Silence' button to begin removing the silence from the files.

Now notice all the changes.

  1. The colors have reset and the first item is blue again, indicating it is being processed.
  2. Our stop icon showed up again.
  3. Our status label has updated, now letting us know which file is being processed.
  4. Finally our count will go up with each finished file.

And that's all there is to it. I hope you find this app as useful as I do.