Newbie: The Good And The Bad

[Kangaborg]

I've actually been running with the recording service disabled since it is a client-only machine. Of course, changing the config complains about that, so I temporarily reenable it when changing my config settings.

So, anyway, here's the solution, and it's confusing me.

As I said, performance was actually great. The video was smooth, the menus were smooth. The only problem was changing channels caused a lock-up. Sometimes one channel would do it, sometimes two.

As sub suggested, I tried it wired (I was not directly using a wireless card, I previously had it wired to a wireless router operating in WDS mode). This fixed the channel change issue instantly. This seems to indicate a bandwidth problem, right? But then why was the video so smooth over the wireless network? THAT's what's confusing me.

At least the mystery is solved. As for what I'm going to do in my bedroom for a front end, I'm not sure yet (short of running cables through the walls, which I'm not quite ready to do yet). I know that people here have wireless working, but perhaps it is a combination of wireless plus a stronger PC that is needed. For now, I'll use this PC in the living room, which is directly wired to the server.

So, as a data point for anyone trying to put together a low-end client: a P3-933 with only 256 megs will work great, as long as you do a bunch of XP-tweaks to reduce memory usage and improve performance, and as long as you are not using wireless!

Thanks for the suggestions and patience.

[stustunz]

just to blow your theory my laptop is only a 1Gmhz 756ram wireless and has no problms changing channels
i mean it only uses at max 8Mbps of 50 so unless your wireless network is sad or your not connecting at a good signal it should be fine
i know mine wont work outside even though it says the signal is good

is live preview checked if it is try un checking it

just tested this on my laptop and sure enough it happened just as you posted in your first post
having live preview checked will cause your problem when changing channels

[Kangaborg]

That's actually pretty interesting that you can get the same behavior with "live preview" checked. Unfortunately, I just ran the config app on both the client and server, and both have "live preview" UNchecked.

I know, it doesn't make any sense that wireless would be my problem when so many other people have wireless working. And I don't think I have a signal or bandwidth problem because the video quality was fine. I'm just at a loss to explain it. With no other config changes, if it is wired there are no problems, and if it is wireless I get the freeze.

One possibility: I'm not using a wireless card directly, the client was plugged into a wireless router and the server was connected to another wireless router. I know that WDS mode can introduce extra latency (packets sent to the routers via ethernet are repeated wirelessly, effectively doubling the transmission time). Is it possible there's some sort of timing dependency while changing channels? Actually, I notice that the delay when starting to watch live TV (when it displays the message about starting timeshifting) is much longer than the delay when changing channels. It would be interesting to inject some sort of artificial delay there... maybe the client is actually ready before the wireless network can deliver the goods and the client bumps into an EOF? I don't know, I'm just guessing. It actually doesn't make much sense because filesharing mode works (albeit at a low frame rate) and that should actually be delivering data slower than streaming mode. Of course, the client side handling is different in that case, anyway...

I'd be curious to find out if the other people having problems in that thread I mentioned were wired or wireless.

At any rate, I don't want to bother anyone too much about this since it IS working as long as I'm plugged in. I even upped the bitdepth yesterday and I'm still performing ok.

Thanks!

[stustunz]

yeah thats the reason some other guy had the same problem
yeah wireless isnt duplex so if you have double that then its going to be real crap thats why wireless sucks as far as workability goes
if you could just get rid of one of the wireless routes my bet it would be fiine
file sharing only has to go one way
streaming has to go both ways at the same time
i dont get the time shifting box come up thats weird

i know your over it but just had another look
ticked the live preview box and encoder passthrough is ticked i get the freeze on changing channels
with just live preview i dont
you dont have any other programs stuffing with it like ffdshow or reclock
your playback decoders should alway be set to something ie not boxes with default in them

[Kangaborg]

So I set up on a wireless laptop with much better specs as a client, and I got the same issue: video is great until I change a channel (or two). Then I get a hard freeze.

I decided to try to change the "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" setting in config.xml from 2000 to 5000. Guess what? It works. It really makes it seem like a timing issue. Also, I could probably use a figure somewhere between those two, but I haven't tried yet. Also, I haven't used it wirelessly for very long yet, but so far it seems okay.

I've also encountered the exact same problem on a wired client, but much less frequently (once every few days). I suspect I should up the "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" there, too.

Can I ask: what exactly is the difference between "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" and "LiveTVPrePlayDelay" (which is normally set to 500)? Is "LiveTVPrePlayDelay" used by the recording service? Or is it used by the gbpvr.exe in the case when you are doing everything (recording and viewing) on one machine?

Thanks!

[sjmorris]

So I set up on a wireless laptop with much better specs as a client, and I got the same issue: video is great until I change a channel (or two). Then I get a hard freeze.

I decided to try to change the "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" setting in config.xml from 2000 to 5000. Guess what? It works. It really makes it seem like a timing issue. Also, I could probably use a figure somewhere between those two, but I haven't tried yet. Also, I haven't used it wirelessly for very long yet, but so far it seems okay.

I've also encountered the exact same problem on a wired client, but much less frequently (once every few days). I suspect I should up the "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" there, too.

Can I ask: what exactly is the difference between "ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay" and "LiveTVPrePlayDelay" (which is normally set to 500)? Is "LiveTVPrePlayDelay" used by the recording service? Or is it used by the gbpvr.exe in the case when you are doing everything (recording and viewing) on one machine?

Thanks!

Pinging this one.. any insight from anyone?

[elite]

Pinging this one.. any insight from anyone?

I'd hazard a guess that ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay is the delay used for watching live tv from a client box and that LiveTVPrePlayDelay is when watching from the same box as the server

I don't have any clients though so haven't been through the experience and could be out by miles...

[sjmorris]

I'd hazard a guess that ClientModeLiveTVPrePlayDelay is the delay used for watching live tv from a client box and that LiveTVPrePlayDelay is when watching from the same box as the server

I don't have any clients though so haven't been through the experience and could be out by miles...

Success for me. ClientModeLivePrePlayDelay set at 5000 and all my channel changing issues have disappeared, even on a slower wireless connection. Perhaps this should be the default setting?

Thanks for the headsup on this one, it was driving me to drink.