Any way to improve skipping performance with .ts files?

[mvallevand]

Brett, sorry but my recordings are on a share (slowish WD NAS not even a PC) and all my meta art is in Media\Show. Are you basing your "slow" skip on the OSD time or the actual video that is playing. Because NextPVR sends an immediate update you do get the pre-skip time first and you might even get a another one for the next second depending on timing. As an example on this log playing 1080i from the share.

Code:

2012-03-11 14:57:11.578    [DEBUG][3]    User pressed: Right
2012-03-11 14:57:11.593    [DEBUG][3]    Raw PTS received:33442909
2012-03-11 14:57:11.593    [DEBUG][3]    Reported PTS now:33412879  time: 742.508422222222
2012-03-11 14:57:11.604    [DEBUG][7]    requestedPositionInSeconds: 801
2012-03-11 14:57:11.667    [DEBUG][3]    OSD needs update. Hash now: Timeline:00:12:22:00:59:15~   [b]old time displayed on NMT[/b]
2012-03-11 14:57:13.004    [DEBUG][3]    Raw PTS received:36064528     [b]fully playing on NMT well before this is received[/b]
2012-03-11 14:57:13.004    [DEBUG][3]    Reported PTS now:36034498  time: 800.766622222222
2012-03-11 14:57:13.046    [DEBUG][3]    OSD needs update. Hash now: Timeline:00:13:20:00:59:15~  [b]new time being sent probably arrives 0.3 seconds later[/b]

Martin

[mvallevand]

I uploaded a sample playback here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btic_aCiUN4 Again from the same 1080i share, and none of the skips are slow

- first you can see the recent back where when sub added art to [..] he took it away from the files

- there is a resume at the beginning taking you twenty minutes in several skips which were fast but the OSD definitely doesn't keep up so it might appear to be slow.

- @ 50 seconds in there is a pause and you can see the two stages of OSD.

- @ 1:08 there is a five minute skip back and you can clearly see the time is off for the first second but again the skip is fine.

To avoid any confusion maybe sub shouldn't send the OSD update right away?

Martin

[roy]

Yeah, I know that we have worked on it before and never really figured out what the issue is. And, sometimes it's pretty quick, but other times it's a few seconds for the OSD to come up.

Installed your patch along with all the latest nPVR patches this evening, and I see much quicker skipping response. On my 46" HD (with A-110) skipping has always been sluggish as the translucent OSD overlay rendered and pans down the whole screen. Now much quicker and nicer with this patch. On the old 32" CRT (with A-100) it has always been quick, and the translucent OSD overlay is only on the bottom over the timeline and description, and around numbers input in the upper left of the screen. I've wondered what controls this OSD difference, is it the resolution?

[mvallevand]

The skipping and video playback and the OSD are on three independent sockets, but if the OSD is sent too earlier I guess it can take CPU from the video playback thread. The OSD is not h/w accelerated and NexTPVR does not optimize like the regular menus so it's the best I can do rendering 3.5 millions pixels (1280x720*4) The OSD speed can be improved with reduced resolution (start with config.xml 1024x600 and startmeup using --display 1024x600) bringing it to STB resolution.

However my video shows that I don't really have skip or noticable OSD pannng delays at 1280x720. For optimization I personally find that NEWA causes micros delays in web streaming when it makes WMI request for free hard disk space every 5 seconds so I avoid it and NEWA widgets. If you have a hard disk on the NMT turn off all the unnecessary services too.

As for not having a transparent OSD, on 720p the a alpha channel doesn't show as black and I never figured out why. mvpmcx2 wasn't even supposed to work, since it uses two SDK's that weren't designed to work together so there is no documentation to check. I don't know why the 32" CRT has problems, NTSC shows a black alpha for me (actually I will have to confirm, it has been a couple of years).

Martin

[roy]

I don't know why the 32" CRT has problems, NTSC shows a black alpha for me (actually I will have to confirm, it has been a couple of years).

The 32" CRT is not a problem, it's been quick all along. The 46" is much quicker with your latest update. It's all good.

[mvallevand]

The file from March 11th has been superceded with a new version on the wiki. In beta testing 2.4.x I had broken the new FF/RW features so you need to upgrade to try them.

Martin

[roy]

I updated with your latest along with 2.4.3 last night. Works great and I like having fast play again. It is very responsive on the PCH since it does not call up the OSD.

One minor thing I've noticed is, when starting to play a recording with the A-110 on the HD 46", sometimes the translucent overlay stays on the screen, so I press the blue button to show the OSD which then clears it. I saw this occasionally before, but seems to have increased with 2.3.6 and still now. I don't see this on the A-100 on the CRT, which doesn't get the translucent overlay. Not a big deal, just thought I would mention it.

[mvallevand]

One minor thing I've noticed is, when starting to play a recording with the A-110 on the HD 46", sometimes the translucent overlay stays on the screen, so I press the blue button to show the OSD which then clears it.

If you want to setup putty logging again, I can see if I can tell what's going wrong. There is a command that gets sent to clear the OSD, and it works fine here. Is your HD screen 720p or 1080i/p?

Martin