Slow startup

[arrbee99]

The time required to start device is ultimately down to that how quickly the device and it's drivers are. There is no real way to remove that time.

I could look into that option of starting the device at startup, and leaving it running, so that that 5+ seconds happens long before you actually try to use the device. That'd help the perception with your device. I've tried to avoid that type of thing in the past, so that other applications can use the device if they need to.

I see what you mean, but was just wondering if you think it might be possible for the things that start up slower could be speeded up to match the faster ones i.e. could watching TV via localhost 8866 be significantly closer to the speed via vlc.

[sub]

So I just tried out adding an option like that …. wow fast to start streams and switch channels. Created a video to demonstrate. What is that, like about half a second?

[video=youtube_share;eADP4u9JH0Y]https://youtu.be/eADP4u9JH0Y[/video]

[sub]

could watching TV via localhost 8866 be significantly closer to the speed via vlc.

Ah, you mean via the web app. Sorry, I didn't follow you initially.

Ultimately viewing in a web browser is about 6-7 seconds slower because it's got to transcode the native stream into a format that can be played in a browser. That said, I just timed live tv in the browser, using that experimental feature above, using a stop watch, and from clicking on the channel to seeing video took about 6.5 seconds. I'm not sure it'll ever get much lower than that.

There might another 1.0-1.5 seconds that can be trimmed off the browser time when I get into really tuning it, but I don't imagine the browser live tv time getting below about 5 seconds.

[arrbee99]

Nice video, blatant favouritism I call it (inserts smiley face when I can find out how to). Sure wouldn't mind if it was remotely like that. Would be nice if it could have an on/off switch. If you ever feel the urge maybe it could even be arranged to kind of pre-start when you just click on the guide or some other relevant tab. Guess that could get complicated quickly though if its also talking to Emby / Kodi / whatever.

Thought transcoding came in there somewhere, but any reduction helps...

[sub]

I've added a 'keep digital tuners primed' checkbox for the next build, so you can see how it helps there.

For now with that setting enabled, the very first start of live tv (after starting NextPVRServer.exe) is just the same as it was previously, but subsequent attempts to start live tv are quicker. I may change the behaviour latter to prime the tuner as soon as the software starts, but didn't want to do that at this stage.

It's an optional setting, off by default, but can be turned on by users that aren't needing to share the tuner with other software.

[sub]

If you ever feel the urge maybe it could even be arranged to kind of pre-start when you just click on the guide or some other relevant tab. Guess that could get complicated quickly though if its also talking to Emby / Kodi / whatever.

Sorry it's unlikely I'd be able to do that (I have no visibility of what the clients are doing until they ask for the stream, but by then it's too late). It'll be either an switched on or off type deal.

[arrbee99]

Interesting. Thanks very much. Shall give it a go. Would such a check box and the act of ticking or unticking have an instant effect or not, or in other words would it work straight away or require stopping and restarting the server.

[sub]

Interesting. Thanks very much. Shall give it a go. Would such a check box and the act of ticking or unticking have an instant effect or not, or in other words would it work straight away or require stopping and restarting the server.

At this stage you'll probably have to restart the server process after changing that setting (or kill the devicehostwindows.exe process). If it looks like it's a worthwhile feature for the future, I can look at making it more dynamic. (a little tricky behind the scenes)

[arrbee99]

Fair enough. Not like I'll be flicking it on and off every 5 minutes, but if you don't ask, you'll never know, etc, etc...