PC client

[perf]

Sub,

are you considering ever making a PC client for GBPVR, letting a PC work the same way an MVP (without necessarily emulating the MVP protocol)?

The database sharing workaround seems a bit risky to me, and the two attempts at making MVP emulators in the end do not seem to succeed.

I am getting a nice big HD screen in the living room, but I would like to keep the GBPVR server in the closet. I do not think the PQ from the MVP is good enough for the big screen, so I will use a PC client.

It just seems like an enormous hassle to install Sage TV. (Not to mention the licence cost, as they charge separate licences for each server, PC client and MVP client.) The other option is XP MCE with an XBOX 360 as extender in the living room - but the XBOX is too big for the kitchen and bedroom TVs.

/Per

[Koenie]

In my opinion you can go the PC-client way as well as the mediaMVP. I personally use both and cannot say there is really a quality difference. Further the PC-client setup as explained on the wiki is not dangerous at all and works like a charm. What I can not comment on yet is whether a high res LCD tv driven from the DVI-HDMI connection directly at the right resolution from the PC gives a better image than letting the TV-set do the upscaling. I can immagine that a PC has more calculating power to do this than the LCD TV-set.

The only thing not to forget is to set the autodelitemissingrecordings entry in the config.xml to off on the client as a hick-up in the network might make the client delete recordings from the database (especially when the client is connected wirelessly).

Depending on the behaviour you want you can set the paths on all machines identical as on the server (identical mapped drive letter or network path) which will make GBPVR remember playback positions no mather where you viewed the file or different paths (network path on the server and mapped drive on the client) which yields a playbackposition for every TV-set.

[zehd]

Further the PC-client setup as explained on the wiki is not dangerous at all and works like a charm.

I have to admit, I've been eyeballing the two entries referring to making a GB-PVR PC Client. I remember needing to refer to both of them to actually getting it working.

When I was busy doing a ton of rewrites for the wiki, those pages were in the list, and ended up slipping by the way side...


@perf: what in particular did you find risky? Maybe it was not described well enough...

I'll see if I can spend some time updating those pages...

[perf]

Comparison with MVP:
* I do agree that with a CRT, the PQ from an MVP is unbeatable, but I also have an MVP connected to a medium-sized LCD, and the PQ is OK, but not great - nowhere near connecting a laptop to the DVI input of the LCD. I have assumed this is due to the relatively poor performance of Composite/S-video/SCART compared to DVI. It just can't be good doing digital -> analog -> digital compared to digital direct, especially since Composite/S-video/SCART are nowhere near D-sub/VGA quality.

Database sharing workaround:
* I thought that sub's statements about it being unsupported meant that it would not always work, and perhaps even be broken with upgrades. I have not seen such positive statements as these before.

MVP emulator:
* Is it working at an acceptable WAF?

[zehd]

Database sharing workaround:
* I thought that sub's statements about it being unsupported meant that it would not always work, and perhaps even be broken with upgrades. I have not seen such positive statements as these before.

I would say, 'unsupported' does not mean that it will not work. Indeed, using a basic network, sharing a database and sharing video files are basic enough concepts they should work (and they do, really well).

From the odd post, it would seem sub is lurking in these threads, and from his considered input, it would not seem that he would intentionally 'break' the possibility to network the PCs. I would imagine he says it is unsupported, just because to support networking would cause an even heavier amount of forum posts, and take valuable time away from his actual coding...

IMHO

[pBS]

the MVP does look good...but it suffers from slow gui response too...
and plugin differences, and locked into a remote,etc.
but the pc client is exactly like a full gbpvr,just with shared database/files..

MVP emulator isn't near WAF or even MeAF tho with work it could be...
i wish one of them would release the dang source!! needs more than one person working on it.. i would like to see it progress,as it would be immune from the possibility of being written out by Sub...[i have a feeling he will always support MVP access]
and it certainly is easier to setup than a pc-client...and doesn't have the network speed limits..
[pc client can't view in-progress recordings at medium quality without a gigabit network] [tho 2800k works good on mine..]

that, as i see it, is the only problem with the pc-client...and not a biggie, excpet for those with hi-res sets that could use the extra bitrate for watching live tv....[oh and you have to use timeshift]

and to fix it it would mean a rewrite for one of the .ax files which probably isn't gonna happen anytime soon.. [unfortunate, cuz i think the rest of gbpvr would see good results from the edit,as it is a big performance bottleneck]

but that said, i still use the client and it works great..
you can choose to have different plugins, skins, etc. and menu response is great..

[nitrogen_widget]

My idea for a pc client is to program a stand-alone front end that uses it's own code to manipulate the SQL database & also uses something like mplayer to play the videos. It shouldn't need too much CPU grunt but a decent graphics card with hardware scaling would be ideal.
It has too be small also & work on a stripped down version of XP or Linux so it can fit on a compact flash card with an ide adaptor.

The main reason I prefer a PC to an MVP is because I can convert my recordings to xvid & throw 4 movies or half a season on a DVD & then put that into the PC & play it.

Yes, I can put a terrabytes worth of storage in my media server to hold everything I want, but it makes more fiscal sence to me to use DVD's to store all my xvid movies then buy another super large hard drive.

currently I just use the archive plug-in to get episode data for recordings & keep my media server in a seperate room & either walk over to it to schedule recordings or VNC into it from another PC.

I have started learning to program, but I think it will be a long time before i'm able to program something like a GBPVR client.

[perf]

Why does the unsupported PC client require so much bandwidth?

/Per

[sub]

are you considering ever making a PC client for GBPVR

Yes I am considering it.

The database sharing workaround seems a bit risky to me...

Its a bit of work to setup, but the result is actually not too bad. This would probably be the way I would implement a PC client. The live tv doesnt currently work very smoothly using this mechanism, but everything else works quite well.

The SQLite database option will work much faster than MS Access database for this type of setup.

Why does the unsupported PC client require so much bandwidth?

Because one of the components is expecting the files to be local, with much faster access than a network drive. This component does a lot of scanning the file for certain markers. This activity generates too much activity across the network, and would need to be throttled back in any future network client.

[DangerMouse]

Is there any chance that your also considering distributed architecture Sub? i.e. One server, one client, both with tuners able to record, one database to rule them all etc. This would solve the live tv issue.