Now Playing mvpmcx2 The Director's Cut

[-stattik-]

Regarding the screen size during beta testing there was a bit of discussion over whether Fit or Full should be the default to fill the screen.

I had it set to Fit to Screen. When I set it to Full Screen, mvpmx2 did indeed work for 16:9 material. Unfortunately it also stretches 2.35:1 material vertically, filling the screen which is why I've used Fit to screen in the past.

You are running in PCH2 mode correct?

Correct

Code:

<MVPClientType>PCH2</MVPClientType>
      <MVPWidth>1280</MVPWidth>
      <MVPHeight>720</MVPHeight>

I will look into mkv, I know I don't reset the libraries after returning, but I have found that they do so themselves (after about a 10 second wait). If this continues to be an issue I will add the reset. Keep me advised.

I did some testing tonight and noticed that when this happened that PVRX2.exe dies and restarts. The TV has a black screen for a few seconds and then displays "No Signal" I've attached the logs.

I did a few hours of testing with transport streams and ran into a few issues that I'm still trying to sort out. I noticed two kinds of dropouts while watching TS files. The first type was like a delay and I noticed that DISK IO on the server dropped off during these instances. I was recording/comskipping two shows and I wondered what kind of IO mpvmx2 might be using while serving the PCH. Does it use the live TV directory? The recordings drive is a 2 disk RAID 0 array so I wouldn't expect a bottleneck but it seemed like it was being affected.

The second dropout seemed to be related to errors on the transport stream that I found out later when I scanned the files. I know it wouldn't be part of the current version of mvpmx2 but are there any future plans to correct such errors on the fly? When played directly on the PCH they usually show up as a few scrambled blocks on the screen. In mvpmx2, the audio and video dropout for a very short time and then resync.

One other curious thing I noticed was that during one of the shows, the audio and video would drop out, then the info box would pop up on the tv which usually happens when the resolution changes and then the audio and video would resume. This happened about every 20 seconds for a few minutes before I reset everything. This only happened that one time and it hasn't happened since.

Even with everything mentioned above, the majority of the testing went well with TS files.

[mvallevand]

I had it set to Fit to Screen. When I set it to Full Screen, mvpmx2 did indeed work for 16:9 material. Unfortunately it also stretches 2.35:1 material vertically, filling the screen which is why I've used Fit to screen in the past.

I certainly will be able to add a command line option to over ride the PCH flash setting.

I did some testing tonight and noticed that when this happened that PVRX2.exe dies and restarts. The TV has a black screen for a few seconds and then displays "No Signal" I've attached the logs.

Thanks, I did some mkv testing too and I think with the changes that I made to fix HDMI playback using mono (PCH player) as discussed with UJB fixed this. I will release an update this weekend and you can try some more mkv tests.

I did a few hours of testing with transport streams and ran into a few issues that I'm still trying to sort out. I noticed two kinds of dropouts while watching TS files.

Yes those match two error corrections I have implemented. One looks like a problem in the demux, it just freezes at times because for some reason the STC (system clock) locks up. In this weekend's release there is a hack to restart the video which resets the system clock. The other hack is when the TS stream is broken, I simply skip 100k and continue.

I was recording/comskipping two shows and I wondered what kind of IO mpvmx2 might be using while serving the PCH. Does it use the live TV directory? The recordings drive is a 2 disk RAID 0 array so I wouldn't expect a bottleneck but it seemed like it was being affected.

It uses the same http access as the older version with a few minor differences. LiveTV will come from the livetv directory.

I know it wouldn't be part of the current version of mvpmx2 but are there any future plans to correct such errors on the fly? When played directly on the PCH they usually show up as a few scrambled blocks on the screen. In mvpmx2, the audio and video dropout for a very short time and then resync.

I will try an use the same hardware demux as the PCH but it seems to be more limited in playing files. I will also try an rewrite the software demux to use open source, there won't be correction, I doubt the CPU can recalculate CRC's fast enough on HD, but I will be able to skip bad TS packets more logically and remove the hacks. It would also allow me to get access to the mpeg header so that I can do Fit on 2.35:1

One other curious thing I noticed was that during one of the shows, the audio and video would drop out, then the info box would pop up on the tv which usually happens when the resolution changes and then the audio and video would resume. This happened about every 20 seconds for a few minutes before I reset everything. This only happened that one time and it hasn't happened since.

Probably the hack.

Even with everything mentioned above, the majority of the testing went well with TS files.

That's good to hear and thanks again for the feedback, I hope to be able to improve on this more now that the basics are coded.

Martin

[agerdin]

Martin,

Quick question. If I have 2 PCHs, can I do the update even though one PCH is connected component and the other via HDMI. Will the HDMI connected PCH default to the old way of handling things or will it crash?

Thanks,

\\Agerdin

[mvallevand]

It is supposed to, but because of a couple of small logic problems, the the test for HDMI/non-mpeg doesn't work. I expect to release the update that fixes this in the next couple of days.

In the meantime you would need to modify the script files to call a second binary, or run from a different share point. It is probably not worth this at this point.

Martin

[agerdin]

It is supposed to, but because of a couple of small logic problems, the the test for HDMI/non-mpeg doesn't work. I expect to release the update that fixes this in the next couple of days.

In the meantime you would need to modify the script files to call a second binary, or run from a different share point. It is probably not worth this at this point.

Martin

Ok, thanks, I guess I am better off switching to component for both my PCHs?

\\Agerding

[-stattik-]

I will try an use the same hardware demux as the PCH but it seems to be more limited in playing files.

You are correct. Although the PCH hardware demux is pretty good at error handling, I run into the problem where the timeline slowly desyncs to the point where if you jump ahead 30 seconds, you actually go backwards. In my testing of mvpcx2 last night, I didn't have that problem.

I look forward to this weekend's update.

[mvallevand]

I decided to release an update today with a few changes for you to look at. Download link is in post #1

- fallback to NMT media player improvements for hdmi and non-mpeg files
- modified logic improving seeking in some situations
- restart video when system freezes
- Power off on remote does a reset of media player
- new command line option --zoom to override full/actual, fit and crop. Options are full,fit,and crop

Here's a couple of undocumented things

- Use USB eject in place of Enter will launch mpeg ps and ts files via NMT player
- command line option
a) --mono-h264 Use mono for all h264 transport streams use if you have 1080i h264 broadcasts
b) --no-mpeg-test If all your mpg/mpeg files are analog captures you typically don't need to test for AC3, however if you use a digital mux instead of TS Mux, or another digital capture device, it is probably best to use the default.

Martin

[trummel]

Fan-bl**dy-tastic.

This makes the NMT and GBPVR everything I hoped for - except the dancing girls obviously.......

Not a problem, but just a note FYI. My display is 1080p, if I play a UK BBC-HD stream (using mono as it's H264) - its fine, but when I go backto the menu it switches to 480i. Playing any SD stream twice (thefirst one black screens) with no mono and then returning to the menu seems to correct it.

Happy to provide any debug/samples if it helps.

Once again congratulations on a fantastic job.

[-stattik-]

I loaded up the new version. Exiting out from a MKV caused PVRX2.exe to restart. I reproduced this twice. Logs are attached.


I haven't noticed any stutters or droputs yet, but my test material was pretty clean this time.

- new command line option --zoom to override full/actual, fit and crop. Options are full,fit,and crop

I think these got mixed up a bit. Here's what I came up with in testing on a 16:9 screen. (Note: I didn't have any 2.35:1 TS material.)

Code:

PCH
    Fit
        4:3    Pillarboxed
        16:9    Fills screen
        2.35    Letterboxed(correctly)
    Full
        4:3    Fills Screen
        16:9    Fills Screen
        2.35    Fills Screen
    Crop
        4:3    Croped to 16:9
        16:9    Fills Screen
        2.35    Cropped to 16:9
MVPMCX2
    Fit
        4:3    Fills Screen
        16:9    Letterboxed
        2.35    ?
    Full
        4:3    Cropped to 16:9
        16:9    Fills Screen
        2.35    ?
    Crop
        4:3    Pillarboxed
        16:9    Fills Screen
        2.35    ?

Looking at this, it seems that MVPMCX2(Full) is PCH(Crop) and MVPMCX2(Crop) is PCH(Fit). MVPMCX2(Fit) doesn't quite match up with PCH(Full).

Ideally for my case would be if MVPMCX2 used PCH(Full). On the PCH, I don't use Full because it stretches 2.35:1 material but since my 2.35:1 material is MKV and MVPMCX2 uses the PCH hardware for that, there wouldn't be a problem.

Another thing I noticed is a number of times when I was starting a program, the video would freeze for 5-10 seconds while the audio would play. Then both would synch up.

On a positive note, restarting the recording service safely sends the PCH to the main menu. This was tested successfully multiple times.

[mvallevand]

I loaded up the new version. Exiting out from a MKV caused PVRX2.exe to restart. I reproduced this twice. Logs are attached..

Could you try with the blue skin specifically defined as the NMT skin.
.

I think these got mixed up a bit. Here's what I came up with in testing on a 16:9 screen. (Note: I didn't have any 2.35:1 TS material.).
...
Looking at this, it seems that MVPMCX2(Full) is PCH(Crop) and MVPMCX2(Crop) is PCH(Fit). MVPMCX2(Fit) doesn't quite match up with PCH(Full).
...
Ideally for my case would be if MVPMCX2 used PCH(Full).

I swapped crop and full. However I only support the 3 modes on the zoom key and there really is no attempt to match the PCH behaviour exactly.

Another thing I noticed is a number of times when I was starting a program, the video would freeze for 5-10 seconds while the audio would play. Then both would synch up.

I have to fix an bug I introduced yesterday

On a positive note, restarting the recording service safely sends the PCH to the main menu. This was tested successfully multiple times.

Its a timing issue most of the time it should work.

Martin