Optimizing the client

[sub]

Yes terrific that does seem to be it. To be safe I added the name to my hosts file and it quickly resolves it, and now it is under 4-5 seconds to play.

Great.

However now analog is freezing causing me to restart the recording service. What a new thread or continue here?

Here is ok. Is this client related, or does the same thing directly on the server? Either way, I guess we'll need the logs.

[mvallevand]

It's dieing in NRecord, I think I've sent a couple of StartStream related logs recently. Here is one the startstream at 18:03:58 didn't work and it should have. If you look in the logs just above you see the logs seem to repeat (from "About to check crossbar routing") which has been common on these hangs.

Martin

[BrettB]

Yes terrific that does seem to be it. To be safe I added the name to my hosts file and it quickly resolves it, and now it is under 4-5 seconds to play.

Sounds like it is trying to do name resolution on the ip address and having to wait for that to fail before just using the ip address directly.

[justatinker]

Folks:

Thought I'd chime in on this topic. I'm using a Hauppauge HD/PVR with NextPVR as a back end and XBMC as a front end. I find that XBMC switches channels just as fast as NextPVR, about 4 to 6 seconds. One thing I notice is the IR blaster doesn't kick in until about 3 seconds after clicking to change channel. Is this normal behavior for NextPVR?

Since we're talking about optimization, maybe some other issues I have will be helpful to others. I have a 'single seat' setup: a dual core PC running both NextPVR and XBMC. I use the loopback IP address '127.1.1.0' in XBMC to link to NextPVR in that machine (which works fine) and the machine name 'Runt' to access NextPVR from other machines (Which also works fine) In fact, I only have buffering issues on XBMC on the HTPC that runs both, and then only just after a channel change for a minute or so. After that, no buffering in XBMC at all. Is there a way to optimize NextPVR for single seat setups like I have or do you think it's an XBMC problem? (in which case I'll talk to them)

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't matter to XBMC what choices I make under 'Decoders' in NextPVR. I can disable the audio/video decoders in NextPVR and XBMC will still play. Is that normal?

I am using ArcSoft's audio and video decoders on NextPVR. I used 'regsvr32.exe' to register them and then chose them in 'Decoders'. I stripped out the codec packs I had tried before I discovered that trick and squeaked a little performance out of my HTPC. Between NextPVR and XBMC, I have all need to play just about anything.

I saw a thread discussing 'Why XBMC over NextPVR' somewhere but I'll give you my opinion here. I've been using XBMC for about a year now. I like to tinker and XBMC is a tinker's dream. Most everything will 'work out of the box' but XBMC can be tweaked to provide a very nice user experience. Pretty much any media you can see or hear can be played on a no nonsense user interface except TV... until now.

So, what we used to do before was simply switch the input on the TV to watch live TV and switch to XBMC for everything else. I recently got the Hauppauge HD/PVR to digitize my girlfriends VHS tapes and was surprised to hear (from my brother) that it would play live TV too. He uses NextPVR as well and was a lot of help setting me up. After I set that up, all we had to do was use 'alt-tab' to switch between NextPVR and XBMC. Closer. Then I found out about the NextPVR support for XBMC and I was off to the races! Setup on XBMC took minutes (Finding out it was the best option took days though). Now, with just a couple of issues, we can have ALL our media integrated under XBMC. I'm pretty sure a lot of folk think this is pretty cool too. NextPVR is the only program that I tried that even works with the analog Hauppauge HD/PVR so I don't know about how other PVR clients that come with XPVR Frodo perform.

Now, I could put up with 'alt tab' and would probably be happy with that solution but my girlfriend is another matter. As a Mac user, she is used to things working 'out of the box' and she loves the integration of XBMC. So, at this point, it's easier for her to switch inputs to TV and just use the satellite remote to use what she knows rather then have to learn a new interface on NextPRV.

So, there you have it! It's a matter of PRIDE for me to make this work and we're so close!

Lastly, is it up to the Team XBMC to add functionality to the PVR front ends? If so, I'll be happy to bug them about it. So far, you must scroll through the EPG and channels manually (no option to just type in the channel) and the menu options are very limited (no 'Find More' for instance).

Except for the buffering after channel changes, NextPVR works beautifully with XBMC. Hope I can help you make it perfect!

tinker

[sub]

Folks:

Thought I'd chime in on this topic. I'm using a Hauppauge HD/PVR with NextPVR as a back end and XBMC as a front end. I find that XBMC switches channels just as fast as NextPVR, about 4 to 6 seconds. One thing I notice is the IR blaster doesn't kick in until about 3 seconds after clicking to change channel. Is this normal behavior for NextPVR?

Before starting the device, NextPVR will run whatever IR Blaster executable you've configured. Some of those happen asynchronously and the channel change will happen soon after NextPVR starts recording, some will do the IR Blaster before they returning to NextPVR and the channel change will have completed before NextPVR starts recording. It's entirely down to the blaster software you're using.

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't matter to XBMC what choices I make under 'Decoders' in NextPVR. I can disable the audio/video decoders in NextPVR and XBMC will still play. Is that normal?

That's normal. These decoders are only related to playback in NextPVR, and have no effect on XBMC.

Lastly, is it up to the Team XBMC to add functionality to the PVR front ends? If so, I'll be happy to bug them about it. So far, you must scroll through the EPG and channels manually (no option to just type in the channel) and the menu options are very limited (no 'Find More' for instance).

Yes, that's the XBMC developers that take of this stuff