Please cache transcoded videos

[sglebs]

I watch many short AVI files from the digital camera (Canon Powershot) via GB-PVR/MediaMVP. These get transcoded into MPEG-2 when I watch them, and at that time I have to pay the 3 second delay (MVPTranscodePrePlayDelay). If I want to "Play All" again, there goes the system transcoding it all again. And for each one, the annoying delay.

Because of that, I would like to request that a cache be added. I would like to tell GB-PVR how many megabytes of HD it can use for caching transcoded videos, an the path (C:, D:, etc). GB-PVR would then transcode (to MPEG-2) just the first time a video had to be played, and would reuse the converted video in the cache in later attempts. If the cache is full, the oldest entry (oldest in terms of last played timestamp, and not conversion time) would get deleted, and the new video would be added to the cache.

This would eliminate the long delay before each short video, and as a side-effect would also reduce the CPU usage for the machine.In my case, this is really useful because the machine is also an Apache server, network drive server, print server, etc.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for the product.

marcio

[zehd]

I watch many short AVI files from the digital camera (Canon Powershot) via GB-PVR/MediaMVP. These get transcoded into MPEG-2 when I watch them, and at that time I have to pay the 3 second delay (MVPTranscodePrePlayDelay). If I want to "Play All" again, there goes the system transcoding it all again. And for each one, the annoying delay.

Because of that, I would like to request that a cache be added. I would like to tell GB-PVR how many megabytes of HD it can use for caching transcoded videos, an the path (C:, D:, etc). GB-PVR would then transcode (to MPEG-2) just the first time a video had to be played, and would reuse the converted video in the cache in later attempts. If the cache is full, the oldest entry (oldest in terms of last played timestamp, and not conversion time) would get deleted, and the new video would be added to the cache.

This would eliminate the long delay before each short video, and as a side-effect would also reduce the CPU usage for the machine.In my case, this is really useful because the machine is also an Apache server, network drive server, print server, etc.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for the product.

marcio

If you keep the video clips in avi format, then you will always have the preplay delay.

It's possible that sub could expand on the caching idea I have reintroduced in ZProcess, and GB-PVR could forgo the preplaydelay if the item appears already transcoded, but that's not something that a plugin or utility can control. It would have to be at the core, and sub isn't really all that interested in going further into avi to mpg transcoding as he has stated something like, 'it detracts from the MVP experience to transcode - convert all your avis to mpgs and get a larger harddrive'

(sub sounds much nicer when he says it)

BTW, I also have a video camera that I offload the clips into DV-AVI clips. Some are very small ,and the preplay delay sucks. I think I have something in ZProcess (either the old or the new) that will take all the clips and transcode them sequentially in one go. I'll have to look at that again...

[sglebs]

Yes, I understand that the caching would have to be native to GB-PVR for it to bypass MVPTranscodePrePlayDelay for cached videos.

I could pre-convert all my videos to mpeg-2, but then one day it will be mpeg-4, etc. I like having the original, even if in crappy mjpg, because I know I am not accumulating lossy transforms.

I understand if sub does not want to add caching to GB-PVR. Oh well. It's a Wish list thread, and that's my wish :-)

[ACTCMS]

I could pre-convert all my videos to mpeg-2, but then one day it will be mpeg-4, etc. I like having the original, even if in crappy mjpg, because I know I am not accumulating lossy transforms.

I know what you're saying - over the years, I have converted lots of media (vinyl, tape, C41 negatives, celuloid, etc) so I could see/listen to them on whatever was convenient at the time (currently my TV in the kitchen), but I still have the originals... and the kit to handle most of it.

so hopefully when it comes time to go to mpeg-4 or even mpeg-24 we can both re-convert from our originals