Screens generated for web client have "textured" background around text

[BrettB]

This is a problem that I've seen for a long time, but it didn't show up/bother me enough until we upgraded to a new larger, 4K TV. :p

When NextPVR generates screens for the webclient to display, the text has a "textured" background. This effect is especially visible when an item (as in the Recordings List) is selected so the element background is a solid white. Here's a sample screen image file which is sent from the webclient server to X-NEWA on my RPi.
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]
Note that (at least for me) it looks OK when displayed normally here in this post. But if you zoom in and focus on text, you see the textured/pixelated background around the text.

Is there anything that I can change in the skin file or NextPVR settings to prevent this effect?

[sub]

The screens are sent to the webclients as a jpg. What you're describing are compression artifacts.

There is two different quality levels that can be used. I'm not sure if you're using the standard quality or already using the high quality version. I think maybe XNEWA has a setting to enable high quality? (which is slightly slower to generate each screen, but the compression will give less artifacts)

[BrettB]

The screens are sent to the webclients as a jpg. What you're describing are compression artifacts.

There is two different quality levels that can be used. I'm not sure if you're using the standard quality or already using the high quality version. I think maybe XNEWA has a setting to enable high quality? (which is slightly slower to generate each screen, but the compression will give less artifacts)

I was using the standard quality, but switched to the high quality. It did seem to be a bit better, but definitely still visible. :-(

[sub]

Can you zip and attach a screenshot of each, so I can take a close up look?

In theory I can bump it up one more notch, at the expense if a slightly slower screens. If you've got a fast PC and network, you probably wouldn't notice any difference in performance.

[BrettB]

Can you zip and attach a screenshot of each, so I can take a close up look?

In theory I can bump it up one more notch, at the expense if a slightly slower screens. If you've got a fast PC and network, you probably wouldn't notice any difference in performance.

Here's a .zip with basically the same screen with the X-NEWA webclient set at lores (normal) and hires (high) quality. The files are the same size. Is that expected?

I do have a pretty fast (8 core, 16GB) server and gigabit wired network. I don't notice any difference in speed between the 2 settings. I'm wondering if somehow the setting isn't working properly.

[mvallevand]

Did you try 1920x1080?

Martin

[BrettB]

Did you try 1920x1080?

I hadn't tried that. I just did. It made the screen image size go from 85KB to 94KB. But it looks about the same to me on the screen.

[mvallevand]

I hadn't tried that. I just did. It made the screen image size go from 85KB to 94KB. But it looks about the same to me on the screen.

That sample is still 720p. When you change the setting are you hitting Exit on the NextPVR menu to get a new session with higher res?

Matrin

[BrettB]

That sample is still 720p. When you change the setting are you hitting Exit on the NextPVR menu to get a new session with higher res?

Yes. I used the NextPVR Exit menu option to exit X-NEWA. Then I changed the add-on settings. Then I restarted the X-NEWA add-on. In the attached logs, you can see the latest webclient.log shows it did just restart the server process. But, as you noted, it is still showing that it is rendering for 1280x720. Humm....

[BrettB]

Yes. I used the NextPVR Exit menu option to exit X-NEWA. Then I changed the add-on settings. Then I restarted the X-NEWA add-on. In the attached logs, you can see the latest webclient.log shows it did just restart the server process. But, as you noted, it is still showing that it is rendering for 1280x720. Humm....

Here's a kodi debug log which seems to indicate that it is requesting 1920x1080 and high quality:

Code:

19:08:11.064 T:1474294688   DEBUG: http://192.168.143.10:8866/control?media=stop&client=sdl-KNEWA0xb827eb9ccb26L&sid=ef0bb0fde56942a283d64420211040f5
19:08:12.282 T:1474294688   DEBUG: http://192.168.143.10:8866/control?size=1920x1080&quality=high&client=sdl-KNEWA0xb827eb9ccb26L&sid=ef0bb0fde56942a283d64420211040f5
19:08:12.289 T:1474294688   DEBUG: 404
19:08:12.792 T:1474294688   DEBUG: http://192.168.143.10:8866/control?size=1920x1080&quality=high&client=sdl-KNEWA0xb827eb9ccb26L&sid=ef0bb0fde56942a283d64420211040f5
19:08:12.799 T:1474294688   DEBUG: 404
19:08:13.302 T:1474294688   DEBUG: http://192.168.143.10:8866/control?size=1920x1080&quality=high&client=sdl-KNEWA0xb827eb9ccb26L&sid=ef0bb0fde56942a283d64420211040f5
19:08:13.376 T:1345807264   DEBUG: {u'needsRendering': False}

But do those 404s indicate that those requests errored out on the NextPVR server side?