Performance issue or user misunderstanding??

[lulsam]

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.2 stable
MediaPortal Skin: Bluetwo
Windows Version: XP SP2
CPU Type: AMD 64 3000+
HDD: Seagate 200 GB
Memory: 1 GB DDR
Motherboard: Gigabyte
Motherboard Chipset: nvidia nforce 430
Motherboard Bios:
Video Card: nvidia 6100 (mb integrated)
Video Card Driver: latest
Sound Card: integrated motherboard
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Hauppauge HVR-1300
1. TV Card Type: Hybrid analog - DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: latest
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec:
MPEG2 Audio Codec:
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote: Hauppauge 45 buttons
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection:


Hi everybody,

I have a file server storing all media files (videos, music and photos). The server is linked to the media portal PC through a wireless G network (wireless router attached to the file server through regular 100 mbits ethernet cable) and shares the directories where the media files are stored with the standard Microsoft facilities (SMB based). Everything works out pretty fine (good enough performance) except photos directory browsing, which is extremely slow.
Obviously I have a huge photos collection organize by event, this means that I have more than 200 directories and some of them have more than 150 photos (for instance my wedding)

To understand where is the bottleneck I made some testing and changes:
1.- Checked the CPU load of the file server, where there are other services too like web and ftp servers (one user, that it's me). This test showed a high load (90%), that was reduced to 60% by using a dedicated no integrated network card
2.- Attach the media portal pc directly to the router with a cable to understand if the wifi could be the bottleneck. All right, this reduced the first directory browsing from more than one minute to 40 seconds (still dissapointing)

While making the tests notice two things:
1 - High network traffic maintained between the two computers (8 - 10 Mbits) for minutes: I don't know if the Media Portal PC is trying to refresh the thumbnails or what the hell is doing

2 - If I try to browse the directory listing using Firefox and the web server the performance is extremely high (the list appears almost instantly both using ftp or http protocols) and if I try to access the media files with media portal but through ftp, is much slower than with Firefox but double the access speed than with Microsoft shares

I started thinking that could be a performance issue due to the method (or component) used by Media Portal for directory browsing, but also maybe a misunderstanding on my side.

I am sure there would be many people out there using file servers to give access to their media files either wired or wireless. Is there any way to speed up the browsing?Any tips??

PD: I know that as a work arround I could reorganize the directories to try not to have more than 200 on the same level, but this will not solve the issue that there are directories with more than 150 photos

Thanks in advance

[lulsam]

I cannot believe that I am the only one with this kind of set up (file server and media portal as a client) and / or performance issue.

Is it true? Am I the only one?

[geov]

Hi

I don't experience any problems, and I have shares all over the place. My setup is as follows:

1) MP Server, with most of my files and TV-Card - this is wired directly to my router.
2) Two laptops, using wireless network connections.... also with some personal photos and videos.
3) MP Client, also with a lot of files (Video, Photo and MP3) - this is also wired directly to my router.

I sometimes have problems with one of the laptops, but that is caused by interference from my Plasma-TV.... and only happens when I'm sitting directly in front of the TV.

When I get some time I will test to see how much network activity there is between my MP-Server and MP-Client when I access shared directories.

Cheers
GeoV

[Sasler]

I'm having the same problem. My media files are in dedicated media servers, including my pictures connected with 100 Mbit LAN. When browsing the directory structure in MP in takes ages, but watching the pictures (when you finally are able to open the folders after waiting almost forever) ir quite fast.

I tryed to copy one picture folder with sub folders to the local HTPC, but I didn't notice any sinificant performance improvments. But using Windows XP Folder Explorer whith thumbnail view, everything works really well even from network shares.

I suspect that the MP has some performance problems wiht creating thumbnails. Also (I'm not 100% sure about this) it seems that the latest stable release is slower than the previous.

[lulsam]

Originally Posted by Sasler

I'm having the same problem. My media files are in dedicated media servers, including my pictures connected with 100 Mbit LAN. When browsing the directory structure in MP in takes ages, but watching the pictures (when you finally are able to open the folders after waiting almost forever) ir quite fast.

That is exactly my issue: Directory / file list browsing

I tryed to copy one picture folder with sub folders to the local HTPC, but I didn't notice any sinificant performance improvments. But using Windows XP Folder Explorer whith thumbnail view, everything works really well even from network shares.

That is the funniest point: Any other acess method I tried seems to be faster

I suspect that the MP has some performance problems wiht creating thumbnails. Also (I'm not 100% sure about this) it seems that the latest stable release is slower than the previous.

Interesting!! Maybe any Portal developer could offer us some light in the darkness........

BTW, does anybody notice any performance improvement with a newer release??

Best regards to anybody

[synthdood]

I always find that watching photos will put MP at 100%CPU load an it stays there, even if I exit the My Pictures menu. Sometimes it appears to be working okay, but then suddenly it 'll start maxing out the CPU again. I find it odd that something that should require almost no processing power can max out the CPU. I understand that watching HD movies takes some serious cpu, but photo's should not require any cpu at all.

It is probably generating thumbs or trying to do some transition stuff in the background. Is there any way I can switch that all off? I would like to try it without any transition effect, witout ken burns effect and without automatic slideshow? Just show the picture until I press a button.

[Noelix]

No I've had problems listing photos as well. I gave up on it as it was dragging so much ass. As soon as you open the directory, MP tries to generate thumbnails for every image in there. There's no picture "database" like there is for videos or music, so my guess is that it has to do this every time you reconnect to the shared drive (aka restart).

[lulsam]

Originally Posted by Noelix

No I've had problems listing photos as well. I gave up on it as it was dragging so much ass. As soon as you open the directory, MP tries to generate thumbnails for every image in there. There's no picture "database" like there is for videos or music, so my guess is that it has to do this every time you reconnect to the shared drive (aka restart).

Is it that true? Seems a weird approach to generate the full list of thumbs each time it reads the directory contents. It should do some kind of timestamp checking and generate just the thumbs required.

Anyway, I don't know, and this is the point. We need some developer help to understand how MP works here and find out is there is something wrong or not

Please, is there any developer out there??

Best regards

[Svein]

I have shared my media on a server and my MP pc is connected via a wireless 54g. To start a movie takes app 20-30 seconds, about the same time to return to gui when you stop. The ame amount of time when you switch to my videos from main screen before I see any tumbs.
Im also using a xbox with XBMC on a wireless 54g and with this, the same operations are instantly. Im quite new to MP, but this is driving me mad.

By the way:
MP - latest SVN
Motherboard: abit NF7,
cpu: athlon 2500+,
768mb ram, onboard audio, happauge pvr 150, ati radeon 9800

[lulsam]

20-30 seconds seems too much. Currently I have no problems at all watching videos (divx - xvid - DVD), neither the time to start playing one is bad, which in may case is 3-5 seconds (802.11g mimo AP and network cards + MP 0.2.2).

Worse is navigating through a "high density" file / directory structure, and sometimes a delay displaying the photos.

Regards