Client/Server config best practices (1 Viewer)

JSchuricht

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    I have been using MP1 with Moving Pictures for many years now. Sadly I just noticed v. 2 is out so it's time to start thinking about upgrading. I am having difficulty sifting through the documentation especially involving the client/server setup and much of it seems to be referencing MP1 anyways. Anyways I am firing up some fresh virtual machines to start testing but am looking for pointers on things to avoid so I am not forced to reinstall a year from now due to a poor decision.

    My plan is to setup a MP2 server on a Windows 8.1 virtual machine on a Hyper V/Remote FX server with 4 cores, 2GB dynamic RAM 8GB limit, 100GB partition. MP2 client 1: reuse the existing MP1 client hardware, Core2 Quad IIRC 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM, 100GB ISCSI boot, Win 8.1. MP2 client 2 will likely be a i3-3220, 8GB RAM, 100GB ISCSI boot, Win 8.1.

    Storage for all media is provided by a dedicated storage server with SMB 3.02 shares. I am curious to see if each client uses the MP2 server as a media source or the storage server directly. Network is 10Gb at the servers and 1Gb to each client with dedicated links for ISCSI on a separate VLAN.
     

    morpheus_xx

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    Storage for all media is provided by a dedicated storage server with SMB 3.02 shares. I am curious to see if each client uses the MP2 server as a media source or the storage server directly.
    You have to add a "media source" to the network path. Then each client will access the files directly on the share.

    Only if you add a "server local source" you are able to use local folders on the server without the need to create a UNC share for them. Access then happens over DOKAN/HttpStream, which is slower than UNC shares.
    So generally I'd recommend to use UNC.

    You can install MP2 in parallel to MP1 and try it first. If your server is also used for TV, you should make sure that you don't run MP1 TvServer + MP2 Server/NativeTV concurrently, as they might access the same tuner and could cause trouble...

    For more information please also refer to our wiki: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2/1_Getting_Started
     

    JSchuricht

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    In finally got back to this project and there are two things driving me nuts that I can't seem to figure out.

    1) how do I disable the click sound that plays every time I touch a menu option?

    2) how do I pass through audio from movies in their native format? The system is connected to a Denon AVR-4520CI by HDMI and I would like the receiver to decode the audio into however many channels it contains. Right now it is doing stereo and I can't seem to find a setting in MP2 that changes that.
     

    morpheus_xx

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    1) how do I disable the click sound that plays every time I touch a menu option?
    The focus/click sound is skin-dependend, and there is no option to disable it. You might be able to get rid of it by replacing sound files in skin folder(s) by empty (o custom audio) files.

    2) how do I pass through audio from movies in their native format? The system is connected to a Denon AVR-4520CI by HDMI and I would like the receiver to decode the audio into however many channels it contains. Right now it is doing stereo and I can't seem to find a setting in MP2 that changes that.
    There are two things to consider:
    1. Correct MP2 settings:
      • Make sure the right ouput device is used: settings -> players -> codecs -> output device
      • Make sure to prefer multi-channel audio: settings -> players -> video player -> prefer multi-channel audio
    2. The default codec is the LAV decoder (audio+video). The LAV audio decoder has an own configuration (from Windows start menu), to enable pass-through of certain digital format (without decoding). This must be enabled (mostly for AC3 and DTS)
     

    JSchuricht

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    Thanks, that got me going in the right direction. It's been so long since I setup MP1 that I completely forgot about setting up the codecs. Still light years ahead of hunting down countless codecs or dealing with problematic codec packs.

    My new issue is backend speed. I wavered from my original hardware plan slightly. The clients consist of one i3-3220, 16GB RAM, 180GB Intel 530 SSD and an Intel i5-4250U NUC D54250WYK, 8GB RAM, 180GB Intel 530 SSD both running fresh installs of Windows 8.1. The server is still virtualized on one of my hyper v servers with 4 cores available and 2GB RAM dynamically expanding to 8GB running Windows 8.1. Media is stored across two seperate physical servers totaling a bit over 130TB. There are 10GB links between all servers and 1GB to the clients.

    I should be overkill on hardware but I am seeing some speed issues. Right now I have only imported one movie folder consisting of about 2000 movies. That took a while as expected and seemed limited by CPU on the MP2 server with all 4 cores nearly maxed out. The issue I see now is searching is painfully slow. When I search or scroll the movie library just one core is being utilized by MP2-Server.exe. I have been poking around the MP2-Server Config directory but nothing stands out. Can you recommend any tweaks to improve speed? I have a bunch of TV shows I am thinking of importing and eventually a few thousand physical DVD's (after ripping to the server).
     

    MJGraf

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    Hi JSchuricht,
    first of all: thanks for using MP2!
    As to the performance problem on searching: What happens technically is that the MP2-Client via UPnP sends a search query to the MP2-Server. The search query is in the MP2-Server translated into a SQL query, which is then sent to the SQLite database.
    My assumption is that SQLite executes this query in a single thread - which is why the query only utilizes one of your server cores. From the SQLite mailing list I know that there has been an improvement for SQLite to use multi-threading for queries lately. I still need to update SQLite so that we can make use of it.
    Until then: Is there a file called SQLDebug.log in your MP2-Server's log directory? If so, could you please restart MP2-Server (so that the mentioned log is cleared), then use MP2-Client do perform some searches that take too long and then post the SQLDebug.log here?
    If the log file is not there, please let me know. In that case I'll give you a debug build of a dll-file that should produce this log file.
    Thanks!
    Michael
     

    breese

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    I have just under 500 movies and did the search with the sqlie debug turned on.
    I searched for master... took a while and it found more than I expected.
    Not sure what all it was searching for.
     

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    morpheus_xx

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    I have just under 500 movies and did the search with the sqlie debug turned on.
    I searched for master... took a while and it found more than I expected.
    The query uses the "%master%" as criteria for all attribute fields (also 1:n / m:n attributes), not only the name. The good thing about this: you can also search for movies with specific actors by this way.
     

    JSchuricht

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    Hi JSchuricht,
    first of all: thanks for using MP2!
    As to the performance problem on searching: What happens technically is that the MP2-Client via UPnP sends a search query to the MP2-Server. The search query is in the MP2-Server translated into a SQL query, which is then sent to the SQLite database.
    My assumption is that SQLite executes this query in a single thread - which is why the query only utilizes one of your server cores. From the SQLite mailing list I know that there has been an improvement for SQLite to use multi-threading for queries lately. I still need to update SQLite so that we can make use of it.
    Until then: Is there a file called SQLDebug.log in your MP2-Server's log directory? If so, could you please restart MP2-Server (so that the mentioned log is cleared), then use MP2-Client do perform some searches that take too long and then post the SQLDebug.log here?
    If the log file is not there, please let me know. In that case I'll give you a debug build of a dll-file that should produce this log file.
    Thanks!
    Michael


    Thanks for the help Michael, sorry it's taking me so long to get back to you. I do not have the SQLDebug.log file present on my server.
     

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